Harbor Escape - Atari 2600 Review

Released in 1983 by a company called Panda.  This is a direct rip off of River Raid by Activision.  In this game you are a submarine under water and you have to squeeze your way through some pretty tight areas.  The fuel tanks from River Raid are replaced by air tanks and there are other subs and moving mines.  I think this version may be a bit harder than River Raid but it still pretty much plays the same and is the same game.  Overall, it gets a 3 out of 10 because of the crappy graphics and the fact that they stole River Raid's code.

Espial - Atari 2600 Review

A shoot 'em up game for the Atari VCS.  Very colorful and flashy looking.  You control a ship that shoots lasers and there is a target in front of you.  The enemies seem to be lurking below the background or in the shadows.  You must line your target up with the enemy ship or ground target to kill it when you shoot.  After about a minute, you clear the level and move on to the next.  When you get to the 3rd level, it gets crazy hard.  Enemies now come at you from behind!  Overall, not a bad game and pretty challenging.  I give this one a 6 out of 10 overall.  Worth checking out for sure.

Space Tunnel Atari 2600 Review

This game is absolute garbage.  Number one, you barely have any movement.  Number two, it is not even challenging.  Number three, it is so repetitive that you can literally sleep will playing it.  The only good thing about the game is that you can fire in four directions. It is borderline unplayable.  Overall, I give it a 1 out of 10 stars.  It is just horrible, especially for a shoot em up.  

Cosmic Commuter Atari 2600 Review

Released in 1984 by Activision. This game is not really well known.  The goal of the game is to land and then detach from your lander into a speedy craft.  Next, you fly through a series of obstacles that you can shoot with lasers that kind of steer as you move up and down while firing.  The object is to pick up the commuters at the bottom of the screen all while avoiding the objects which move at a different speed than the ground.  You also have to be mindful of your fuel gauge as it runs down quite quick.  After you pick up all the commuters on the stage, you fly back to your landing point and dock with the lander.  Next you take off while avoiding the obstacles again.  You start a new stage, the obstacles change, and you do it all over again.   The game play is fun and fast paced as most Activision games are.  The sound and graphics are pretty good for the Atari VCS.  A fun and challenging game.  Overall, it gets a 7 out of 10 rating.  Not one of my favorite games but fun to play nonetheless.

Amidar Atari 2600 Review

This game is one screen, what you see above.  You are a yellow guy that moves around the screen "painting" as you go.  The goal is to paint around a box so it fills in.  You avoid green alien looking guys that go around the screen randomly.  If you press the fire button, they go away for a few seconds allowing you to pass through them.  You have 5 of these power ups per life.  When you complete half the level, the green dudes turn into ducks for about 20 or 30 seconds and scatter away from you.  When they are ducks you can kill them.  The game reminds me of Qix a lot.  I believe this is an arcade port.  The game play is slow and there are barely any sounds at all.  The game is kind of boring and not really very fun.  Overall, it gets a 4 out of 10 stars.

Video Olympics Atari VCS (2600) Review

Released in 1978 as one of the Atari VCS's initial launch titles.  For its time it was pretty awesome because it took a basic Pong style game and added different variations to it.  Mediocre by today's standards but pretty cool back then.  I just attempted to play it and realized that my paddle controllers are not functioning correctly.  Nonetheless, the basic concept of what the game is was translated to me as I remember it. Hit a square ball back and forth and try to score on your opponent.  A fun 2 player game to mess with but nothing epic going on here.  Overall, I give it a 5 out of 10.  Atari is very hard to rate due to the huge amount of crappy games but this one stands the test of time.  It does what it is intended to do.  Pong with multiple variations.

Phoenix Atari 2600 Review

Arcade port for the 2600.  Pretty decent game overall.  It is what you expect fast for a VCS game.  There are 4 stages.  The first is small "demon birds", the second stage is small "demon birds" but you can hold the fire button down for rapid shot.  The third stage is big "demon bird" with wings that you can shoot off and they grow back.  You get no points for shooting their wings so it is better to just kill them.  The 4th and final stage is a mothership with an alien in the middle that lowers on you as you try and kill it.  When you kill it, it resets to the first board.  The point of the game is score and that is it.  Overall, I give it a 6 out of 10 stars.  Pretty good graphics for the 2600 and great shoot em up game play.  The sound sucks and is super annoying though, that is a huge negative for the game.

Pac-Man Atari 2600 Review

Alright, There are really no other screen shots to show.  This is it.  An arcade port that was rushed to come out for Christmas and resulted in a horrible game right?  Not quite.  The game is not all that horrible.  The graphics are not very good and the game play is super slow compared to the arcade, but this is an Atari 2600, not a powerful machine at all.  Most people played the game for 5 minutes and then said it was horrible.  The fact of the matter is, when you clear about 5 boards, it starts getting challenging.  It is a bad game, don't get me wrong, but it is not the worst game ever.  I am not a super huge Pac-Man fan anyway so I wouldn't really play this game much, but if you want a challenge, pop it in and clear the first 5 boards and then play the real game.  Overall, I give this game a 4 out of 10 stars (GASP!).  Try it, actually give it a chance.. It's not complete shit like you have been led to believe.  Come at it with a new seasoned gamers outlook..  :)

Circus Atari. Atari 2600 Review

This game uses the Atari analog paddles.  You play the role of 2 acrobats in a circus.  you control a teter totter / trampoline?  You goal is to pop the balloons that are scrolling along the top of the screen.  The button on the paddle controller will flip the trampoline around (which is sometimes required).  The purpose of the game is nothing more than to accumulate score.  It is an OK game to play but it does get boring.  The problem with the game overall is the fact that there is not much going on and I find myself "zombied" out playing it.  It is not a game that I would play very often and overall I give it a 6 out of 10 stars.  I am being generous with the rating due to the fact that most of the Atari 2600's library is complete shovelware.

Football Atari 2600 Review

This game is really bad.  The screenshot above is the game, that's it.  You also have to have 2 people to play.  There is no single player mode.  It is sluggish and boring.  Horrible!  I give it 0 out of 10 stars.  I should go -10 on this one.  I understand they were limited with what they could do back then with games but come on!  There are plenty of games from the same era that are awesome.  Lazy programming is what led to the video game crash of the early 80's and it is evident with this piece of crap.

Yars' Revenge Atari 2600 Review

This is a basic, simple game for the Atari 2600.  Atari 2600 games don't really get too involved.  Usually what you see is what you get.  This game is basically this screen and when you clear it, it goes to the next.  There is a screen with fixed blocks and a screen with moving blocks.  The point of the game is to fly your alien bug around and shoot holes in the wall to expose the "enemy".  If you touch the floating minus sign, you die.  It tracks you everywhere you go.  The colorful region in the middle is a safe zone which the minus sign cannot hurt you.  Every so often the "enemy" behind the wall will start spinning and shoot out after you.  You can scroll from the bottom to the top and vice versa.  The only way to clear the screen and move onto the next is to shoot a missile at the "enemy" and kill him.  The way to do this is to either peck at the wall or touch the enemy.  A missile will appear at the left of the screen and you can then shoot it at the "enemy".  The only catch is that the screen is moving up and down so you have to time it just right.  You can also kill yourself by being hit by the missile.  I am not sure if there is a way to finish the game or not.  I usually only make it to about the 5th screen before my game is over.  It does get harder and faster with every new screen.  Overall, I give this game a 7 out of 10.  Pretty decent for a 2600 game.  The sound is awesome!

Fast Food Atari 2600 Review

This is a different kind of game.  You control a mouth and you have to eat junk food that scrolls from left to right.  You eat hot dogs, burgers, pizza, shakes, fries and so on.  You want to avoid the purple pickles though, I want to say that they are rotten pickles or eggplants.  If you eat enough fast food, you advance to the next level.  You can move anywhere on the screen.  The fire button is not used at all.  Every level gets faster and faster and if you eat 6 purple pickles, the game is over.  The game play in this game is pretty decent for Atari 2600 and the replay value is pretty good.  I find myself popping the game in from time to time and playing for about 10 minutes.  Overall I give this game a 5 out of 10 stars. 

Dragster Atari 2600 Review

While I am sure this game was cool in 1984 when it came out (I don't think so), it really sucks.  See the screen shot?  Thats the game, thats it.  No starting line, no finish line.  It is hard to believe that David Crane of Pitfall! fame wrote this shovelware.  One of the worst Activision games ever made.   Your goal is to get the best time possible as you shift through 4 gears while avoiding blowing your engine.  The concept of the game is unique, I will give it that, but the game play and fun factor are horrible.  Every time I play this game it is a chore.  Overall, I give it a 1 out of 10 stars.  It did not get a 0 because the concept is cool and you can play 2 players against each other. , but the game overall blows.

No Escape! Atari 2600 Review

This game is an OK game.  Like I have said before, it is hard to find good Atari 2600 games.  You are a guy who can run back and forth and shoot a (kinda steerable) shot into the ceiling knocking bricks down.  The bricks fall and hopefully hit your enemies who move back and forth and get increasingly harder when you clear a stage.  If you hit the enemies instead of the ceiling, it will spawn another enemy.  You have a power gauge at the bottom of the screen and if you get hit by enemies shots of falling bricks, you lose power.  When you run out of power, the game is over.  After you shoot all the enemies on a level, you get points for how many bricks are left.  The game play is pretty smooth for a 2600 game and the graphics and sound are on par with other 2600 games.  It is a decent game to pick up every now and then and play.  I do have it on my 2600 regularly played shelf.  Overall I give it a 6 out of 10 stars.  I probably would have given it a 7 if there were more to it than just the shooting stage.  Maybe there is more to it and I have never made it far enough?  I am not sure  

Air Raiders Atari 2600 Review

This game came out in 1982 for the Atari 2600.  For its time, this was a pretty cool game.  It is a dogfight simulation game.  You start out on a runway and you take off.  Once you are in the air you can climb in altitude with you max being 40.  You have cross hairs in the middle of the screen and your goal is to shoot down enemy jets.  You have 99 ammo and when you run low on ammo or fuel (the gauge right below the numbers) you can go close to the ground to land.  You can land 3 times during the game to refill you fuel and ammo.  The only catch is that it does not refill them all the way, only a small percentage.  You also have to be careful of the enemy firing on you.  The gauge on the bottom is like a radar with the red area in the middle being the "flak zone" where you will get fired upon.  When you get shot a few times, it makes you fuel go down.  If you get shot a bunch of times you will go down 10 in altitude.  If you crash into the ground it is game over.  Overall I give this game a 6 out of 10 stars.  The game play is not horrible but not great.  Graphics and sound are ok for Atari 2600.  It is a challenging game but not one you would play on a regular basis.

Keystone Kapers Atari 2600 Review

Another great game by Activision.  You play the role of a cop and you chase a robber.  You run faster than the robber so you can eventually catch him.  It would appear that you are in a shopping mall.  You have to avoid obstacles such as bouncing barrels, old fashioned radios to jump over, shopping carts, and remote control planes.  Something that adds to the game play is the fact that you can jump while running, jump while standing, and duck.  Hitting some objects will deduct from your score while others will take a life and start you back at the beginning.  Every time you get to the end of a level, you have to go up the escalator.  There are also elevators in the middle but you don't really have to ever use them until maybe the later levels.  The game is really fast paced and fun to play.  There is also a little radar on the bottom of the screen which I have seen in a few other Activision games.  Overall I give the game a 7 out of 10.  Very original and a quality game overall.  

Spider Fighter Atari 2600 Review

A shoot em up game by Activision.  This game is real fast paced and plays well.  You start off with 4 ships.  The goal is to protect your 3 pieces of fruit in the top right corner of the screen.  There are 4 spiders per round that hatch eggs creating other spiders.  Shoot them for score and to clear the round.  If you have less than 4 ships at the end of a round you get a free ship.  The game is really repetitive but fun.  Overall I give it 5 out of 10.

H.E.R.O. Atari 2600 Review

It is very hard to find good Atari 2600 games.  99 percent of them are crap.  This game is in the 1 percent of good.  In fact this game is pretty awesome.  It is one of my favorites on the system.  Made by Activision, which in case you don't know made the best games for the system.  The goal of the game is to save trapped miners while avoiding bats, snakes and other enemies.  You have a propeller strapped to you back so you can fly up or slow your descent.  You have a laser beam that you can fire a short distance by pressing the fire button.  You start each level with 5 bombs which you use to blow up walls by pressing down to drop them.  The game is fast paced and challenging.  The game play is awesome and graphics and sound are awesome for the 2600.  The only drawback to the game is you play the same levels over and over again.  It would have been awesome if they could have randomized the levels every time you started.  The game would have been perfect if it were randomized.  Overall I give it an 8 out of 10.

Jr. Pac Man Atari 2600 Review

PacMan and Ms PacMan had a baby.  Enter Jr. PacMan wearing a beanie.  This is an arcade port for the Atari 2600.  This is probably the best arcade port on the system.  The first PacMan on the 2600 was a huge failure.  Probably the worst game on the system.  They made up for it with this game.  It plays real smooth and the sound is surprisingly good for the 2600.  The screen scrolls up and down as you move.  It holds the same basic concept of any PacMan game.  You go around eating dots and avoiding the 4 ghosts.  You get the power pellets and the ghosts turn blue for a short period where you can eat them for points.  You then collect items that dance around the screen for points.  Do I really have to explain PacMan?  Anyway, there are good games on the 2600, you just have to dig deep for them.  I give this game an 8 out of 10.

Enduro Atari 2600 Review

This is a really fun racing game.  I would say the best on the 2600.  Very smooth graphics and game play.  You start out having to pass 200 cars.  It is timed, so you can't go slow.  The cars appear at random places and it it your job to avoid them.  The control in simple; left and right, and fire button for gas.  You hold down the fire button to go faster and you let go to slow down.  There is no brake.  Scoring is simply your mileage which goes up quicker the faster you go.  As time progresses, you go from morning, to afternoon, to driving on snow, then back to dry pavement.  It then becomes dusk, night time, foggy night time, and then morning again.  The game has great replay value and is a must have in my opinion for anyone's 2600 collection.  Overall I give it a 8 out of 10.  I think it would have been a perfect game if the added braking control by pulling back on the joystick.