Activision was the first company other than Atari to sell games for the Atari 2600. It was founded in 1979 by programmers who had left Atari, among them David Crane, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, and it started out in Crane’s garage. Its first four cartridges, Boxing, Dragster, Fishing Derby and Checkers, appeared in the summer of 1980. Many more followed from designers such as Carol Shaw, Steve Cartwright, Garry Kitchen and Larry Miller. Activision kept making 2600 cartridges long after the 1983 crash, including late arcade conversions such as Kung-Fu Master, Commando and Double Dragon.
The site has 50 pages from Activision, including several unreleased prototypes. A few to start with:
River Raid (1982): Carol Shaw’s river shooter, the second best-selling 2600 game of 1983.
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (1984): David Crane’s underground sequel, with swimming, balloon rides and a full musical score.
Seaquest (1983): rescue divers before your submarine’s oxygen runs out.
Kaboom! (1981): catch the Mad Bomber’s bombs in water buckets, using the paddle controller.
H.E.R.O. (1984): fly a backpack helicopter down mine shafts to reach trapped miners.
Enduro (1983): a long-distance race through day, night, snow and fog.
Browse the full list below and play any of them in your browser.
Thwocker is an unreleased Activision prototype for the Atari 2600, programmed by Charlie Heath, the designer of Reactor. It was worked on in 1984 and has been described as “Joust with musical instruments”: you guide a bouncing little conductor through a maze, collecting notes to build a song. The game was never finished, but it is an odd and charming glimpse of what Activision was working on as the market collapsed. You can play the prototype here in your browser.
Tennis is a 1981 Atari 2600 sports game written by Alan Miller, one of the founders of Activision, and released by Activision in March 1981. You play a singles match against the computer or a friend on a court seen from above and behind, with a real tennis scoring system. It is simple to pick up, but aiming your shots past the computer takes real skill. You can play it here in your browser.
StarMaster is a first-person space combat game designed and programmed by Alan Miller and published by Activision in 1982. You pilot a lone starfighter across a galaxy map, hunting enemy fighters before they wipe out your starbases, while you juggle energy, damage and docking. It has more strategy than most 2600 shooters. You can play it here in your browser.
Stampede is a 1981 Activision game designed and programmed by Bob Whitehead, the author of Boxing and Skiing. You ride a horse across a scrolling prairie and lasso runaway cattle before they slip past you. It looks gentle, but keeping a whole herd in front of you while picking out the valuable calves is a real juggling act. Play it here in your browser.
Spider Fighter is a fixed-screen shooter for the Atari 2600, designed by Larry Miller and published by Activision around the turn of 1982 and 1983. You guard an orchard from swarms of fruit-stealing insects, firing up from a blaster at the bottom of the screen. The twist is that you are protecting three pieces of fruit, not only yourself. Each type of bug behaves differently, so it rewards thinking about which target to shoot first. 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.
Skiing is a 1980 Activision cartridge designed and programmed by Bob Whitehead. You steer a skier down slalom courses and downhill runs, dodging trees, flags and moguls in a race against the clock. There are no enemies and no lives, just the course and the timer, which makes it easy to pick up and surprisingly deep to master. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
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.
Seaquest is an underwater shooter designed by Steve Cartwright and released by Activision in 1983. You command a small submarine, pick up divers, fight off sharks and enemy subs, and keep an eye on an oxygen tank that is always running down. The mix of shooting and rescuing, and the constant question of when to surface, keeps it interesting long after the first few minutes. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
River Raid is a 1982 vertically scrolling shooter by Activision, designed and programmed by Carol Shaw. You fly a jet up an endless river, shooting tankers, helicopters, jets and bridges, and you can never let the fuel run out. It was the second best-selling Atari 2600 game of 1983 after Ms. Pac-Man. Play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.