Genre: Driving

Driving games put you behind the wheel of a car or a motorbike, and on the Atari 2600 they show how much designers could do with very little. The console cannot scale or rotate graphics, so a road has to be built from coloured lines and a few moving shapes, drawn from above, from the side or as a simple road narrowing into the distance.
Controls varied too. Some early Atari games used paddle controllers, whose dial works well as a steering wheel. Street Racer was one of the nine games available when the console launched in 1977, and Rob Fulop’s Night Driver (1980) turned the paddle into a first-person drive through the dark. Most later games switched to the joystick, with the fire button often working as the accelerator.
Activision raised the bar. David Crane’s Dragster (1980) was one of the company’s first four games, and his Grand Prix (1982) showed large, shaded, multicoloured cars. Larry Miller’s Enduro (1983) fitted day, night, snow and fog into a 4 KB cartridge. Atari’s Pole Position (1983) brought Namco’s arcade racer home, qualifying lap included, and Sega’s Spy Hunter (1984) needed two joysticks held side by side in a plastic holder: one for steering, the second for its extra fire button.
Choose a car from the list below and take it for a spin right here in your browser.

Fatal Run (USA)

Fatal Run is a post-apocalyptic driving and shooting game made by Sculptured Software, programmed by Steve Aguirre and published by Atari. It was only ever sold in Europe, as a PAL cartridge in 1990, and it was one of the last official Atari 2600 releases. This page is the American NTSC version, which was never sold: it comes from the only known NTSC prototype, dated 1989. With 32K of program data it was the largest cartridge Atari released for the 2600. You can play it here in your browser.

Up’n Down

Up’n Down is the Atari 2600 version of Sega’s 1983 arcade game, published by Sega for the console in 1984. You drive a little dune buggy, the “Baja Bugger” in the manual, along a winding road packed with traffic, and your one trick is a jump that lets you hop over other cars or crush them from above. It is a driving game where you need timing more than speed. You can play it here in your browser.

Street Racer

Street Racer is one of the nine cartridges that were on sale when the Atari 2600 launched in September 1977. Larry Kaplan programmed it, and Sears sold its own version as Speedway II. Despite the name, it is really a collection of six short paddle games: car racing, skiing, a jet shooter and more, with 27 variations in total. Every game lasts just over two minutes, so it works best as a quick head-to-head challenge. You can play it here in your browser.

Spy Hunter

Spy Hunter is Sega’s 1984 Atari 2600 version of Bally Midway’s 1983 arcade hit. You drive a heavily armed spy car up a scrolling highway, taking out enemy agents before they take you out, and at the waterways the car turns into a speedboat. The 2600 cartridge was unusual because it needed two joysticks to play. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.

Sprint Master

Sprint Master is a top-down racing game that Atari released for the 2600 in 1988, late in the console’s life. It was programmed by Bob Polaro. One or two players race tiny cars around a choice of tracks, from simple practice squares to winding championship courses, on blacktop, dirt or ice. It is quick to pick up and works well as a two-player duel on one keyboard. You can play it here in your browser.

Sky Jinks

Sky Jinks is a 1982 air racing game for the Atari 2600, designed and programmed by Bob Whitehead for Activision. You fly a low-level P41 racer through a course of pylons, watched over from above as the ground scrolls past, and try to beat the clock. It is a quick, one-player time trial that is easy to learn and hard to fly perfectly. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.

Road Runner

Road Runner is a side-scrolling chase game based on the Warner Bros. cartoons, released for the Atari 2600 by Atari Corporation in 1989, one of the last games Atari put out for the console. Programmed by Bob Polaro, it puts you in the role of the Road Runner, racing along a desert highway, eating birdseed and staying one step ahead of Wile E. Coyote. It is short on rules and long on challenge. You can play it here in your browser.

Pole Position

Pole Position is the Atari 2600 version of Namco’s 1982 Formula One arcade racer, which became the highest-grossing arcade game in North America in 1983. Atari released the cartridge under licence from Namco in August 1983, with programming credited to Douglas Macrae, John Allred and Alan Hodgkinson. It keeps the idea that made the arcade game special: first you set a qualifying time, then you race for position against the clock. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.

Oscar’s Trash Race

Oscar’s Trash Race is a 1983 Sesame Street game for young children, made by Atari with the Children’s Computer Workshop. Oscar the Grouch and his little grouches race to pick up trash dropped at the dump, and the child has to count the pieces and send the grouch with the matching number. The manual presents it as practice with numbers and directions. You can load it here in your browser, but please read the note on controls first.

Out of Control

Out of Control is a 1983 space race against the clock for the Atari 2600. It was designed by Jim Jacob and published by The Avalon Hill Video Game Company, the video game arm of the board game publisher. There is nothing to shoot. You race a drifting spaceship around a course of buoys and balloons, then dock it. You can play it here in your browser.