By 1981 the Atari VCS was selling in the millions: Atari sold an estimated 3.1 million consoles that year. Cartridges grew too. In August Asteroids became the first 2600 game to use bank switching, a trick that let a cartridge hold 8 KB instead of 4 KB. Missile Command, Rob Fulop’s version of Atari’s own arcade game, came out in April, and Carla Meninsky’s four-player castle battle Warlords followed the same year.
Activision was now in full swing, and much of this page comes from its early catalogue: Kaboom!, Freeway, Tennis, Ice Hockey, Laser Blast and Stampede. Smaller publishers were arriving as well. Games by Apollo from Texas started with Skeet Shoot, and CommaVid’s Video Life brought John Conway’s Game of Life to the console. You will also find Activision’s Venetian Blinds Demo, a test program that was never sold.
Some dates here are approximate: Activision’s Bridge came out in December 1980, while Apollo’s Spacechase and Racquetball are usually dated to 1982.
Pick a game from the list below and play it in your browser.
Atari 2600 Checkers Instructions A New Twist on a Classic Game Checkers, a classic game known by many, has been transformed to allow an entire family to challenge the Activision computer across three difficulty levels. Before jumping into the game, it’s essential to familiarize yourself with the basics of moving your pieces and the innovative … Read more
Bridge is a card game cartridge from Activision, released in December 1980 and programmed by Larry Kaplan. It lets one person bid and play contract bridge, with the computer handling the opponents and your partner’s bids. It is quiet and slow, and probably Activision’s least popular title, which makes it a curiosity today. Note that it does not teach the rules: you need to know how bridge works already. You can play it here in your browser.
Warlords is a castle-smashing paddle game for up to four players, programmed by Carla Meninsky and released by Atari in 1981, with a Sears edition as well. Each player guards a castle in one corner of the screen and uses a shield to bounce a fireball into the other castles. It takes the bat-and-ball idea of Breakout and turns it into a battle, and it is at its best with friends sitting next to you. You can play it here in your browser.
Venetian Blinds Demo is not a game. It is a short Activision test program credited to David Crane, from the company’s early years, that shows a window with a pair of Venetian blinds. It was never sold as a cartridge, but it has a good story behind it, and you can try it here in your browser.
Video Life is a CommaVid cartridge from the early 1980s that brings John Conway’s “Game of Life” to the Atari 2600. It is not a game you win or lose: you draw a pattern of dots, start it, and watch it grow, change or die out from one generation to the next. It is also one of the rarest 2600 cartridges ever made. You can try it here in your browser, which is easier than finding a copy.
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.
Spacechase is a space shooter from Games by Apollo, a small company from Richardson, Texas, that made games for the Atari 2600. It was designed and programmed by Ed Salvo and came out in early 1982. You fly a Starcruiser in orbit above a slowly turning moon and shoot down wave after wave of alien raiders. It became Apollo’s best-selling title, and it is a fair, quick-to-learn shooter with more freedom of movement than most games of its type. 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.
Skeet Shoot is a simple target-shooting game from 1981 and the very first cartridge released by Games by Apollo. Ed Salvo programmed it on his own before the company even existed as a game studio. You stand at the bottom of the screen, launch clay pigeons and try to hit them as they fly past. It is rough, but it is a piece of early third-party Atari history. You can play it here in your browser.
Racquetball is a 1982 sports game for the Atari 2600, programmed by Ed Salvo and published by Games by Apollo, a small company from Texas. Two players share an indoor court and try to keep a fast ball in play as it bounces off the front wall, the side walls and the ceiling. Shadows show where the ball is in the air, an ambitious idea for 1982. You can play it here in your browser, against the computer or a friend.