Asteroids

Rating: 3.5

Developer: Atari/Brad Stewart Publisher: Atari Genre: Arcade Shooter Released: 1981

Rarity: Common Value: $

Asteroids was a runaway smash hit for Atari in the arcades, so there was no way that it wasn't going to find its way onto the VCS. The premise of the game is that your small spacecraft is stuck in the middle of an asteroid field. Every time you shoot an asteroid it breaks up into a smaller asteroid, until it is finally destroyed completely. At the same time, UFOs and satellites cruise by while shooting at your ship, and can be destroyed for bonus points. Once you clear the screen of asteroids, a new group pops up and you start it all over again. You can rotate your ship and use forward thrust, but there are no brakes so if you want to stop or reverse your course you have to turn around and apply thrust in the opposite direction. You also have a "hyperspace" option which you activate by pushing down on the joystick. Doing so will cause your ship to disappear and randomly reappear elsewhere in the asteroid field. Used as a last resort it can save your ship from imminent danger, but can also put you right in the path of an asteroid with nowhere to go. Other game modes assign different functions to the down direction, including shields or the ability to flip around 180 degrees, but hyperspace is the default option and a carryover from the arcade game. The home version of the game looks quite a bit different than the original, due to the arcade game's use of vector instead of raster graphics. Unfortunately this makes the asteroids themselves look more pixelated, but on the plus side the game is in color instead of black and white. The most noticeable difference in the game play is in the movement of the asteroids themselves. While in the arcade they came from all directions, in the VCS version all of the asteroids start out scrolling vertically across the left and right edges of the screen. This makes it a lot easier to just park your ship in the starting position and blast away, with little movement needed to avoid danger. Less challenging than the original, Asteroids for the VCS is still an acceptable port of the arcade classic, but it has been far surpassed by subsequent ports and clones including Asteroids for the Atari 7800 and Mine Storm for the Vectrex.

Rarity: Common Value: $

In general, bowling is not a game that translates well into the world of video games. I would guess that most gamers could count the number of entertaining bowling games across all platforms on one hand. It is therefore surprising, especially considering the fact that most sports games on the Atari VCS are horrible, that Bowling is a good game. You move your bowler back and forth across the floor to decide where to release the ball. Once the ball is heading down the lane you can apply spin to make the ball curve one way or another, but once you apply spin in one direction you can neither stop it nor bring it back the other way, which adds an element of realism to the game. The game keeps proper score and even displays your entire scorecard throughout the game. Once your game is over, your final score stays on the screen until you hit the reset switch to play again. It only takes about 3 minutes to complete a game (less if you throw a lot of strikes), and this quick pace makes you want to keep playing just one more time to try and best your score. It even supports 2 players so you can play against a friend. The graphics are pretty standard for an older, first party 2600 game, but the player model looks better than a lot of things I've seen on the system. Your lane is viewed from overhead while the bowler himself is viewed from the side, creating an odd perspective that must be forgiven on a console of this age. The sound effects are amusing, as the sound of the rolling ball seems more like a boulder rolling down a mountain, and the falling pins remind me of a space shooter. These are the things you come to expect when playing VCS games however, and they are part of what gives the games their charm.

Golf

Rating: 2.0

Rarity: Common Value: $

I would never suggest that it would be easy to create a golf game on the Atari 2600, but the system is definitely capable of a better offering than this. Golf isn't a horrible game, but it could have been a lot better. The developer did an admirable job of trying to re-create the feeling of playing golf. Each hole has a different layout, there are trees and sand traps blocking your way, and putting has a separate screen that zooms in on the green. The game also displays your total score, your score on the current hole, and the par for the current hole. For a VCS game, the holes don't look that bad but they have the same blocky unimaginative graphics common to all first-party Atari games. The golfer looks like the Jolly Green Giant or Paul Bunyan standing taller than the trees holding his pixelated club. The problem with Golf is the gameplay, and primarily with aiming your shot. There is no arrow to indicate which way your shot will go, so the only way to tell is by the golfers position relative to the ball, which can be a bit difficult to judge. It would have been better to not have a player figure at all, and instead just have an arrow or line that you could rotate around the ball and that would grow and shrink as you held the button down to indicate shot strength (or they could have just used a power peter at the bottom of the screen instead.) With practice however, Golf gets better. The real question is whether or not it's worth the time it takes to develop a proficiency with the game. It's a shame that Activision never tried making a golf game for the 2600. Unfortunately, this is the only golf title on the system, mind boggling considering how many games were released for the VCS, so there isn't any choice in the matter. This game is better than nothing, but just barely.

Midnight Magic

Rating: 4.0

Developer: Atari/Glenn Axworthy Publisher: Atari Genre: Pinball Released: 1986

Rarity: Common Value: $

This game makes the earlier Video Pinball for the VCS look downright awful. Midnight Magic's colorful, high-resolution graphics and realistic ball physics make its predecessor look like something from the previous generation. The game features a single table with more plausible dimensions (long and narrow) and more realistic-looking round bumpers. The play field is still simple but better replicates an actual pinball machine, though perhaps one from the 1960's-70's and not the more complicated tables prevalent in the 1980's and beyond. For an Atari title, the game has respectable physics and aside from the primitive graphics does a decent job of approximating the pinball experience. Simplicity and a lack of visual flair aside, a video pinball aficionado like myself can easily burn a hefty chunk of time trying to rack up a high score. My biggest problem with Midnight Magic is actually a problem with the Atari's controller. To manipulate the flippers, you press either right or left on the joystick, meaning that you can't operate the flippers independently of each other. In other words, in order to use one flipper you have to be NOT using the other. Your only other alternative is to push the joystick in the down direction, which activates both flippers simultaneously.The game would work great with a Track & Field Controller which has separate buttons for left and right, but with no way of pushing in the down direction, there is no way to pull the plunger back. Still, this is an obstacle to be overcome and not a fatal flaw in the game. This is one of the more impressive games that I've played on the Atari, particularly considering that it's a first-party title. If you like pinball games as much as I do, this is definitely a game worth buying.

Oink!

Rating: 1.5

Developer: Activision/Mike Lorenzen Publisher: Activision Genre: Action Released: 1982

Rarity: Uncommon Value: $

Activision is famous for the quality of their VCS titles, but this game is just awful. Oink! has been described as "breakout in reverse" because instead of removing blocks, you are replacing them. You play as each one of the Three Little Pigs, protecting your house against the invading wolf. The wolf blows your house down one segment at a time, and you have to replace these segments by walking to the other side of your house and grabbing them one at a time. Three rows of these segments make up the wall of your house. When the wolf successfully penetrates through all three rows, his breath suddenly turns into a tractor beam which he uses to suck you out of the house, if the hole is big enough to accommodate the pig's body. The idea of the game is that you strategically place the replacement segments in such a way that you can never actually be sucked out of the house. The problem is that the wolf is removing segments at a much faster rate than you can possibly hope to replace them, giving the game a feeling of futility as you are only delaying the inevitable. Once the first piggy is captured, you move from the straw house to the stick house where the second piggy awaits his doom. The gameplay is boring, but it is the hopelessness of only delaying your demise that really sucks the fun out of the game. Part of the lure of arcade-style games is the knowledge that if you had just done something differently; moved right instead of left, shot this guy instead of that guy, that you could have kept going. With Oink!, you're just swimming against the tide knowing that there is little that you can do, and indeed the whole point of the game is to try and accumulate as many points as possible before the wolf gets you. But there is no way to stop the wolf, and that's the game's downfall. As with most Activision games, Oink!'s graphics are second to none, but when a game is this bad it doesn't really matter.

River Raid

Rating: 5.0

Developer: Activision/Carol Shaw Publisher: Activision Genre: Arcade Shooter Released: 12/1982

Rarity: Common Value: $

The mother of all vertically-scrolling shoot-em-ups! In River Raid, you control a fighter jet flying at low altitude over a river, shooting tanker ships, helicopters, and other planes while keeping a close eye on your fuel level. Not only can your plane move from side to side, but you can also speed up and slow down by pushing the joystick forward and back. Speeding up causes your plane to expend fuel at a faster rate, but is often necessary to avoid danger. The river is littered with fuel depots that will refuel your plane when flown over, but they can also be shot, and their point value is higher than both the tankers and the helicopters. The best strategy is to fly over the depot to refuel, and then shoot it at the last minute so that you get the fuel and the points. You can be killed by running into enemy vehicles, running into the the sides of the river or islands, and by running out of fuel. Although the game loops ad infinitum (actually it stops when you hit 1 million points), it takes quite a while before the terrain loops back around to the beginning. Sections of the river are separated by bridges that must be destroyed, and at which you re-start the game when killed. The Activision high score patch for River Raid could be obtained with a score of 15,000 or more, which can be accomplished in the first sitting by any seasoned video game player. It was games like this by companies like Activision and Imagic that really made Atari's first-party titles look primitive in comparison. River Raid has detailed graphics, colorful scenery, smooth animation, spot-on controls, and the sound effects are a far cry from the beeps and blips of games like pong and breakout. River Raid is easily one of the best games on the Atari 2600.

Sky Jinks

Rating: 2.0

Developer: Activision/Bob Whitehead Publisher: Activision Genre: Racing Released: 1982

Rarity: Common Value: $

Similar in principle to slalom skiing, in Sky Jinks you race through a pylon course in a stunt plane, weaving left and right around pylons while avoiding trees and hot air balloons. The object of the game is to complete the course as quickly as possible. A stopwatch starts as soon as you take off, but for each pylon missed a 3 second penalty is incurred. After 25 pylons, the end of the course is reached and your final time is displayed, at which point the game comes to an abrupt end. Sky Jinks comes with 5 courses that are selected using the "game select" switch on the console, as the courses are played completely independently of each other. Most racing games have some sort of minimum time that has to be achieved in order for the game to advance to the next course or stage, and this game would have been better served to adopt such a scheme. At the very least, I would have preferred for the game to move onto the next race once each course was completed. The game as-is feels awkward in it's apparent pointlessness, as an entire game of Sky Jinks can last less than a minute, depending on the course flown. Furthermore, once your game ends, you have little incentive to hit the reset button and give it another go. Your plane handles well, and holding down the fire button on the joystick acts as a high gear, giving you more speed. The graphics are simple but pleasing to the eye, and the simulated airplane engine sound effect sounds good. Still, above-par audio-visual attributes are not enough to save this game, which feels more like a VCS tech demo than a full-blown game.

Spider Fighter

Rating: 3.5

Developer: Activision/Larry Miller Publisher: Activision Genre: Arcade Shooter Released: 1983

Rarity: Common Value: $

Sometimes I don't understand where designers came up with their game ideas back in the classic era. In Spider Fighter you are charged with protecting your fruit orchard from legions of spiders who steal your fruit, which you do by shooting at them with a "bug blaster". The bugs attack in waves. Each wave begins when a "master nest" appears on the screen, which releases two types of spider along with "spy pods" that let the master nest know when it is time to release more spiders. Although the strategy for the game outlined in the manual suggests that you shoot all of the spy pods first, so that the master nest will not release any more spiders, it is simply easier to just shoot the master nest quickly which will prevent any additional enemies from being dispatched before you clear the screen. I find the pace of the game to be much too frantic to facilitate target differentiation so a scorched earth policy works best. The game is intense enough that you get killed pretty regularly, but is so liberal in dispensing extra lives that you can gain proficiency in Spider Fighter much too quickly. The ultimate goal aside from survival is to protect the fruit, which the master nest will steal and carry out of the field of play if they are not killed quickly enough. If you are able to protect all of your fruit through 4 waves of insects, you automatically get an extra life. As this isn't terribly difficult to do, even a mediocre player will quickly amass an army of extra bug blasters. Unlike similar games, Spider Fighter's difficulty flattens out early on so that a seasoned player will continue to earn extra lives faster than they expend them. Activision's high score patch for this game required a score of 40,000 which should have been easily obtainable within the first day one had the game. The difficulty issue aside, Spider Fighter carries on the same tradition of quality expected from an Activision title. The visuals and sound are better than almost any first party title, and the game runs fast and smooth which is impressive considering the high volume of stuff flying around on the screen. This game is a good "introductory" shooter that loses its value once your skills outgrow it.

Video Pinball

Rating: 3.0

Developer: Atari/Bob Smith Publisher: Atari Genre: Pinball Released: 1981

Rarity: Common Value: $

The first time I played it, I really hated this game. It reminded me of one of those old-timey pinball machines that didn't have flippers. You would put in a coin, it would dispense the ball, and your only interaction with the machine would be to pull the plunger. After that, gravity would take over. Because of the way that Video Pinball was designed to fit the 4:3 aspect ratio of the home television, the ball doesn't come in contact with the relatively small flippers very often, making this game seem like a spectator sport. That is, until I realized that you can steer your ball by holding down the fire button while pressing left or right. This is obviously meant to simulate nudging an actual pinball machine. Much like a real machine, if you nudge too much you'll cause it to tilt and then you lose your game, but nudge it just enough and you can steer clear of danger or pick up some extra points. Through wise use of the nudging feature, it's possible to keep your ball in play almost indefinitely which makes the game a little bit too easy. The game has three round bumpers (they're actually square but they deflect the ball as though they were round), two rollovers, and two spinners. There are three diamonds at the top of the screen, and clearing the diamonds will increase the value of the bumpers. Each time the left rollover is traversed, you are awarded 100 points and the counter goes up by 1. Once you lose your ball, you get 1000 points multiplied by whatever number is displayed on that rollover up to 4000 points. Hit the right rollover, which displays an Atari logo, 4 times and you get an extra ball. While it pales in comparison to video pinball games on newer systems, Video Pinball for the 2600 was a respectable pinball game for its time. The table layout is overly simplistic and the graphics are poor, but this was to be expected in the earlier days of the VCS.