Glib, subtitled Video Word Game, is a 1983 word-building game published by Selchow & Righter, the company behind the Scrabble board game, and developed by Qualtronic Devices (QDI). You pick up lettered tiles with a joystick-controlled cursor and arrange them into words against the clock, with letter values and bonus squares that will feel familiar to Scrabble players. It had very limited distribution and is now a rare cartridge. You can play it here in your browser.
Go Go Home Monster is a 1983 maze game for the Atari 2600, sold in Europe under the Home Vision label. The game was developed by Gem International Corporation, and the same cartridge also appeared as Alien’s Return, Col ‘N and E.T. Go Home. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
Gravitar is the 1983 Atari 2600 version of Atari’s 1982 vector arcade game, programmed for the console by Dan Hitchens. You pilot a small ship through solar systems full of hostile planets, fighting gravity and a shrinking fuel supply as much as the enemy. It asks for careful, patient flying rather than fast reflexes, and it is much more forgiving than the notoriously hard arcade original. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
Great Escape is a 1983 space shooter for the Atari 2600 from Bomb, a budget label of the Asian developer Onbase, and this page has the European PAL version. Your ship stays in the centre of the screen while space scrolls around it, and you shoot meteorites and aliens while watching your radar for the Super Alien, which destroys you on contact. The NTSC version, with a full description of the game, is on this site as Great Escape (USA). You can play this one here in your browser.
Frankenstein’s Monster is a 1983 action platform game by Data Age for the Atari 2600. A storm is charging up the monster in Dr. Frankenstein’s castle, and you have to wall it in with stones before it comes to life. It is a race against the clock across pits of acid, trapdoors, spiders and bats, with a memorable ending if you fail. You can play it here in your browser.
Frisco is a 1983 maze game released in Europe by Home Vision (Gem International Corporation) as a PAL cartridge. It plays in the style of Sega’s arcade game Pengo: you kick blocks around a maze to squash the monsters chasing you. The programmers are unknown; the title screen only says “R.J.P.G.” and 1983. The same game was sold under several other names, including Peter Penguin. You can play Frisco here in your browser.
Funky Fish is an unreleased Atari 2600 prototype by UA Limited, a company that made games for the Emerson Arcadia 2001 console. It is a port of an obscure 1981 arcade game by Sun Electronics: a side-scrolling underwater shooter in which you play a small fish fighting sea monsters. The 2600 version never reached the shops, but the prototype survived, and you can play it here in your browser.
G.I. Joe: Cobra Strike is a 1983 Atari 2600 action game designed by John Emerson and published by Parker Brothers. It was the first licensed G.I. Joe video game. A giant robot cobra rears up over a G.I. Joe training camp and spits venom and laser beams at the recruits running for cover below, and you defend them with a moving shield and a gun turret. You can play it here in your browser.
Licensed by Namco Galaxian Game Instruction Manual GALAXIAN: NOTES FROM THE COMMANDER Welcome aboard the missile laser base. I’m Commander Champion, your training instructor. These laser bases are used to protect our Universe from alien attack. Each laser base carries missiles which you’ll launch from your control panel. In your first training mission, you’ll be … Read more
Gamma-Attack is a 1983 Atari 2600 shooter from Gammation, a small company run by programmer Robert L. Esken Jr. You fly a hovering saucer over a planet and destroy the enemy tanks below. The game itself is simple, but the cartridge is famous among collectors as one of the rarest Atari 2600 games: only one original copy is known to exist. You can play it here in your browser.