Action is the largest category in the Atari 2600 library. It covers games where quick reactions decide everything: running, jumping, dodging and shooting, often all on the same screen. That suits the console well. The standard Atari joystick has one stick and a single fire button, so action games keep their controls simple and put the challenge into timing and movement.
The hardware shaped these games just as much as the controller did. The 2600 has only 128 bytes of RAM, and its graphics chip offers just two player sprites, two missiles and a ball to work with. Programmers got around this with flicker, repeated sprites and screens drawn one line at a time, which is why so many action games pit one hero against a small group of enemies. Here are a few good places to start:
Pitfall! (Activision, 1982): David Crane’s jungle run, with vines, tar pits, crocodiles and treasure spread over many screens.
Yars’ Revenge (Atari, 1982): Howard Scott Warshaw’s shooter, in which an insect-like Yar nibbles through a shield to reach its enemy.
Berzerk (Atari, 1982): the arcade robot maze, with Evil Otto chasing you out of every room.
Warlords (Atari, 1981): castle defence for up to four players on paddle controllers.
Frostbite (Activision, 1983): hop across drifting ice floes to build an igloo before the cold gets you.
Tutankham (Parker Brothers, 1983): a tomb-exploring shooter based on Konami’s arcade game.
Browse the full list below and play any of these action games right here in your browser.
In “Burgertime” for the Atari 2600, you guide a chef through a labyrinth, rushing to assemble hamburgers while dodging enemies. Navigate atop burger parts to make them fall; complete a burger to progress. Earn points by dropping ingredients…
Play ▸Beany Bopper is a 1982 Atari 2600 shooter developed by Sirius Software and published by 20th Century Fox. You fly a purple eyeball called the Bopper around a field of blocks, stunning and then catching the Beanies, little…
Play ▸Atlantis II is a special contest edition of Imagic's 1982 shooter Atlantis. It looks almost exactly like the regular game, but the Gorgon ships fly faster and are worth fewer points. It was never sold in shops, and…
Play ▸River Patrol is Tigervision's 1984 Atari 2600 version of a 1981 arcade game by the Japanese company Orca. You steer a leaky patrol boat up a dangerous river, pulling drowning people out of the water while dodging logs,…
Play ▸Sea Monster is a simple shooting game from Bit Corporation, a Taiwanese company that sold its Atari 2600 cartridges under its own name and under the Puzzy brand. You command a ship on the surface and drop depth…
Play ▸Lost Luggage is a 1982 catching game for the Atari 2600 from Games by Apollo, a small studio in Richardson, Texas. An airport baggage carousel goes haywire and starts flinging suitcases into the air, and your skycaps have…
Play ▸Spike's Peak is a 1983 mountain-climbing game for the Atari 2600, published by Xonox. You guide a climber named Spike from the meadows at the foot of a mountain to its icy summit, dodging animals, falling rocks and…
Play ▸Extra Terrestrials is a very rare 1984 Atari 2600 game by Herman Quast, published by Skill Screen Games, a small family business in Canada. It is not related to Atari's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: it is a separate, home-made…
Play ▸Phaser Patrol is a first-person space combat game designed by Dennis Caswell and released in 1982 by Arcadia, the company soon renamed Starpath. It was the first numbered release for the Supercharger, an add-on that plugged into the…
Play ▸
