Venture

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Coleco

I think Venture was Coleco's attempt at creating a better adventure game than Atari's Adventure. It didn't work. Not even close, actually. While Venture is a decent game by all accounts and often remembered fondly by those who played it back when it first hit stores shelves, it lacks the quality and sense of exploration that Adventure had. Perhaps that’s because this was designed for the arcades while Atari’s Adventure was designed specifically for home console? Perhaps. Adventure wasn’t aimed towards getting you to part with your quarters. The goal in Venture is to go from room to room collecting the treasure that’s laying there…as you try to do that, there are usually monsters that you have to either avoid or kill in order to nab the treasure and move on to the next room. Like many arcade games of the time, if you manage to clear all rooms, then you start over from the beginning with the difficulty ramped up. Anyway, this port of Venture is not horrible, like I said, and worth playing if you get a chance, but if you can only play one adventure game on the Atari 2600, skip this game and play the game that the genre was essentially named after - Adventure. If you'd rather just have a solid version of the arcade game at home, play the Colecovision version instead.

Review added: 09/29/2019

Video Life

Also known as: N/A

Developer: CommaVid

Video Life is an interesting concept…and if it was executed better, I probably would be gushing over it. At first glance, Video Life appears to just be a simple cartridge that allows you to draw on your television set. And if that's all it was, my score would be much lower - it's not great at that aspect, though it is still better than other, similar cartridges on other consoles from the time. Anway, after you've made your image on screen, that's when the real game begins. The concept of Video Life is that the pattern you draw is actually a colony of life forms, and you'll be following watching this colony shrink and grow through various generations. According to the manual, here is how it does that. If a square contains a dot and has one or zero dots in its neighboring squares, it becomes empty for the next generation - the life forms in there die of loneliness. If a square contains a dot and has more than three dots in its neighboring squares, then the lifeforms die of overcrowding and the square becomes empty for the next generation. If a square contains a dot and has two or three dots in neighboring squares, then the lifeforms survive and remain there for the next generation. Lastly, if a square is empty and there are exactly three of its neighboring squares are occupied, then this square will contain a dot in the next generation…in other words, a new life is born. The goal is for you to experiment with patterns and images and observe how the lifeforms grow or shrink from generation to generation. The manual provides a bunch of sample patterns to try, but as you can see from my screenshot, you're more than able to make your own patterns if you wish, as well. Video Life can be interesting, to a degree, and I really like the concept…however, the end result in this Atari 2600 cartridge is a pretty dull experience. Video Life is one of the rarest Atari 2600 cartridges available, and you'd be shelling out a pretty penny to get ahold of a copy…and I honestly can't say that what you get here would be worth the price.

Review added: 07/18/2026

Video Olympics

Also known as: Pong Sports (Sears)

Developer: Atari

Sears would commonly re-release games made by Atari to sell in their stores, usually giving the game a completely different name. Usually I prefer the Atari name, but in the case of Video Olympics, I feel like Sears picked the better title for the game - Pong Sports. Why? Because that's essentially what this is. Video Olympics contains the following "sports" and all of them are played exactly like or similar to Pong. The first 12 programs in the game are all variations of the original Pong. They range from single player to four player games, one-on-one or doubles. Super Pong has each player control two paddles. After that, we've got soccer. The sides of the screen are now walled, except for the small opening where the goal is. This essentially plays just like Pong except that you've got a smaller target to get the ball into. The soccer variations are programs 13-18. After that, we've got Foozpong, which was a registered trademark name, by the way. This is the same screen layout as the soccer games, but with each player controlling two different columns of three paddles…the doubles variation has a whopping eight columns, and twenty-four paddles on the screen at once…it can lead to some chaotic fun. The Foozpong games are programs 19-22. After that is hockey. This time all four walls are closed off and two goals are inserted inside the screen. The goal, like in hockey, is to get the puck inside the goal, except you'll do it Pong style. The hockey variations are programs 23-32. After that is Quadrapong, which is good fun if you've got three other friends. In this game, you're back in the soccer screen, but with openings on the top and bottom of the screen now, too. Your team scores if you can bounce the ball into either one of the goals that they're guarding. Quadrapong can be found in programs 33 and 34. Next is handball. Like handball, the goal is to take turns bouncing the ball off of the far wall. Handball variations are programs 35-38. After that is volleyball, where the gameplay of Pong meets gravity. The goal is to bounce the ball over the net back and forth until one side or the other misses. Volleyball can be found in programs 39-42. Following with the volleyball physics is basketball. The goal here is to bounce the ball towards your opponent's basket to score. Basketball takes up the remaining programs, 43-50. So, If you enjoy Pong, there are enough variations here to keep you busy for a while. All of the games are fun in their own right, making Video Olympics a very solid game to get if you 're building an Atari 2600 game library.

Review added: 11/21/2025