Howard Scott Warshaw was a game designer at Atari in the early 1980s, and his three released 2600 games are some of the best known on the console, for very different reasons. Yars’ Revenge (1982) is a shooter in which an insect-like Yar breaks through an energy shield to destroy the Qotile. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982) turned the first Indiana Jones film into a puzzle adventure, after Warshaw met Steven Spielberg to discuss it. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) was made in just over five weeks for Christmas and is widely cited as one of the causes of the 1983 crash.
The site also has Saboteur, an unreleased 1983 game with graphics by Jerome Domurat, in which a robot called Hotot sneaks into an alien missile base. You can play all four below in your browser.
Yars’ Revenge is a video game developed and published by Atari for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw, who also created the infamous E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game for the same platform. Yars’ Revenge quickly became Atari’s best-selling original title for the 2600 and is considered one of the console’s … Read more
Saboteur is an unreleased Atari 2600 game from 1983, programmed by Howard Scott Warshaw, the designer of Yars’ Revenge and E.T., with graphics by Jerome Domurat. You play Hotot, a robot sent into an alien missile base to stop a warhead from being built and launched. It never reached the shops, but the prototype survived and is well regarded by collectors. You can play it here in your browser.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is Atari’s 1982 adventure game based on the first Indiana Jones film. It was designed and programmed by Howard Scott Warshaw and released in November 1982. Rather than replaying scenes from the film, it is a puzzle adventure: Indy explores Cairo, a temple, a black market and the desert mesas, trading and fighting his way to the Ark of the Covenant. You can play it here in your browser.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is Atari’s 1982 game based on Steven Spielberg’s film, made by Howard Scott Warshaw in just over five weeks. You guide E.T. around a small world of forests, buildings and deep pits, collecting three pieces of a telephone so he can call home. It is often named one of the worst video games ever made, but it makes far more sense once you know how it works. You can play it here in your browser and judge for yourself.