Developer: Atari

Atari made the Atari 2600 itself, first sold as the Atari Video Computer System in September 1977, and it was also the console’s biggest publisher. The very first cartridges were Atari’s own, and many were sold by Sears under different names in its Tele-Games line. In 1980 it brought out Taito’s Space Invaders, the first arcade game officially licensed for a home console, and many more arcade conversions followed.
The site lists 135 games under Atari, from 1977 launch titles to cartridges released in the late 1980s, after Jack Tramiel’s Atari Corporation took over the business and revived the 2600. Here are a few to begin with:

Space Invaders (1980): Rick Maurer’s version of the arcade game, with many variations.
Missile Command (1981): Rob Fulop’s conversion of Atari’s own arcade game about defending six cities.
Pac-Man (1982): Tod Frye’s much-criticised version, which still became the console’s best-selling cartridge.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982): Howard Scott Warshaw’s puzzle adventure based on the first Indiana Jones film.
Video Chess (1979): a full chess opponent squeezed into a machine with 128 bytes of memory.
Solaris (1986): Doug Neubauer’s space combat game from the Atari Corporation years.

Browse the full list below and play any of these Atari games in your browser.

Haunted House

Haunted House is a 1982 adventure game from Atari, programmed by James Andreasen. You are just a pair of eyes in a pitch-black mansion, lighting matches to find the three pieces of a magic urn while a bat,…

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Home Run

Home Run is a baseball game that Atari released for the 2600 in October 1978. It was programmed by Bob Whitehead, who later co-founded Activision, together with David Rolfe, and it was the first baseball game on any…

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Human Cannonball

Human Cannonball is one of the earliest Atari 2600 cartridges, released by Atari in 1979 (Sears sold it as Cannon Man). Your job is simple to explain and tricky to master: set the angle and speed of a…

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Hunt & Score – Memory Match

Hunt & Score is Atari's 1978 memory game for the Atari 2600, the video game version of the card game where you turn over two cards at a time and try to find matching pairs. It was also…

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Gremlins

Gremlins is Atari's 1984 Atari 2600 game based on the film of the same year. As Billy, you first try to catch hungry Mogwai before they reach the hamburgers, and when that fails you have to shoot the…

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Golf

Golf is a nine-hole golf game for one or two players, released by Atari for the Atari 2600 in 1980. It was the first game Michael Lorenzen made at Atari, and he had to squeeze it into a…

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Gravitar

Gravitar is the 1983 Atari 2600 version of Atari's 1982 vector arcade game, programmed for the console by Dan Hitchens. You pilot a small ship through solar systems full of hostile planets, fighting gravity and a shrinking fuel…

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Frog Pond

Frog Pond is an unreleased Atari 2600 game from 1982, programmed at Atari by Nick Turner. You play a frog on a lily pad that leaps up and flicks out its tongue to catch passing insects. Atari showed…

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Galaxian

Licensed by Namco Galaxian Game Instruction Manual GALAXIAN: NOTES FROM THE COMMANDER Welcome aboard the missile laser base. I’m Commander Champion, your training instructor. These laser bases are used to protect our Universe from alien attack. Each laser…

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Fatal Run (Europe)

Fatal Run is a post-apocalyptic driving and shooting game made by Sculptured Software, programmed by Steve Aguirre and published by Atari. This page runs the European PAL cartridge from 1990, the only version that was ever sold in…

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