Parker Brothers was best known for board games, but from 1982 it also published a long run of Atari 2600 cartridges. In 1982 its version of Konami’s Frogger and The Empire Strikes Back, the first licensed Star Wars video game, were its two best-selling video games. The site has 26 Parker Brothers cartridges, and they fall into three groups.
The first is arcade conversions, many of them from Konami (Amidar, Tutankham, Super Cobra, Gyruss) and Nintendo (Popeye, Sky Skipper), plus Gottlieb’s Reactor and Q*bert. The second is licensed games: Star Wars, Spider-Man, G.I. Joe and Strawberry Shortcake. The third is unreleased prototypes such as Ewok Adventure, Care Bears and a McDonald’s demo. Good places to start:
Frogger (1982): one of the best-selling games on the system and easy to pick up.
The Empire Strikes Back (1982): snowspeeders against Imperial Walkers on Hoth.
Spider-Man (1982): the first Spider-Man video game, with web-swinging up skyscrapers.
Gyruss (1984): a circling space shooter set to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
Montezuma’s Revenge (1984): a tough platform adventure through an Aztec fortress.
Journey to Rivendell: an almost finished Lord of the Rings prototype found in 2001.
Browse the full list below and play any of them in your browser.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is a 1982 Atari 2600 game from Parker Brothers, programmed by Rex Bradford. It was the first licensed Star Wars video game, and it recreates one famous scene from the film: Rebel…
Play ▸Strawberry Shortcake: Musical Match-Ups is a 1983 Atari 2600 puzzle game for young children, published by Parker Brothers and programmed by Dawn Stockbridge. The Purple Pieman has cast a spell over Strawberryland and scrambled the characters' heads, bodies…
Play ▸Spider-Man is a 1982 Atari 2600 action game from Parker Brothers, programmed by Laura Nikolich. The Green Goblin has planted bombs on New York skyscrapers, and you climb each building on your web line to defuse them. It…
Play ▸Sky Skipper is Parker Brothers' 1983 Atari 2600 version of a Nintendo arcade game from 1981. You fly a small biplane over a walled course, bombing gorillas to knock them out so their cages spring open, then swoop…
Play ▸Montezuma's Revenge is a platform adventure in which explorer Panama Joe works his way down through the chambers of an Aztec emperor's fortress, collecting keys, tools and jewels. Robert Jaeger created the original game, and Parker Brothers published…
Play ▸The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Rivendell is an unreleased Atari 2600 adventure game from Parker Brothers, programmed by Mark Lesser in 1983. Parker Brothers showed it in a 1983 catalog, but the cartridge never reached the…
Play ▸McDonald's (listed here as McDonald's – Golden Arches Adventure) is an unfinished Parker Brothers prototype from 1983, designed by Isabel Garret and programmed by Dave Engman. The game was never released, and what survives is not really a…
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