Simulation games try to recreate something from the real world, or a believable fictional one: flying a jet, commanding a submarine, driving a tank or steering a space shuttle. On the Atari 2600 that was a bold goal. With 128 bytes of RAM, no way to scale graphics and a single-button joystick, designers had to decide which few details made an experience feel real, and leave out the rest.
They found creative answers. Activision’s Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space (1983) used every switch on the console as part of the cockpit and came with an overlay to label them, taking you from launch and docking to re-entry and landing. Atari’s Stellar Track (1980), sold only through Sears, is a text-based space command game inspired by the mainframe game Star Trek. Battlezone (1983) replaced the arcade’s wireframe graphics with ordinary sprites but kept the radar and the tense tank hunt.
Some games relied on special hardware. Mogul Maniac (Amiga, 1983) was made for the Joyboard, a board you stand on and lean to steer your skier. Later, Tomcat: The F-14 Fighter Simulator (Absolute Entertainment, 1988) brought jet combat to the console in its final years. Rob Fulop’s Actionauts, a 1984 prototype, has you program a robot with a list of commands and then watch it run through a maze; a small batch of cartridges was finally produced decades later.
Choose a machine from the list below and take the controls right here in your browser.
Miniature Golf is one of Atari’s early cartridges for the Video Computer System, programmed by Tom Reuterdahl and released in 1979. It offers nine holes of top-down mini golf with walls to bank shots off and obstacles that move across the course. Sears sold the same game under the name Arcade Golf. The graphics are very basic, but working out angles and distances is a quiet puzzle that still holds up for a few rounds. You can play it here in your browser.
Tomcat: The F-14 Fighter Simulator is a late Atari 2600 flight game designed by Dan Kitchen and published by Absolute Entertainment. You fly an F-14 from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise: launch from the catapult, hunt enemy fighters with a gun and three kinds of missiles, then bring the jet back down onto the deck. Few 2600 games pack in this many cockpit instruments. You can play it here in your browser.
Final Approach is an air traffic control game released in 1982 by Games by Apollo, a small Texas company that made games for the Atari 2600. You work at a busy airport, steering up to four planes around a radar screen and then talking each one down onto the runway yourself. It is a game of planning and juggling rather than shooting. You can play it here in your browser.
Wings is an unreleased air combat simulator made by CBS Electronics for the Atari 2600 in 1983 and programmed by Stuart Ross. It was cancelled only weeks before it was due in shops, and the prototype did not turn up until late 2004. With its cockpit full of gauges it is far more ambitious than most 2600 flying games, and this prototype is the only way to see it. You can play it here in your browser.
Submarine Commander is a 1982 submarine game programmed by Matthew Hubbard at Atari and sold only by Sears under its Tele-Games label. You watch through the periscope, track ships on sonar and try to sink as many as you can before your fuel runs out. You can play it here in your browser.
Stellar Track is a turn-based space strategy game for the Atari 2600, programmed at Atari by Rob Zdybel and sold only by Sears under its Tele-Games label. It brings the text-based Star Trek game from 1970s university mainframes to a home console: you command a lone warship and hunt an alien fleet across the galaxy before your time or energy runs out. There is no fast action at all, which makes it one of the few real strategy games on the system. You can play it here in your browser.
Sneak ‘n Peek turns the playground game of hide and seek into an Atari 2600 cartridge. It was published by U.S. Games in 1982, designed by Wickstead Design and programmed by Paul Willson. One player hides somewhere in a spooky old house while the other searches, and then you swap. It is a gentle, non-violent game that works best with two people in the same room. You can play it here in your browser.
Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space is a 1983 flight simulator from Activision, programmed by Jessica Stevens (credited at the time as Steve Kitchen). You take the Space Shuttle Discovery through a complete mission: launch, orbit, docking with a satellite, re-entry and landing. It was one of the most detailed simulations ever made for the Atari 2600, and it uses almost every switch on the console. You can play it here in your browser.
Shuttle Orbiter is a space shuttle simulation for the Atari 2600 from Avalon Hill, the company best known for strategy board games. It was designed by Bill Hood, with graphics by Jean Baer. You pilot the shuttle Challenger in Earth orbit and have to finish building a space station, ferrying its last ten sections from an orbiting factory before your fuel runs out. It is a slow, thoughtful game about orbits rather than a shooter, and you can play it here in your browser.
Sky Patrol is an unfinished Atari 2600 prototype from Imagic, programmed by Brad Stewart in 1982. You fly a hot air balloon over enemy territory, riding the wind at different heights. It was shown at the 1982 CES trade show, with a mock-up box and label, but it was the only Imagic 2600 game that never came out. The surviving prototype is playable but incomplete. You can try it here in your browser.