Publisher: Atari

Atari made the Atari 2600, which first went on sale in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, and it also published many of the console’s games. Nine cartridges were available at launch, among them Street Racer, Surround and Video Olympics. Over the next years Atari’s programmers wrote original games and converted arcade hits, both Atari’s own, such as Missile Command, and licensed ones from companies like Taito, Namco and Williams. Sears sold many of the same games under its Tele-Games label, often with different names. The Atari name here also covers the later Atari Corporation, which kept releasing 2600 cartridges until 1990, among them Solaris, Radar Lock and Xenophobe.
This archive includes Atari’s released games as well as prototypes that never reached the shops. Some places to start:

Video Olympics (1977): 50 Pong-style games and variations for paddle controllers.
Video Chess (1979): a full chess opponent squeezed into a machine with 128 bytes of memory.
Warlords (1981): Carla Meninsky’s castle-smashing game for up to four players.
Missile Command (1981): Rob Fulop’s version of the arcade game about defending six cities.
Star Raiders (1982): first-person space combat with a galaxy map.
Solaris (1986): Doug Neubauer’s space combat and exploration game.

The full list is below, and every game on it runs in your browser.

Double Dunk

Double Dunk is a two-on-two, half-court basketball game released by Atari Corporation in 1989, one of the last new cartridges Atari made for the 2600. It was programmed by Matthew Hubbard, who had earlier written Dolphin for Activision.…

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Defender II

Defender II is Atari's Atari 2600 version of Stargate, the 1981 arcade sequel to Defender designed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar and released by Williams. The 2600 cartridge, programmed by Bill Aspromonte with sound by Andrew Fuchs,…

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Demons to Diamonds

Demons to Diamonds is a 1982 paddle-controlled shooting game from Atari for the Atari 2600, programmed by Nick Turner, who had earlier brought Super Breakout to the console. Rows of demons drift across the screen, and the colour…

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Crazy Climber

Crazy Climber for the Atari 2600 is Atari's home version of the 1980 Nichibutsu arcade game, programmed by Alex Leavens and released in 1983. You scale the outside of four skyscrapers one window ledge at a time, dodging…

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Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles is Atari's 1984 home version of its own 1983 arcade maze game. You guide Bentley Bear through castles drawn at an angle, so the mazes look three-dimensional, and you gather every gem before the monsters get…

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Dark Chambers

Dark Chambers is a top-down maze shooter published by Atari in 1988 for the Atari 2600, and also released for the Atari 7800. It is a reworked version of Dandy, a 1983 Atari 8-bit computer game that John…

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Defender

Sears title: Defender Licensed by Williams Electronics DEFENDER ORIGINAL ATARI 2600 GAME INSTRUCTIONS  ATARI DEFENDER is very similar to the Williams coin-operated DEFENDER game. However, you will find some differences in the game play as well as in…

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Codebreaker

Codebreaker is a 1978 Atari cartridge with two logic games: a number-guessing game in the style of the board game Mastermind, and the ancient strategy game Nim. Released in October 1978 alongside Brain Games and Hunt & Score,…

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Combat – Tank Plus

Combat is one of the nine cartridges that launched the Atari Video Computer System (later the Atari 2600) in 1977. It came in the box with most Atari consoles until 1982, and Sears sold it under the name…

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Combat Two

Combat Two is the unreleased sequel to Combat, the tank duel that came packed with the Atari 2600 for years. According to AtariProtos, it was programmed in 1982 by Alan Hodgkinson and Tom Calderwood at General Computer Corporation…

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