By 1987 the Atari 2600 was a budget console, and its new games leaned on names players already knew from arcades and home computers. Activision’s Kung-Fu Master arrived in September, a side-scrolling fighting game that was a real programming feat on this hardware. Epyx brought its multi-event sports games Summer Games and Winter Games in October, each for up to eight players.
Absolute Entertainment, the company Garry Kitchen founded after leaving Activision, appears here with Title Match Pro Wrestling and David Crane’s Skate Boardin’, one of the first skateboarding video games. Atari Corporation added RealSports Boxing. The budget label Froggo is here too, but its Sea Hunt and Spiderdroid are older games re-released under new names. Elk Attack is an unreleased Atari prototype from the same year.
Several dates on this page are disputed. Atari Archive dates Desert Falcon to December 1987 and Wikipedia to December 1988, and Crossbow and California Games most likely reached shops in 1988.
Choose a game below and play it in your browser.
Skate Boardin' is a 1987 skateboarding game for the Atari 2600, designed by David Crane and released by Absolute Entertainment. You are late for school, and overnight someone has filled the streets with ramps, tubes and hurdles. You…
Play ▸RealSports Boxing is a side-view boxing game for the Atari 2600, programmed by Alex DeMeo and released by Atari Corporation in 1987. You pick one of four boxers, each with his own weak spot, and fight up to…
Play ▸Kung-Fu Master is Activision's 1987 Atari 2600 version of Irem's 1984 arcade game, released under licence from Data East USA and programmed by Dan Kitchen. You fight your way through five levels of a temple, kicking and punching…
Play ▸Elk Attack is an unreleased Atari 2600 prototype from 1987, programmed by Mark R. Hahn for Atari. Despite the name, there are no elk in it. It is a home version of Electric Yo-Yo, a little-known Taito arcade…
Play ▸Desert Falcon is a late-1980s isometric shooter from Atari. You fly a falcon over a diagonally scrolling desert, grabbing the Pharaoh's scattered treasure and dodging the creatures that guard it. Bob Polaro designed the game, first planned for…
Play ▸
