The Greatest Console Games of All Time! (Atari 2600 Edition)

[Snarf Zagyg]

SALUTATIONS AND TREPIDATIONS!

What is this? Two, two, TWO Snarfticles in one day? That's right. After much more than fortnite's absence, I decided to post one essay. And then, for your Friday afternoon pleasure, I decided to be twice as nice!

Nice? Well, you know what they say.... you enter a contest. First place, you get one Snarf Essay. Second place? Two Snarf essays. Last place? A TORRENT OF VERBAIGE CONSTANTLY MAINLINED INTO YOUR VEINS.

Anway, it's been a while since I've done one of these. So .... how do I do the whole Snarf Lays Down the What is Correct and Just by Presenting an Inarguable List of Greatest Things That People Will Argue With Anyway!

Now I know what you're thinking. "Self, I like sugar. How can I steal all of the kids' Halloween Candy?" But you're also thinking, "Self, why should I care about this list? Atari 2600? What is an ATARI? Wait, was that something from Bladerunner 2049?" Well, the answer to that is ... you don't have to care about this list. I can't make myself care about anything ... how can I make you care about stuff? Anyway, I'm a little out of practice, but if I recall correctly, I usually post some sort of rules here. Mostly so people can tell me that the rules suck, and they have better rules.

Rules for the TOP TEN GREATEST ATARI 2600 GAMES OF ALL TIME THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE PLAYED AND YOU WILL BE THE LOSEREST OF LOSERS IF'N YOU HAVEN'T.

A. This is a list of games for the Atari 2600. Also called the Atari Video Computer System. Not the Atari 5200. Not the Intellivsion. Not the ColecoVision. Magnovox Odyssey? Heck to the no. And take you little ol' Nintendo and your Italian plumbers and your confusingly named gorilla right on out of here.

B. However, if the game was cross-platform, I suppose it's fine.

C. I had to have played the game. If you think a game was the bestest game ever .... but I never played it ... then it probably wasn't that good, was it?

D. Does importance to the overall game industry matter? Eh, sure. But that doesn't trump sheer awesomeness.

E. The list is not in order- this is just the top 10, and being #1 is not more important than being #10.

1. Warlords (1980). Take your new-fangled "couch co-op" games and shove 'em. Warlords distill action into its most basic components, putting the fun in fundamental. Play with up to four people at the same time as you attempt to utterly annihilate your opponents, making and breaking alliances as you play. Much like a game of Diplomacy, you will start play as friends, and end play as bitter enemies.

2. Combat (1977). Choose tanks, jets, or bi-planes, and then face off against one other player.

3. Adventure (1980). The ur-fantasy game for consoles, it was also the subject of legends for not only the glitches, but the famous Easter Egg. Yeah, you know what I mean.

4. Yars' Revenge (1982). The concept- what if boss fight, but just boss fight? From that simple concept, the innovative game of Yars' revenge was born. Qotile might have conquered me then, but I will have my day!

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982). Yeah, I went there. Pushing the paltry hardware of the 2600 to the limit, and often past it, Raiders is one of the most difficult challenges many people had to face at the time.

6. Pitfall! (1982). ... do you remember when people didn't hate Activision? ....Pepperidge Farm remembers.....

7. Space Invaders (1980). Other games improved on this model, but you can't leave the OG off.

8. Berzerk (1982). Multidirectional shooting FTW!

9. Kool-Aid Man (1983). Did you know that if you wrote into General Foods, they would send you this game? OH YEAH!

10. Atlantis (1982). Made by Imagic, it looked like Missile Command and played like Space Invaders. I'd also accept Demon Attack here.

 

[Wolfram stout]

1) Combat. So many fun hours with this game. If I am not mistaken it was the game that came with the console. The bad side, I think every game on it was 2 player only.
2) Asteroids. You could chose your special ability, I liked the shield best.
3) Pitfall.
4) Berserk
5) Empire Strikes Back. Nothing but a line of AT-ATs, over and over.
6) Slot Racer. Another 2 player only game. Blocky looking "cars" that shot at each other in a maze-like course.
7) Battlezone (I think that was the name on the Atari game) First person tank hunter game.


Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ouch. I was (am and always will be) a Huge Raiders fan, but this game. For those unaware, you never knew how well you were doing until the end of the game when your icon was raise up toward the arc. You won if you made it all the way up. I never made it to the half-way point.

I played other games (sports games generally not very good) but those above are the standouts for me.

 

[Velderan]

So I read about this the other day. Pretty cool idea, though I wonder how well it will sell.

My favorite 2600 games in no particular order:

1. Frogger
2. Pitfall
3. Ms. Pacman (Pacman was awful for 2600)
4. Combat
5. Fishing Derby

I've actually played all of those in the last 6ish months and still had fun with them. Beyond that, my memory gets fuzzy on which games were actually good for 2600 and I'm not instead thinking of some other console's version which is entirely likely since I played more of the 7800 as a kid.

 

[Thourne]

From memory, for what I haven't seen mention yet, I believe was "M-Network Soccer"

 

[Thourne]

SALUTATIONS AND TREPIDATIONS!

What is this? Two, two, TWO Snarfticles in one day? That's right. After much more than fortnite's absence, I decided to post one essay. And then, for your Friday afternoon pleasure, I decided to be twice as nice!

Nice? Well, you know what they say.... you enter a contest. First place, you get one Snarf Essay. Second place? Two Snarf essays. Last place? A TORRENT OF VERBAIGE CONSTANTLY MAINLINED INTO YOUR VEINS.

Anway, it's been a while since I've done one of these. So .... how do I do the whole Snarf Lays Down the What is Correct and Just by Presenting an Inarguable List of Greatest Things That People Will Argue With Anyway!

Now I know what you're thinking. "Self, I like sugar. How can I steal all of the kids' Halloween Candy?" But you're also thinking, "Self, why should I care about this list? Atari 2600? What is an ATARI? Wait, was that something from Bladerunner 2049?" Well, the answer to that is ... you don't have to care about this list. I can't make myself care about anything ... how can I make you care about stuff? Anyway, I'm a little out of practice, but if I recall correctly, I usually post some sort of rules here. Mostly so people can tell me that the rules suck, and they have better rules.

Rules for the TOP TEN GREATEST ATARI 2600 GAMES OF ALL TIME THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE PLAYED AND YOU WILL BE THE LOSEREST OF LOSERS IF'N YOU HAVEN'T.

A. This is a list of games for the Atari 2600. Also called the Atari Video Computer System. Not the Atari 5200. Not the Intellivsion. Not the ColecoVision. Magnovox Odyssey? Heck to the no. And take you little ol' Nintendo and your Italian plumbers and your confusingly named gorilla right on out of here.

B. However, if the game was cross-platform, I suppose it's fine.

C. I had to have played the game. If you think a game was the bestest game ever .... but I never played it ... then it probably wasn't that good, was it?

D. Does importance to the overall game industry matter? Eh, sure. But that doesn't trump sheer awesomeness.

E. The list is not in order- this is just the top 10, and being #1 is not more important than being #10.

1. Warlords (1980). Take your new-fangled "couch co-op" games and shove 'em. Warlords distill action into its most basic components, putting the fun in fundamental. Play with up to four people at the same time as you attempt to utterly annihilate your opponents, making and breaking alliances as you play. Much like a game of Diplomacy, you will start play as friends, and end play as bitter enemies.

2. Combat (1977). Choose tanks, jets, or bi-planes, and then face off against one other player.

3. Adventure (1980). The ur-fantasy game for consoles, it was also the subject of legends for not only the glitches, but the famous Easter Egg. Yeah, you know what I mean.

4. Yars' Revenge (1982). The concept- what if boss fight, but just boss fight? From that simple concept, the innovative game of Yars' revenge was born. Qotile might have conquered me then, but I will have my day!

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982). Yeah, I went there. Pushing the paltry hardware of the 2600 to the limit, and often past it, Raiders is one of the most difficult challenges many people had to face at the time.

6. Pitfall! (1982). ... do you remember when people didn't hate Activision? ....Pepperidge Farm remembers.....

7. Space Invaders (1980). Other games improved on this model, but you can't leave the OG off.

8. Berzerk (1982). Multidirectional shooting FTW!

9. Kool-Aid Man (1983). Did you know that if you wrote into General Foods, they would send you this game? OH YEAH!

10. Atlantis (1982). Made by Imagic, it looked like Missile Command and played like Space Invaders. I'd also accept Demon Attack here.

I had Kool-aid Man, lol.
My mother was the sort who clipped all those points off the back of everything. From kool-aid points, to Betty Crocker, you name it.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Asteroids, Combat (loved playing that against my brother when we were kids - it's also where I discovered that the rubber covering on the Atari joysticks could come off and create a perfectly concentric series of circles on a person's forehead when...creatively applied), and Yar's Revenge would be at the top of my list definitely.

But the top contender may be Missile Command. It's still a tense game to play, and perhaps perfectly encapsulates the 80s fear of nuclear war.

 

[Thourne]

My wife insisted I come back and say Q-bert.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I had intelivision. My favorite games on that were burger time, shark shark, Tron: deadly discs, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, bump n jump, and dracula. There was a bomber game as well. I also remember triple action being good

 

[payn]

No E-T??

 

[aco175]

My strange uncle had a padded chair that he wrapped the arms in tinfoil and took apart a controller and somehow made gloves with the electrodes glued to the fingers. He could sit in the chair and tap his fingers to make the tanks turn and shoot like some madman typing.

I also recall my father not playing combat unless we played straight and not had bouncing bullets.