Genre: Racing

Racing games are about speed against a rival or the clock: finishing first, beating a lap time or covering as much ground as you can before time runs out. On the Atari 2600 they range from simple two-player contests on a single screen to scrolling courses with changing scenery, all drawn with the console’s handful of moving objects and coloured lines.
The genre was there from launch day. Indy 500 was one of the nine games sold when the console arrived in September 1977, and it came with its own driving controllers. They look like paddles, but the dial spins endlessly in either direction, so you can steer round a track without running out of turn. Carla Meninsky’s Dodge ‘Em (1980) mixed racing with a maze, as you collect dots while a computer car drives straight at you.
Activision brought more detail to the track. David Crane’s Dragster (1980) is a quarter-mile sprint where changing gear at the right moment matters most, and Larry Miller’s Enduro (1983) is a long-distance race through day and night, snow and fog. Atari’s Pole Position (1983) adapted Namco’s arcade game, making you set a qualifying time before the race itself. Racing also lasted into the console’s later years, with Atari releasing the top-down Sprint Master in 1988.
Pick a race from the list below, get on the grid and play right 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.

Motocross

Motocross is a little-known motorbike racing game for the Atari 2600. The German mail-order company Quelle sold it in Europe around 1983, and the same title also appeared on cartridges made in Taiwan and sold under other labels. Who wrote the game is not known. It is a simple, one-player race seen from above, with a fuel gauge to watch. You can play it here in your browser.

Motocross Racer

Motocross Racer is an off-road motorcycle racing game from Xonox, the cartridge label of K-tel. It packs three short races into one cartridge, each seen from a different angle: behind the bike in the desert, from above on a mountain road, and from the side on a beach. Your aim is the lowest total time, and every crash leaves the bike a little slower. You can play it here in your browser.

MotoRodeo

MotoRodeo is a monster-truck stunt race for the Atari 2600, released by Atari Corporation in 1990, very late in the console’s life. It was developed by Axlon and programmed by Steve DeFrisco. Instead of simply racing to the line, you score points by jumping, crushing cars, smashing walls and bouncing across an obstacle course, against a friend or a computer driver. You can play it here in your browser.

Night Driver

Night Driver is a 1980 driving game for the Atari 2600, programmed by Rob Fulop and based on Atari’s 1976 arcade game. You race down a dark, winding road with only the roadside markers to show you where it goes, dodging the headlights of oncoming cars. It is simple, fast and still a good test of reflexes, and it was one of the best-selling cartridges of its time. You can play it here in your browser.

Math Gran Prix

Math Gran Prix is an educational Atari 2600 cartridge from 1982, programmed by Suki Lee at Atari and aimed at children of about 7 to 10. It turns arithmetic practice into a board-game style car race: every sum you get right moves your car further round the track. Sears also sold it under the same name. You can play it here in your browser.

Indy 500

Indy 500 is a top-down racing game and one of the nine cartridges available when the Atari 2600 launched in September 1977. It was designed by Ed Riddle and Carla Meninsky and programmed by Ed Riddle, and Sears also sold it under the name Race. Besides straight races it offers a collecting game, a car version of tag and icy tracks. You can load it here in your browser, but please read the note on controls first.

Hell Driver

Hell Driver is a little-known Atari 2600 racing cartridge sold in Germany by ITT Family Games. It is not an original game: it is the same cartridge that the Belgian label Home Vision sold as Racing Car, and Funvision released it as Grand Prize. ITT Family Games relabelled several Home Vision games for the German market this way. The label shows a pack of cars racing on a motorway. You can try it here in your browser.