Category: Activision

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...at home 1 Button 1982 4 quarters (4 stars) Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store G Game Systems Joystick Racing Sports

Grand Prix (Atari 2600)

Grand PrixBuy this gameThe Game: Start your digital engines! Grand Prix puts the player behind the wheel of a sleek (and, it has to be said, colorful) race car. With the track scrolling from right to left, the game is simple: get ahead, and don’t crash into the other cars. That may sound easy enough, but hazards such as oil slicks can send a car spinning out of control very easily. (Activision, 1982)

Memories: One of David Crane’s earliest games at Activision, Grand Prix is almost as important as a tech demo as it is as a game. Consider the large, blocky pixel-cars Atari‘s first-party racing games; the colorful, finely-detailed cars in Crane’s Grand Prix were a revelation by comparison. Grand Prix brought us cars of many different colors, with animated tires, and none of the sprite flicker that had already come to characterize many a 2600 game by this point. It was yet another case of Activision putting Atari on notice to start bringing its “A” game – literally. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1982 4 quarters (4 stars) Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store Climbing Game Systems Joystick Jumping K

Keystone Kapers

Keystone KapersSee the videoThe Game: Kriminals are on the loose in an unspecified retail establishment, and you happen to be the lone kop on the kase. Bouncy balls, shopping karts and other krap get in your way as you try to katch the kriminal before time runs out. You might get lucky and hitch an elevator ride, or you may have to take the escalators at opposite ends of the store, which will take more time. If you don’t kapture the krook, he gets away with the loot. (Activision, 1982)

Memories: A simple little game from the hallowed house of Activision, Keystone Kapers is one of those games you really don’t need the docs to play. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1982 4 quarters (4 stars) Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store Game Systems Joystick M Slide & Shoot (i.e. Space Invaders)

Megamania

MegamaniaBuy this gameThe Game: The sky is falling! Or so it seems. As this game is subtitled “A Space Nightmare,” you’re not battling aliens here, but ever-descendig and evading waves of such ordinary items as bow ties, hamburgers, dice, and so on. Unlike so many other Space Invaders variations, you won’t die the moment the attacking forces reach ground zero – but you could, if they slide horizontally right into you. (Activision, 1982)

Memories: Activision, much like the Odyssey 2 game designers, always knew how to put enough of a twist on game with an established “formula” to keep the litigious wolf from the door, and this is another classic example of that – not to mention an annoyingly addictive little game. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1982 5 quarters (5 stars) Action Adventure Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store Collecting Objects Game Systems Joystick Jumping P Side-Scrolling

Pitfall!

1 min read

Pitfall!Buy this gameThe Game: As Pitfall Harry, you’re exploring the deepest jungle in search of legendary lost treasures, whether they be above ground, hidden strategically next to inescapable tar pits or ponds infested with hungry gators, or in the underground catacombs under the guard of deadly scorpions. (Activision, 1982)

Memories: Pitfall! – subtitled The Adventures of Pitfall Harry – was the first blockbuster title from Activision, a software house formed by four former Atari programmers. Activision consistently turned out addictively playable and – bearing in mind the 2600’s graphic limitations – gorgeous games. After all, Activision’s core gamesmiths knew the Atari 2600 hardware better than anyone, and were able to avoid such common, erm, pitfalls as flickering sprites and big, clunky pixels. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1982 5 quarters (5 stars) Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store Game Systems Joystick Military Planes R Shooting At Enemies Tanks Vertical Scrolling

River Raid

River RaidBuy this gameThe Game: You’re piloting a fighter jet on a canyon run through enemy territory. You can’t fly outside the canyon walls, so stay over the river and blast everything in sight. Well, almost everything – flying your plane on top of “FUEL” buoys instead of shooting them puts a little bit of gas in the tank, and if you run out of fuel, you might as well just swallow the next enemy bullet, because you’re goin’ down. (Activision, 1982)

Memories: As you advance through the levels and it gets more challenging, River Raid becomes the same kind of balancing act between self-preservation and going on the offensive that is a hallmark of all-time classics like Robotron. River Raid was the brainchild of Activision programmer Carol Shaw, one of the small number of women who had a vital hand in the early video game industry (such as Carla Meninsky, programmer of numerous early Atari 2600 titles, and Dona Bailey, an Atari arcade programmer who co-designed Centipede). And yet River Raid is a shoot-’em’-up that’ll challenge any hardcore joystick jock. [read more]

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1 Button 4 quarters (4 stars) Activision Available In Our Store Joystick S Shooting At Enemies Slide & Shoot (i.e. Space Invaders)

Spider Fighter

Spider FighterBuy this gameThe Game: It’s a full-scale infestation! Spiteful spiders are hatching everywhere you look, and they’ve got an eye on feeding and breeding. Your blaster is the only thing stopping them, and you’ve got to be lightning fast. (Activision, 1982)

Memories: Possibly the most original arcade-ish game Activision released for the Atari 2600, Spider Fighter is a fast and furious shoot-’em-up requiring a lot of fast thinking; it’s also refreshingly free of the flicker that plagues so many 2600 games. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1983 4 quarters (4 stars) A Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store Controller Game Systems Joystick Olympic Sports

The Activision Decathlon

1 min read

The Activision DecathlonBuy this gameThe Game: Let the games begin! The Activision Decathlon puts players in the middle of ten summer Olympic events, each of which requires fast and furious joystick action, and careful timing on the fire button, to measure the player’s physical prowess. Events include 100 and 400 meter dashes, long jump, discus, shot put, high jump and more. (Activision, 1983)

Memories: Olympic-themed video games began to pile on pretty thick starting with Track & Field in the arcade, and Activision was ahead of the curve as well, getting The Activision Decathlon on the market a year before the 1984 games. Like Track & Field, Decathlon made use of a unique control scheme that brought some real physicality to the game, requiring players to work up at least a little bit of a sweat. It also cost many an otherwise well-constructed controller its life. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1983 4 quarters (4 stars) Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store C Joystick Slide & Shoot (i.e. Space Invaders)

Crackpots!

Crackpots!The Game: You are Potsy, a flowerpot-chucking tenant in a building being overrun by spiders. As they come up the walls, hurl potted plants at ’em to squish them before they can climb into the windows; if too many spiders make it Buy this gamethrough, they eat away at the building from the ground up until game is over. Black spiders follow a straightforward, no-nonsense path to the windows, while blue spiders zig-zag a bit. Red and green spiders follow more unpredictable paths, forcing you to try to nail them as they crawl the walls diagonally. Super powers will not be granted to you if you get bitten. (Activision, 1983)

Memories: Sort of like a slide-and-shoot game in reverse, Crackpots! is a fun little number with some cute graphics and game play speed that gradually (but inevtiably) goes off the scale. Still, it’s incredibly simple and loads of fun too – and not surprisingly, it’s been revived for more modern consoles as part of Activision’s classic game compilations. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1983 4 quarters (4 stars) Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store Driving E First-Person Game Systems Joystick Racing Sports

Enduro

1 min read

EnduroBuy this gameThe Game: As one of many drivers in a round-the-clock endurance race through many areas, terrains and weather conditions. While the pretty boys at Fuji may have sunshine all the time (or so it seems), an Enduro racer has to contend with slick snow, nighttime driving conditions (where the other drivers’ tail lights are the only warning you have of their presence), fog (which is much like night driving, but about 10 times worse), and so on. (Activision, 1983)

Memories: Enduro is a killer driving game, taking the same graphical gimmick that made Pole Position a hit, and increasing the challenge of the game – even to the point of exceeding the depth of the game that it’s loosely based on. [read more]

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...at home 1 Button 1983 Action Strategy Activision Atari 2600 VCS Available In Our Store Game Systems Joystick O

Oink!

Oink!Buy this gameThe Game: As one of the Three Little Pigs, your job is to make sure the bricks of your porcine pals’ dwelling is strong enough to withstand the assault of the Big Bad Wolf, whose tongue resembles that of some kind of poisonous frog (if he knocks a big enough hole in the pigs’ brick wall, he can fire his tongue through the opening and “sting” your pig…!?). The game continues until you repair the wall…or run out of little pigs. (Activision, 1983)

Memories: This amusing little gem from Activision seems to borrow a little bit from Taito‘s Zoo Keeper coin-op, in which one controls the zoo guru in question, trying to make sure that wild critters such as snakes and elephants stay bricked into their cages. At least the same basic game concepts seem to be shared.

Oink! is a hysterical little game whose deceptively cutesy 4 quarters!characters may have caught more than one player off guard – the game soon achieves a frantic pace. The three little pigs/big bad wolf elements are also present in Konami‘s Pooyan, in which Mama Pig fights back (and boy, does she look pissed!). [read more]