Support NeoGAF

[Darkmakaimura]

I have a lot of fond memories of the Atari 2600. Even as an adult today, I still love those old games.

Personally this is my favorite....

I've always loved platformers and this is one of the first platformers that allowed you to go and explore. I love the vertical movement as you climb up and down.

Honorable mention goes to this as well....

 

[nush]

Yars Revenge, really pushed the hardware. Combat, one of the best pack in games ever. To be fair, I've not played a lot of 2600 games and most of the Atari 50 games are new to me.

 

[bender]

 

[Alex Anderson]

I don't have one as I only played a few as a very young kid My mom likes Kaboom!

My only Atari cred is owning a Lynx.

I should find and hook up my Flashback... 2?

 

[intbal]

Warlords

 

[Ozzie666]

Fond memories of Jungle Hunt, Pit fall, hockey, Empire Strikes back. I'm even one of those suckers who got Pac Man and enjoyed it at the time.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Yars Revenge, really pushed the hardware. Combat, one of the best pack in games ever. To be fair, I've not played a lot of 2600 games and most of the Atari 50 games are new to me.

You should really check out Moonsweeper which is also one of my favorites.

It really pushed the hardware and in fact I think it even had extra memory in the cartridge to handle it.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I have no memories of playing an Atari and it comes from being introduced to gaming at the perspective of a Nintendo console. It’s fascinating years later reading about the company and their legacy. Recently I bought the 50th Anniversary. I played Lunar Lander in the arcade. I can’t tell what was exclusive to the 400, the 800, the 2600 or the 5200.

I saw some 2600 games at a retro store here and town. They had some Colecovision cartridges too. The thickness and weight of the cartridge was night and day compared to your typical NES/SNES game. It makes me wonder how someone felt going to a store and purchasing these games at full price. Was there an expectation for each game? I’ve read where sports games like Football were popular on the Atari.

 

[RoboFu]

 

[Jennings]

The galaxy of Solaris is made up of 16 quadrants, each containing 48 sectors. The player uses a tactical map to choose a sector to warp to, during which they must attempt to keep their ship "in focus" to lower their fuel consumption rate. Fuel must be carefully managed, as an empty tank results in loss of one of the player lives. Space battle ensues whenever the player navigates into a hostile battlegroup via the tactical map. Space enemies include pirate ships, mechanoid ships, and aggressive "cobra" ships. Each battlegroup has at least one enemy flagship, which shoots out fuel-sapping drones.

The player may also descend to one of 3 types of planets:

1. Friendly federation planets, which provide for refueling, but may also harbor a planet defense mission if they are under attack. If players allow a friendly planet in a quadrant to be destroyed, that quadrant becomes a "red zone" where joystick controls are reversed and booming sounds are overheard.
2. Enemy Zylon planets, in which the player must rescue all cadets, gaining an extra ship when all cadets are rescued.
3. Enemy corridor planets, in which the player must traverse through a fast-paced corridor.

There are 4 kinds of ground enemies found on planets: stationary guardians, gliders, targeters and raiders. The ultimate goal of Solaris is to reach the planet Solaris and rescue its colonists, at which point the game ends in victory.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Knightime_X]

Tied between Tank Battle and Combat

 

[Hawk269]

I have so many memories of the Atari 2600. I had a ton of games back then and as a collector, I currently own about 80 CIB Atari 2600 games.

Some of my favorites:

Demon Attack
Yar's Revenge
Space Invaders
Kaboom
Pitfall
Combat

 

[ReBurn]

Adventure is #1 for me

Asteroids, Missle Command, Pitfall and Yars' Revenge round out my top 5

 

[wipeout364]

 

[SirTerry-T]

Fathom. Great little game and probably one the most graphically impressive titles on the 2600.

Loved those Imagic boxes too...

 

[GeekyDad]

 

[Deerock71]

Going with the original Pitfall. It always fired up my Indiana Jones imagination.

 

[Power Pro]

You already answered it for me with Pitfall 2. I can't think of anything else that at least feels close to "modern" on the Atari 2600 as Pitfall 2 does. I have a hard time playing almost anything else on it.

I suppose if I must pick one more, HERO isn't bad.

 

[UnNamed]

Solaris, which was also my first game on the platform and my first home videogame ever.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

Seaquest and river raid. The first games I played. My brother got a tee shit and patch for river raid for a high score contest or something they (Activision) ran back in the day

 

[Havoc2049]

Mine is Pitfall II The Mayan Adventure as well. I love the music in that game, which is easily the best tune on the 2600. With a little practice, I could still get a perfect score of 199,000. I still play the Adventurer’s Edition of Pitfall II on my Atari 8-bit computer every now and then, which has a portal open up at the end of the game to a whole new cavern to explore.

I also loved HERO, River Raid, Vanguard, Ms. Pac-Man, Phoenix, Joust, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Montezuma's Revenge, Pitfall, Enduro, Moonsweeper, Chuck Norris Superkicks and Yars' Revenge.

 

[Andeck Vee]

I loved Star Raiders. Still have the pad somewhere

 

[MrA]

Stay frosty 2, really good homebrew release
Otherwise,
Pac man Jr
Moon patrol
Space invader
Rabbit transit
Frogger (starpath)
And mangia, just because its so bizarre

 

[Topher]

 

[Superkewl]

I used to play defender till the score maxed out, when I was a kid.

 

[Rambotito]

I played a lot of Pitfall and Yar's Revenge.
I even got a high enough score in Pitfall to get an arm patch from Activision. I had to take a picture of the screen, get the film developed, mail in the screenshot to Activision and wait about a month to receive a letter from them that had the patch and a letter telling me how to take a good picture of a TV screen.
I guess that was my first achievement - in 1983

 

[marcincz]

River Raid (first game in my life) and Gyruss.

 

[SpiceRacz]