Seaquest

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Activision

Seaquest is easily one of my favorite Atari 2600 games. The gameplay is simple enough - shoot the fish or enemy subs in your way while saving any scuba divers you see swimming around. This concept alone would be fairly fun, but Seaquest adds in another element that increases the challenge a bit. That element is the need to rise to the surface. You’ll need to get to the surface for two reasons – refilling your oxygen meter and to drop off the divers that you collect. There’s a catch, though. If you don’t come to the surface for air, you’ve got roughly eight seconds before your ship blows up and you lose a diver. If you decide to go up to the surface before you have six divers collected, you’ll also lose one diver. If you decide to surface with no divers or if you are unable to reach the surface when your oxygen runs out without any divers on board, you’ll lose your ship. So, you need to do your best to collect six divers before needing to rise to the surface for oxygen, otherwise you’ll face penalties. You can probably see why that simple-sounding element of needing to rise to the surface adds a bit to the gameplay. It adds just enough strategy to an already fun concept to make this an absolutely great game for its time. It’s still pretty fun to play if you want to kill a few minutes today, as well.

Review added: 09/27/2019

Skiing

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Activision

I've never been skiing, but I imagine that if I did go, I'd fly down the frost-covered mountain and likely glide right into a big, ol' pine tree like I was in a Looney Tunes cartoon. In the Atari 2600 version of Skiing, big accidents like smashing into a pine tree don't happen...Nor does any sense of speed. It's a pretty mild crawl down to the bottom of the hill. Makes me wonder if the athletes in this game are skiing down mountains covered in snow or mountains covered in glue…They have glue mountains somewhere, I’m sure. Maybe in Nepal. Don’t worry about if my comment made sense or not. Anyway, while the game lacks a lot of excitement, the gameplay is still passable, allowing Atari 2600 owners an opportunity to ride the slopes without the risk of being clotheslined by a tree branch…even if that means that riding the slopes isn’t exactly the most thrilling thing in the world.

Review added: 09/27/2019

Sky Diver

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

Sky Diver is a port of the arcade game of the same name…and it falls a bit short...pun intended. The arcade version of Sky Diver isn't exactly a technical masterpiece, but it's fun for what it is - especially when you compare it to some of the other games available at the time. This port, however, is limited by the Atari 2600 hardware. The first differences that you'll notice, if you've played both versions of the game, is that it's much more difficult to control your diver in this game. The game is also much more picky about when you score. In the arcade game, as long as you've got a foot in the landing area, you'll get points. In this variation of the game, I've had 3/4 of the diver's body in the landing area and not get anything. That goes into another difference - in the arcade game, the game continues until you miss the landing area three times. In this port of the game, it simply goes for a set number of rounds, regardless of if you ever actually land in the landing area or not. Maybe this was done due to how picky the game is about scoring points? Oh, and speaking of the landing area…if you fail to activate your parachute in this game, you are not treated to the little ambulance scene that you get in the arcade version. It seems like a small thing to leave out, but I felt that the ambulance game the game a little bit of personality, so it's kind of a bummer to see if left out in this port. Anyway, once you get the hang of this port of Sky Diver, it's a passable game that can be fun if you've got a buddy to compete with…unfortunately, it's nowhere near the quality of the arcade original.

Review added: 11/21/2025

Sky Jinks

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Activision

Sky Jinks could probably be renamed "Maneuvering Through a Ski Course with an Airplane." But I suppose Sky Jinks is catchier. But, that awful, long fake title is essentially what Sky Jinks is, but with some extra obstacles thrown in for good measure. The concept of Sky Jinks is to weave your plane (called a P41 in the manual) through pylons as quickly as possible, while also avoiding trees, hot air balloons, and the pylons themselves. Depending on the game type that you play, you'll be racing the clock as you try to pass 25, 50, 75, or 99 pylons. Games one through four are the same course each time, so you can memorize the path. Game five is a 99 pylon course, but each time you elect game five, it gives you a random path, so there's always at least one game mode that can give you something different, even when you master the other modes. Graphically, the game has some nice use of shadows and while much of the screen is often blank, due to the limitations of Atari's hardware, what you do see looks pretty nice considering the time it was released and the hardware that it's running on. As for the actual gameplay, I think it's going to come down to preference. I've never really seen the appeal of the old skiing games…I just simply never really find them to be fun. However, there are a lot of people who absolutely love them. If you fit into that category, you'll probably find plenty to enjoy in Sky Jinks. If you're like me, though, you may be able to appreciate Sky Jinks for what it is, but also realize that it may not be for you.

Review added: 04/22/2026

Slot Machine

Also known as: Slots (Sears)

Developer: Atari

I don't think that there is any kind of video game more pointless than home slot machine video games. People enjoy playing slots in casinos because of the chance to win money...You can't win money in a slot machine video game at home. You just push a button to make it go…and that’s it. When you're playing Slot Machine on the Atari 2600, you don't win anything except the realization that you just wasted your money and a portion of your life (hopefully a small portion) on a horrible, horrible game. With the chance to win money gone, you're left pressing a button and watching uninteresting designs roll down the screen over and over. I had more fun getting my wisdom teeth removed when the dentist started (and finished two teeth) before the sedative kicked in…and no, I’m not joking about that. But I would rather re-live that experience than play this game ever again.

Review added: 09/27/2019

Slot Racers

Also known as: Maze (Sears)

Developer: Atari

This game's title is a bit misleading - despite it having the word "racers" in the title, it's not actually a racing game at all. This two-player-only game feels like a mixture of a maze game mixed with Combat. The end result has you shooting a bullet and simultaneously trying to use your vehicle to wrangle your opponent into that same bullet while ALSO trying to avoid any bullet that they fired while they attempt to do that same thing to you. It sounds way more fun in concept than it ends up being in execution. The game tends to move at a snail's pace, so a game that should feel like frantic fun feels more like you managed to get pregnant and pop the baby out all in the span of time it takes to finish a round. I know after the five minute game I played that felt more like nine months, I pointed at the cartridge, completely bored, and yelled out, "YOU DID THIS TO ME!!" I had my lawyer serve Slot Racers with divorce papers shortly afterward. I should have listened to my mother - that game was nothing but trouble. If you'd like to see what may be the very first car combat game, then Slot Racers may be worth a quick look. Otherwise, I'd recommend speeding through the intersection when you see this yellow light of a game…otherwise, you'll be stuck sitting at a red light of boredom for much longer than you'd probably like to.

Review added: 12/18/2023

Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle

Also known as: N/A

Developer: James Wickstead Design Associates

Rescue in Gargamel's Castle is one of those games where when you first try to play it, without really understanding how the game works, you will not understand how in the world anyone would give it a passable score. From a modern perspective, when playing a platformer, most people think that they should move towards the platform that they want to jump onto and then press the button to jump. If you do that in this game, you will die repeatedly. Essentially, in Smurf, for a small jump, you want to move towards your target and press the jump button. Otherwise, for a larger jump, you don't want to press any directions at all. Just press the jump button once, then jump again. The smurf you control will automatically propel himself forward and jump much higher than he would have had you been moving forward while trying to jump. Once you get the hang of these controls, though, Smurf is a pretty decent platformer that starts out slowly, with no obstacles, and then as you complete the cycle and save Smurfette, you'll start the game over again, but with more stages to traverse before reaching Smurfette and various enemies to contend with, aside from the platforming, like crows, bats, and spiders. The original Colecovision version was praised in magazines of the time for feeling like you were "playing a cartoon" due to the quality of the graphics. The Atari 2600 port doesn't quite have that same visual quality, but what Coleco was able to do with the hardware is still very visually impressive for the Atari VCS. Depending on how you like your games, you may actually prefer the gameplay to the Atari version, too. I found this variation of the game to be a little more streamlined in terms of ramping up the difficulty at a nice pace, and keeping me engaged longer. It's nowhere near the visual quality of Colecovision's version, and it lacks a few of the levels found in that version of the game, but Coleco's port to the Atari 2600, is still a very good game for the time and a solid, early platformer from the early days of the genre. It's not a long game, but once you grasp how jumping works, it's solid while it lasts.

Review added: 04/24/2026

Snoopy and the Red Baron

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

While Atari made this game, it was released in 1983 where video game quality control was lacking, and the flood of poor games led to the video game crash that nearly killed the favorite past time that many of us share today. As a result, judging a book by its cover, it's hard to tell if Snoopy and the Red Baron would be a good game, or just a licensed game, developed in a month in an effort to make a quick buck. After playing, I'm going to lean more in the second direction. While not a terrible game, Snoopy and the Red Baron falls short of being passable, in my opinion. Essentially, the game is just Snoopy vs. The Red Baron…repeatedly. The Baron loops around Snoopy, and you, controlling the beloved beagle, are tasked to shoot the Baron down. Initially, it's not bad…but it gets old very quickly. In most other shooters on the Atari 2600, you've got multiple targets to go after, which makes up for their predictable patterns. In this game, you've got one target that moves in a predictable pattern, so the fun simply doesn't last. It does contain one neat aspect, though - Snoopy's flying dog house takes damage, which indicates to you when you're about to plunge to your flying, fire-filled doom….Well that was dark for a peanuts review. Anyway, if you love Peanuts and don't mind repetitive, simplistic shooting, you may find some mild fun here. The rest of us can probably stay away.

Review added: 09/12/2022

Space Invaders

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

Space Invaders was THE game when it hit arcades in 1978. I believe it still is the highest-grossing video game of all-time. So, it seemed only natural that Atari wanted in on the action. Afterall, if folks were popping in quarters left and right at the arcade machine, wouldn't they also throw money at a cartridge that they could play in the comfort of their own home? Thus, the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders was born. Released two years after Space Invaders first hit arcades, this port is pretty accurate. While the game looks slightly different due to the aspect ratio of a television compared to an arcade cabinet screen, it plays just as well as the arcade original. Plus, since there are no overlays to simulate color on a standard television, this version of Space Invaders is legitimately in color, instead of black and white with overlays doing the rest of the work. If that wasn't enough, programmer Rick Maurer decided to add extra aspects to the game to go along with the original version. The end result is a whopping 112 variations of the Space Invaders concept on a single cartridge. I'll try to explain them to the best of my ability here, so bear with me. There are three main gameplay types - single player, two players opposing each other, and two players teaming up. Single player is what it sounds like. There are three variations of the two players opposing each other game - one where each player alternates turns, one where both players are competing at the same time, and one where both players are competing at the same time, but with alternating shots. The third main game mode is two-players teaming up, and there's another three game variations there - one player moves right and the other player moves left, the control and firing alternates between players, and one player moves while the other player fires. There are also 16 variations of each one of those game types mentioned. The variations include moving shields, zig-zaging bombs, fast bomb, and invisible invaders…you can have each one of those variations by themselves or combined with the others. The end result is a fantastic port of the arcade game and with so many new twists and extras, that in many ways, one could say that the Atari 2600 surpasses the original game. If you've got an Atari 2600, this one is a must-buy for that console.

Review added: 11/22/2025

Space War

Also known as: Space Combat (Sears)

Developer: Atari

Space War, at first glance, seems like Atari recycled one of their launch games, Combat, but set it in space...However, without the variety that Combat has in terms of various vehicles and play types, Space War gets repetitive very quickly. If this was recycled (which it may be, considering the Sears version of the game is suspiciously called “Space Combat”) then it lost much in the recycling process. It almost feels like a downgrade from Combat, to be honest. Had Space War come out first and Combat came out a year later, I wouldn't be so critical, as I would assume that Space War set the stage for the superior game. Unfortunately, it was the other way around. There wasn't any reason to play Space War instead of Combat unless you wanted some outer space gravity physics...But if you wanted that, you could always just play Asteroids, which is another game that did it better. If it had succeeded in emulating the fun of Combat with the space physics of Asteroids, Space War probably would have been a must-play game on the console…instead, it’s a game just short of being passable.

Review added: 09/28/2019

Spacechase

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Apollo

Spacechase, in my opinion, is one of the more visually pleasing Atari 2600 games. I suppose I'm just a fan of the rotating planet in the background. But anyway, rotating planet in the background aside, this is just a basic shooter...and it never really becomes anything beyond that. Basically, like many shooters of the era, you need to shoot space ships. Ships appear on the screen in waves of four and they move back and forth, firing at you along the way. That's it…that’s the gameplay. Sure, the ships get faster and faster the longer you play, but that's not enough to make this game feel any less tedious. It’s hard to say that playing Spacechase is worthwhile when you've got other games like Space Invaders available on the system that do this formula bigger and better...They just may not look as pretty. If you absolutely require games to look nice, then I suppose maybe you should give Spacechase a shot. If you care less about looks and more about gameplay, then I’d skip this and go with one of the better shooters on the Atari 2600.

Review added: 09/28/2019

Spider-Man

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Parker Bros.

The success of Spider-Man is that Parker Bros. made it fun to swing around the buildings with Spidey’s webs…but let's face it - as fun as it is to ignore the game and just swing around with Spider-Man's web-shot, the real fun is "accidentally" missing your shot and watching Spidey plummet to his demise. Spider-Man was one of the earliest games where I had just as much fun just goofing around as I did actually making an effort to play the game the "right way." In all honesty, I still consider it to be one of the best Spider-Man games ever released when you take into consideration the time that it was released in and the software that it was released on. Other Spider-Man games obviously surpassed this one over time, but back in 1982, this home console game starring Spidey was a solid choice if you wanted to spend an afternoon playing Atari games.

Review added: 09/28/2019

Stampede

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Activision

Stampede is a solid game from Activision where the concept is to wrangle as many dogies as possible before you leave too many behind…basically, leaving one behind results in you losing a life. Now, you may be wondering to yourself, "Wait…A game called Stampede is about wrangling dogs?" No, dogies is a term for orphaned calves from a range herd of cattle. So if you've ever heard the ol' song "Git Along Little Doggies," that's what the fella is singing about. In Stampede, you've got three types of dogies, or cattle, to wrangle up. You've got the Hereford cattle which appear on the screen in brown, the Jersey cattle which appear in tan, and the Black Angus cattle that appear in…well, black. Each one of these dogies moves at different speeds and is worth different points. That's where the challenge, and fun, of Stampede comes in. You can't simply lasso everything as it appears on the screen - there will eventually be too many at once, and with them all moving at different speeds, you need to pick your movements carefully. Thankfully, you don't necessarily have to lasso every dogie as it gets near you. By blocking it from falling behind you on the left side of the screen, you're basically "herding" it back into the group on the right side of the screen. As long as you can continue to block cattle from exiting, you can continue to herd them forward to make it a little easier to wrangle them up. The game modes also spread out the difficulty nicely, too. Playing game one helps you learn the ropes, pun intended, and eases you into playing by starting the game slowly and gradually picking up the pace, with cattle only falling back towards you in a straight line. Playing game five, however, starts the game at full speed and the dogies try to avoid your lasso by moving up and down the screen. Stampede is a pretty fun game that'll likely hook you longer than you'd expect, wanting to play just one more game to see if you can get a better score….even though the first time you said, "One more game," was ten games ago.

Review added: 04/23/2026

Star Wars: The Arcade Game

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Parker Bros.

I'm not a Star Wars fan. I tried to be a fan in middle school since a friend of mine was one…I watched the movies, read a few books…but it just ultimately couldn't hold my interest and I threw in the towel in regards to trying to become a fan. That said, certain video games based off of the Star Wars franchise aren't too shabby, and the Star Wars Arcade game Is one of them. Surprisingly enough, this Atari 2600 port of the arcade game isn't too bad in its own right. It was renamed on the Atari from Star Wars Arcade to Star Wars: The Arcade Game, for reasons unknown to me. Anyway, while it's not a perfect port of the original arcade game, (this IS the Atari 2600 after all) Parker Bros. did a decent job of bringing the cockpit-point-of-view shooter from the arcade game to your living room. It even has a fairly impressive (for its time) third area that you fly through, designed to look like a crude 3D environment. Anyway, if you like the arcade game, and don't mind a simplified version of that, then you'll likely enjoy this game. Likewise, if you just want a solid shooter on the Atari 2600, this game might be up your alley as well.

Review added: 03/03/2022

Strawberry Shortcake: Musical Match-Ups

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Parker Bros.

This is a game that magically blends genres of music games and puzzle games together decades before Lumines ever did…and does it so horribly, that it took decades for someone to attempt to combine the genres again. Okay, maybe I can’t technically blame Strawberry Shortcake: Musical Matchups for that, but this game...I don't even want to call it a game. It's an abomination. It is unspeakable horror in the purest definition of the term. Even little children who may enjoy it at first will find out that after ninety seconds or so, they've seen everything there is to see in the game and heard all of the nails-on-a-chalkboard-sounding tunes to hear in the game as well. Some folks tend to point to Pac-Man, E.T., or Custer's Revenge as the worst game on the Atari 2600 console, but from what I've played, there isn't much on this console (or any other console, for that matter) can match this turd in the stink department. Its stench is one that very, very few can match…pun intended.

Review added: 07/04/2019

Street Racer

Also known as: Speedway II (Sears)

Developer: Atari

Street Racer is a pretty simple game, and like most early Atari 2600 games, it’s designed for a multi-player experience…Essentially, your goal is to move left and right to dodge obstacles that appear on the screen, gaining a point each time you pass one. It’s kind of a game of tortoise vs. hare, depending on who is playing who. I say that because you can either simply move left and right to avoid the obstacles at the slow pace, or you can press the button on the joystick to essentially put the pedal to the metal and go at high speed. If the person going at high speed is constantly crashing, it is definitely possible for the “tortoise” going at the slow pace to easily get a better score. Likewise, if the “hare” going fast dodges most of the obstacles, they will leave the tortoise left coughing up the dust that it left behind. The extra modes are different enough from each other to help add to the replay value as well. It’s a decent game to pull out when you’ve got a friend or two over to kill a few minutes. It’s not one of the best on the Atari VCS, but it’s still a decent game.

Review added: 07/07/2019

Super Breakout

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

Super Breakout is Breakout…except it's super. And yes, while I said that because it sounded stupid and cheesy, it's also true to a degree. I say that because if you didn't already have Breakout on the Atari 2600, Super Breakout contains the original game as one of its game modes, just like Super Breakout in arcades. The Atari 2600 port also contains the three other games modes found in arcades as well - Double, Cavity, and Progressive. Double is like standard Breakout, except you control two paddles and there are two balls on the screen that you try to keep in action. Cavity contains two cavities within the bricks that each contain a ball. If you're able to free one (or both) of the balls from their cavity prison, then they become active, allowing you to have up to three balls bouncing around the screen at a time. Progressive, my personal favorite of the bunch, is like standard Breakout, except the bricks gradually drop towards the bottom of the screen with more bricks spawning at the top of the screen. Unique to the Atari 2600 version, though, is another mode - Children's mode. Children's mode is standard Breakout, but the game speed is a much lower rate, the speed does not increase, and the paddle does not shrink. Essentially, it's Breakout at its absolute easiest. So, both young children new to video games, and novices who would rather dip their toes in the water before jumping right in, have a mode that they can play before graduating to the more difficult modes. Overall, Super Breakout is a very solid home port of the arcade original and it's well worth tracking down a copy if you're a fan of Breakout.

Review added: 04/23/2026

Superman

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

When you take everything into consideration, such as the limitations of the hardware and the year it was released, Superman isn't an awful game. In fact, I'll even say that it's an excellent game for its time once you get the hang of it. Essentially, Superman is a game where the goal is to round up criminals and drop them in jail while also repairing the bridge they destroy at the start of the game. You can walk around on the ground as Clark Kent, or you can find a phone booth and transform into Superman, which allows you to fly around the large, multi-screen city to pick up the criminals and send them to what the kids call the ol' "Graybar Motel." It can actually be mildly fun flying around as Superman, just wandering from screen to screen while looking for criminals to pick up. It's also comical when you pick up Lois Lane (who wanders around some of the screens) and she seems to scream non-stop until you place her back on the ground. It's not quite as simple as just grabbing criminals and transporting them, though. If you run into any kryptonite, you'll drop your target and he'll scurry off, forcing you to track him down again once you've recovered and are able to fly again. Since you'll sometimes find that kryptonite can spawn on top of you when you change screens, you'll sometimes find yourself frustrated. That can sometimes be remedied by using Superman's x-ray vision ability, which lets you see the next screen in the direction that you're heading. It's more useful for tracking down the bad guys than anything else, though. Heck, this game even has a subway system that you can use as a shortcut through the city… yes, in a 1979 video game. The only thing preventing me from giving Superman a perfect 10 is that it's not a pick-up-and-play game...unless you've got some instructions handy, you may not really know what to do. On the flip side, Adventure, which was released AFTER Superman, is much more simplistic and easy to figure out, even without instructions handy.  I honestly think that's where some of the hate for this game comes from because this is a very, very impressive game for its time. Considering that Superman is one of the first adventure games made, it's not a terrible attempt at the genre at all. In fact, it's extremely well done and incredibly impressive and complex for its time. Sure, it's not great by today's standards, but for its time, it was an amazing game and it can still provide some fun if you're a fan of playing stuff from the early days of video games.

Review added: 08/29/2022

Surround

Also known as: Chase (Sears)

Developer: Atari

Surround is a pretty basic game where you control a dot that leaves a trail behind you. You're competing against either another player or a computer-controlled opponent who is also leaving a trail behind themselves. If either of you touch the trails, or the walls surrounding you, then the other player gets a point. The first one to ten points wins. Like the name suggests, the key is to "surround" your opponent with the trails so that they've got nowhere to go and eventually give you a point. The longer that the game goes without anyone hitting a wall, the faster the movements become, so it doesn't take too long for someone to get a point, or for someone to be declared the overall victor, or that matter. Surround also has some modes where the dot isn't automatically moving, so you can essentially use the screen as a canvas for poor, Etch-A-Sketch-style drawing. If that aspect was the whole game, then Surround would be a disappointment, but as an extra mode, it's harmless. Overall, Surround is a decent game for the Atari 2600. It's not nearly as fun against the computer as it is against a real, human opponent, but due to the game's simplicity, it's aged surprisingly well and can still provide some fun if you play it with some pals today.

Review added: 11/21/2025