Halloween

Also known as: N/A

Developer: MicroGraphicImage

Halloween is not a bad representation of horror films, considering the hardware it runs on. The goal in the game is to find children in the house, take them by the hand, and walk them to safety while trying to avoid Michael Myers as he randomly appears. And when he appears, he appears with a giant knife and makes attempts to stab you. Some rooms have flickering lights, resulting you in not being able to see exactly where Myers is...But aside from Myers himself, that's ultimately the only danger you face, unfortunately. Myers himself isn’t a huge threat, either. You can pick up a knife of your own, if you find it in the house, and use it on Mr. Myers to make him run away for a while. Unfortunately, the very slow pace and general ease that it is to avoid being killed hinder the game as a whole, especially once the repetition kicks in, but it's still not a terrible game to pick up and play every now and then. A few tweaks to the formula and this could have been very, very good. As it is, it’s just short of passable.

Review added: 07/04/2019

Halo 2600

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Ed Fries

While I've warmed up to the genre over the years, I've never really been much of a first-person shooter kinda guy…so it's probably no surprise that my favorite game in the Halo franchise isn't a first-person shooter. It may surprise you, however, that it's an unofficially-released Atari 2600 game named Halo 2600. Ed Fries, who was instrumental in Microsoft purchasing Bungie and their project that was then in development - a game that would eventually become Halo. In 4kb of space, Fries created a version of Halo on the Atari 2600 for fun…and the end result is absolutely amazing. Aside from the game looking impressive for the software, it feels massive for an Atari 2600 game, boasting a whopping 64 screens to wander around in, spread across four different zones. When you manage to complete the game once, you'll unlock "legendary mode" where the game increases the difficulty to give you more reason to stick around and continue to play. Had this game been released back when the Atari VCS was in its prime, it would have easily been the best game of its generation. It's basically a larger, better, Adventure…but with guns and not a single seahorse in sight. This really is a fantastic game and I'm still amazed at how this was all jammed into a teeny 4kb of space. If you haven't experienced this game before, I highly recommend tracking it down and giving it a try. It really is fantastic.

Review added: 04/13/2025

Hangman

Also known as: Spelling (Sears)

Developer: Atari

Wrong title. No man gets hung in this game. If you fail, you see a monkey hanging from a pole by its arm. It should be called Hangmonkey, not Hangman. Maybe that’s why Sears named this game “Spelling” when they re-released it under their banner. I doubt a stick figure man hanging by its neck would be something that parents would've been up in arms about back in the 70's...But then again, I’m of the belief that people are just as offended by things today as they were decades ago...The internet has just made it easier to be more vocal about things and easier to rally like-minded folks to complain in mass. Anyway, non-gaming opinions aside, Hangman is an okay game, but like many games in the early Atari VCS library, it's actually more fun to grab a friend and participate in the actual pen-and-paper game of Hangman than it is to play a video game version of it. Unless you’re a hangman-loving introvert that prefers to avoid anyone and everyone…then Hangman is like a dream come true. Anyway, if you dropped the cash to play it on your television, it’s a passable experience, but as I said. The “traditional” way to play with pen and paper is a bit more fun.

Review added: 09/24/2019

Haunted House

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

Haunted House, quite possibly, was the first attempt at a horror game and considering the platform that it was released on, it’s actually very solid. You’re not going to get many jump scares here. However, you may have some moments of anxiety as you frantically try to avoid the spiders, bats, and ghosts that try to stop you. Your goal is to roam an old mansion and collect all the pieces of an urn, then escape. The catch? It’s dark. The mansion lacks any light. You need to use matches to find the urn pieces…but once lit, matches don’t last forever, so if you don’t move fast enough, the light goes out and you’re back to wandering around in darkness. Each mode ramps the difficulty up, with the toughest difficulty having plenty of hazards and the walls not visible at all unless you’re using a match. This is a very solid Atari 2600 game, much better than I had anticipated, and a must-play game if you want to see the origins of horror video games.

Review added: 10/19/2019

Human Cannonball

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

I’ve always wanted to be a Human Cannonball…in some ways, I was when I was younger. I never got shot from a cannon, but I shot myself off of rooftops like a cannonball, flipping and landing on my back without any padding. If anyone reading this doesn’t know me personally, yes, that is sadly true. If anyone reading this does know me personally, well…you’ve probably seen the videos. Anyway, Human Cannonball on the Atari 2600 is okay, but it lacks anything to really keep you coming back for more...the premise is that you want to adjust the angle that the cannon is going to fire at, based on the velocity that the cannon will spew out the person inside. Once airborne, you want to move what is apparently supposed to be a bunch of padding or a giant, frosted wedding cake…whatever it is, I assume it’s soft and safe…but you want to move that left or right and try to catch the person that you just fired out of the cannon. That’s pretty much the whole game. It’s amusing for maybe a minute or two, but there really isn’t much to it, so I can’t imagine too many folks would come back for more.

Review added: 09/25/2021