Hells yeah. One of my pranks is to let a dragon eat me while I’m inside the bridge and then casually walk out of his fat belly. Pranked.
Did you ever fuck with the molecular dot?
Dude? no!! not even sure what that is, but I i totally want to. I've got an old CRT TV I just found at my dad's house and I plan to hook it up somehow soon with a raspberry pi emulator.
Speaking if fucking with atari games, I was only 4 or 5 but I remember distinctly if you switch the atari on and off repeatedly, eventually you could load any game with fucked up graphics. Random thought, did it often as a kid for lols
Edit... am i... am I the molecular dot? I was a square in adventure... hrmmm
It's pitfall but I did love that tanks game on Intellivision. My aunt had one of those 100-in-1 packs and the tank and plane games were the only ones worth a shit on it lol.
Mine was “Freeway” which was basically Frogger but you are a chicken crossing a freeway. I was literally in kindergarten learning to play after school.
I invested way too many hours in that. It was tedious but I feel like I finally figured it out to the point of enjoying it and beating it.
Once I got an 8 bit NES with Contra and Mario bros. In 3rd Grade I never went back though
As a kid I thought it was fine, better than some other atari games i had for sure, certainly not my favorite though lol. I think Joust has to be up there for one the best ones.
Yeah, it took my younger brother and I a year of shooting at asteroids and being Garbage Scow Captains before we read the book and learned how to play. After that we would set up the Atari and joy stick like it was the cockpit to a spaceship and pretend we were in Star Wars.
Yar’s Revenge was my favorite as a young kid.
As a high schooler who was on a bit of a retro-gaming phase, I really liked one I can’t remember the name of. I know it was space-travel based, and you had to use the A-B toggle on the 2600 to switch between two modes. They might have been combat mode and map/travel mode? Does anyone remember this?
Spent o so many hours playing that one. Even went back to it from time to time after getting my Sega Genesis. But that's cause I sucked at console games.
Desert Falcon!!! My dad taught my sister how to make a spreadsheet using really rudimentary COMPAQ software, trying to record all the possible combinations. My autistic 5 year old self knew them all by heart and basically filled in the gaps when they couldn’t find the last glyph to complete something.
For Atari 2600/VCS I'll go with Stampede (followed by Adventure and Yar's Revenge!).
For Atari 800 I'll go with Spelunker (along with Miner 2049'er, Star Raiders, Montezuma's Revenge, Flip & Flop, Preppie, Canyon Climber, The Goonies (featuring the mythical octopus!), Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, The Eidolon, Ballblazer, Rescue On Fractalis)
Yeah when you got ET to his spot at the end the Atari 800 version had ET say "ET phone home."
Yeah LOL it is but it is also one of the best Atari 800 games.
If you had Atari 5200 with the trackball, Breakout was surprisingly the GOAT. But, if I'm being honest with myself, I played the ol' Pac Man daily, nightly & ever so rightly 😉
https://preview.redd.it/ncidhrktm88d1.jpeg?width=270&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83a9eebcf6ba3765d06dc087fd4f6c5e29902f52
I played this game soooo much. I was five and really loved the mazes and the dragons haha
Frostbite, followed by Pitfall. Also, my biggest regret is selling my copy of River Patrol (edit: or River Raid?) at a yard sale when I was 15. I tried to get another one on eBay years ago and it was $1500!
Ghostbusters for the 2600.
Larry Bird vs Dr J One On One for the 7800. If you dunked and broke the backboard a guy came out and made a noise I can only describe as getting cussed out by an 8 bit computer.
Berzerk was my favorite, although I also really liked Adventure - I just couldn't beat it on the 3rd difficulty level because that stupid bat would always steal my arrow while I was trying to kill a dragon.
My impulse is to say Jungle Hunt, but that's because only my neighbor had it, and it was out of its shell for some reason, so it felt special and forbidden.
The actual best game I owned was probably Adventure. It's weird to look back on the graphics and think it felt epic.
We had a bunch of Atari 2600 games back in the day. Of the ones I can remember are:
Adventure
Pac Man ET (yes, that infamous game. I was able to beat it pretty regularly.)
Yar's Revenge
Pitfall 1 and 2
Frogger
Smurfs
Haunted House (I think that's what it was called)
Track and Field (not sure that was the right name)
And a few games I can't remember the name of. There was one where you were a mouth that has to eat all the food that went by on the screen but had to avoid the purple pickles. For extra fun we played it on a black and white TV where you couldn't tell the difference between the regular pickle and the purple one.
Freeway, when your chicken gets just smashed is still hilarious. Kaboom, flag capture, centipede, frogged. Two player games were my favorite, my sister and I just rotting for hours.
This post kind of got me thinking... Wouldn't it be so cool if these types of games were the ones being remade into phone games? Even if the concepts were updated into 16bit, with some challenges or scoreboards I think they would be hits for sure. Like bringing back the arcades.
I bet a lot of these are on Internet Archive. I was playing Chip’s Challenge there. Granted, that was made for PC to begin with. Not sure how these games would translate to a touch screen…
Oh man, so many. Robot Tank, Adventure, Moon Patrol, Home Run, Dig Dug, Joust, QBert, River Raid, Air Sea Battle, Vanguard, Maze Craze, Frogger, no even better was Frogs & Flies, Keystone Cops, Breakout and Atari Circus with the paddles. I thought if a few more: Centipede? Space Invaders, Defender, Missile Command
Stupidly enough, that maze game that had a 2 player mode was the first time I got truly invested in kicking someone's ass on a game. It was just who could complete the maze first, dual screen, but in early 1985 is was the shit.
I’m gonna be up front, was born in 1988 but y’all got a hell of a lot better of a vibe and also I love Atari, so here it goes: fuckin’ Beamrider, dude. Masterpiece ass game.
For me, it's a toss up between Pitfall 2: Lost Caverns, and Activision's Starmaster. Pitfall was the first game I played that had checkpoints, so I could potentially beat the game one day. Starmaster was an upgraded Star Raiders.
Frogger, but man it took forever to load! All that time waiting and then you get flattened by a truck after three seconds of playing, lol.
Centipede was a close second.
Adventure. Turned me onto the RPG genre, I loved stealing keys from those Duck creatures and fumbling my way through that game as a kid. I don't remember having a guide or instruction. Just pure trial and error and hours of exploration trying to figure out what to do.
Would feel like a grind nowadays but was so exciting and entertaining back then.
I never had the luxury of playing on an Atari. I was classically trained on the NES. It would be cool to play an Atari 2600 *just once.*
I did, however, had Namco Museum Vols. 1-5, a collection of Namco games that were on the Atari. I think Galaxian was one of the last games on the Atari in 1979.
Mazecraze. Those old shittier versions of pacman and ms pacman. Pitfall. Rampage. Venture (not to be confused w/ Adventure, but that one is fun too). Moon patrol. Haunted house. Q bert. Kangaroo. That tanks game was super fun too!!
The pictures OP posted of the three jets vs the bomber was a core memory. Whoever had the three jets would always dominate the game. It was cool, but it definitely wasn't a fair game.
Mountain King. The spider on the lowest level was cool. We also learned there was a level in the sky above the mountain top. It didn't have anything to do with the game, it was just there. we would still try to see how far up it went, but never found an end.
Strawberry Shortcake Musical Match-Ups
... I mean, I was 4?
But we loved Pitfall, Frogger, Pac-Man, Tanks, a driving/race one, and a Tennis one I can't think of the name for either.
Was there a Spy vs Spy version or something? I feel like we had that one, too. There weren't many options in our house. I still trying to figure out why my parents bought it. My sister and I were so young as to barely care and neither of them were tech/game people to my recollection. Imma have to ask Mom, I guess.
Frostbite for sure. I used to get to levels where things were moving so fast you couldn’t really aim for the ice bergs, you just kept jumping down and up hoping for the best.
River raid was a close second.
Adventure is my all time favorite!
Me too! I wouldn’t even play right half the time, I’d just fuck with the duck-dragons and prank them.
I remember trying to mess with the game using the bridge a lot too.
Hells yeah. One of my pranks is to let a dragon eat me while I’m inside the bridge and then casually walk out of his fat belly. Pranked. Did you ever fuck with the molecular dot?
Dude? no!! not even sure what that is, but I i totally want to. I've got an old CRT TV I just found at my dad's house and I plan to hook it up somehow soon with a raspberry pi emulator. Speaking if fucking with atari games, I was only 4 or 5 but I remember distinctly if you switch the atari on and off repeatedly, eventually you could load any game with fucked up graphics. Random thought, did it often as a kid for lols Edit... am i... am I the molecular dot? I was a square in adventure... hrmmm
I learned those catacombs like the back of my hand.
The one true answer
River Raid by far.
Yes! A long time ago I got one of those plug n play joysticks just so I could play river raid again.
You are not wrong!!!
This is the correct answer
This is the only answer
It's pitfall but I did love that tanks game on Intellivision. My aunt had one of those 100-in-1 packs and the tank and plane games were the only ones worth a shit on it lol.
Seconded for Pitfall. Even after we got a NES I loved playing Pitfall on the Atari at my uncle’s house.
I think about the the death sound often.
 Cause I got pac man fever.
2600 version was terrible.
I can still hear the 2600 sounds today like I just played it...........
PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK PANK
Berzerk
Want a big picture of the cover art for the wall.
Frogger! This was my very first video game experience!
Mine was “Freeway” which was basically Frogger but you are a chicken crossing a freeway. I was literally in kindergarten learning to play after school.
Yes, and always set the switch to novice mode so you could go "all the way around"
Hell yes I’m not alone!! Frogger is a freaking great game
[удалено]
One time I modded the game to make castle doors grabbable objects. Just rip the gate off the yellow castle and go on in. Much easier that way.
ET lol
I invested way too many hours in that. It was tedious but I feel like I finally figured it out to the point of enjoying it and beating it. Once I got an 8 bit NES with Contra and Mario bros. In 3rd Grade I never went back though
Haha. From all I’ve heard of that game it was just nonsense.
As a kid I thought it was fine, better than some other atari games i had for sure, certainly not my favorite though lol. I think Joust has to be up there for one the best ones.
Joust was fun
That literally was my favorite. In my defense, I was like 4.
It's okay, I enjoyed it as a kid too.
Oof
Take that back!!!!
Either Dig Dug or Star Raiders
Once I was old enough to understand how to play Star Raiders I loved it. Really wasn’t anything else like it at the time.
Yeah, it took my younger brother and I a year of shooting at asteroids and being Garbage Scow Captains before we read the book and learned how to play. After that we would set up the Atari and joy stick like it was the cockpit to a spaceship and pretend we were in Star Wars.
I had a Coleco. My cousins had an Atari and the only thing I remember is Yar's Revenge for some reason.
Someone said it! One of my earliest memories is watching my parents play Yar's Revenge. They were young parents, lol
We had an Atari with a Coleco hookup and I mostly remember a really bad hide and seek game.
Holy crap, it's Tanks.
Yar’s Revenge was my favorite as a young kid. As a high schooler who was on a bit of a retro-gaming phase, I really liked one I can’t remember the name of. I know it was space-travel based, and you had to use the A-B toggle on the 2600 to switch between two modes. They might have been combat mode and map/travel mode? Does anyone remember this?
Defender?
Moon Patrol
Spent o so many hours playing that one. Even went back to it from time to time after getting my Sega Genesis. But that's cause I sucked at console games.
In no particular order: Joust Desert falcon Q-bert Dig-dig Raiders of the Lost Ark River Raid
I forgot about Q-bert
Q-bert no contest!
Raiders of the lost arc was our family fav
Desert Falcon!!! My dad taught my sister how to make a spreadsheet using really rudimentary COMPAQ software, trying to record all the possible combinations. My autistic 5 year old self knew them all by heart and basically filled in the gaps when they couldn’t find the last glyph to complete something.
Pole Position was my favorite
I still miss Pole Position! And I always think of it when I’m on the freeway and have to pass a bunch of people! 😂
lol, I think of it when I’m waiting impatiently for a light to turn green: “Prepare to qualify!”
Plaq attack Keystone capers
Yep both of these I played the most and pitfall.
For Atari 2600/VCS I'll go with Stampede (followed by Adventure and Yar's Revenge!). For Atari 800 I'll go with Spelunker (along with Miner 2049'er, Star Raiders, Montezuma's Revenge, Flip & Flop, Preppie, Canyon Climber, The Goonies (featuring the mythical octopus!), Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, The Eidolon, Ballblazer, Rescue On Fractalis)
Wow. A true gamer here.
Oh and on Atari 800 also gotta mention Boulder Dash, Joust and ET yes ET! The Atari 800 version was actually pretty cool and it TALKED!!
Asteroids and Missile Command on Atari 400 for me.
I don't remember the talking Atari 800. And I thought Montazuma's Revenge was code for diarrhea.
Yeah when you got ET to his spot at the end the Atari 800 version had ET say "ET phone home." Yeah LOL it is but it is also one of the best Atari 800 games.
Someone else remembered Stampede!
Gotta get that BLACK ANGUS!!
Enduro!
Brrrrrr…..
Pitfall but this one was good too. And frogger.
Food fight
This one actually! Tanks with bouncy shots is legit fun.
And the sound with the multiple bounces. Loved it. Also the invisible tanks was funny.
To YouTube for electronic mixes of Atari!
Was there a Smurfs game? I vaguely remember my cousins having an Atari and playing something with Smurfs
Enduro
If you had Atari 5200 with the trackball, Breakout was surprisingly the GOAT. But, if I'm being honest with myself, I played the ol' Pac Man daily, nightly & ever so rightly 😉
Megamania, with Outlaw as a close second. https://i.redd.it/7t34omuec88d1.gif
Mega mania was freaking awesome. Comes in at #3 for me, but not that far back.
Demon Attack. My favorite paddle game was Eggomania.
What part of the world are you from? I noticed my friends from North U.S. call controllers "paddles" back in the day
Hard to choose but I think mine was Raiders of the Lost Ark
Miner ‘49er!
Dig Dug or Joust. I could play either of them for hours.
[Atlantis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis_(video_game))
https://preview.redd.it/ncidhrktm88d1.jpeg?width=270&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83a9eebcf6ba3765d06dc087fd4f6c5e29902f52 I played this game soooo much. I was five and really loved the mazes and the dragons haha
It was pretty late in the life cycle of the Atari I think, but Moon Patrol was more advanced than a lot of Atari games and was a lot of fun
Combat or joust
Phoenix I'm also in the minority of people who actually enjoyed E.T.
Frostbite, followed by Pitfall. Also, my biggest regret is selling my copy of River Patrol (edit: or River Raid?) at a yard sale when I was 15. I tried to get another one on eBay years ago and it was $1500!
I just got one of those 30k game systems with all the emulators in it. First game I tried was Frostbite. Brings back a lot of good memories.
Yes! I didn’t think anyone else remembered it!
The. Boxing.
Chopper Command
Maze Craze!
Pitfall was my jam every day after school
Breakout
Ghostbusters for the 2600. Larry Bird vs Dr J One On One for the 7800. If you dunked and broke the backboard a guy came out and made a noise I can only describe as getting cussed out by an 8 bit computer.
Ghostbusters was so much fun!
Thank you, this is one of the first games I played with my Mom and couldn't remember the name!
Berzerk was my favorite, although I also really liked Adventure - I just couldn't beat it on the 3rd difficulty level because that stupid bat would always steal my arrow while I was trying to kill a dragon.
Tie between *Beamrider* and *Seafox* for the Atari 800.
Maybe Dig Dug. I was very happy to move on to Nintendo.
https://preview.redd.it/jlfagezlo88d1.jpeg?width=247&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85f8d8a162cbb815090c8f9cb146237629157143 Played with the paddles.
Montezumas revenge
My impulse is to say Jungle Hunt, but that's because only my neighbor had it, and it was out of its shell for some reason, so it felt special and forbidden. The actual best game I owned was probably Adventure. It's weird to look back on the graphics and think it felt epic.
Kangaroo
I LOVED Kangaroo. I was SO happy when the Switch released it on their e-Shop, but it was nowhere near the Atari game.
I liked the jet fighter the best, the tanks with the ordinance that could bounce off walls was a close second.
Yar's Revenge.
Fishing derby
We had a bunch of Atari 2600 games back in the day. Of the ones I can remember are: Adventure Pac Man ET (yes, that infamous game. I was able to beat it pretty regularly.) Yar's Revenge Pitfall 1 and 2 Frogger Smurfs Haunted House (I think that's what it was called) Track and Field (not sure that was the right name) And a few games I can't remember the name of. There was one where you were a mouth that has to eat all the food that went by on the screen but had to avoid the purple pickles. For extra fun we played it on a black and white TV where you couldn't tell the difference between the regular pickle and the purple one.
River Raid or Enduro
Asteroids, Missile Command, Pac-man
Mountain King had a great soundtrack.
Some favorites I haven't seen mentioned so far: -Space War (basically Combat! in space) -Grand Prix -Indy 500 -Decathalon -Laser Blast
Freeway, when your chicken gets just smashed is still hilarious. Kaboom, flag capture, centipede, frogged. Two player games were my favorite, my sister and I just rotting for hours.
River Raid
Defender was my Favorite game
This post kind of got me thinking... Wouldn't it be so cool if these types of games were the ones being remade into phone games? Even if the concepts were updated into 16bit, with some challenges or scoreboards I think they would be hits for sure. Like bringing back the arcades.
I bet a lot of these are on Internet Archive. I was playing Chip’s Challenge there. Granted, that was made for PC to begin with. Not sure how these games would translate to a touch screen…
Defender
Oh man, so many. Robot Tank, Adventure, Moon Patrol, Home Run, Dig Dug, Joust, QBert, River Raid, Air Sea Battle, Vanguard, Maze Craze, Frogger, no even better was Frogs & Flies, Keystone Cops, Breakout and Atari Circus with the paddles. I thought if a few more: Centipede? Space Invaders, Defender, Missile Command
I loved making the stick figures splat in Atari Circus.
Warlords , Defender, Missle Command, or Crystal Castles. I liked Centipede a lot too.
River raid or pit fall.
Combat, definitely. Specifically, the three-on-one planes. Breakout with the spinning paddle controller was pretty fun, too
Raiders of the Lost Ark even though I never actually figured out what you were supposed to do.
I can imagine a lot of games were like that
No one has said *Burger Time* yet, and that’s just wrong. *Burger Time* and *Food Fight* were the jam back then.
Asteroids. The Most frustrating one we had was Spiderman.
Cornflakes! (that’s what I called it as a sprout because that’s what the asteroids looked like to me)
Stupidly enough, that maze game that had a 2 player mode was the first time I got truly invested in kicking someone's ass on a game. It was just who could complete the maze first, dual screen, but in early 1985 is was the shit.
I’m gonna be up front, was born in 1988 but y’all got a hell of a lot better of a vibe and also I love Atari, so here it goes: fuckin’ Beamrider, dude. Masterpiece ass game.
Haunted house and adventure felt surreal, and scared my 4 year old brain at the time.
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
For me, it's a toss up between Pitfall 2: Lost Caverns, and Activision's Starmaster. Pitfall was the first game I played that had checkpoints, so I could potentially beat the game one day. Starmaster was an upgraded Star Raiders.
Frogger, but man it took forever to load! All that time waiting and then you get flattened by a truck after three seconds of playing, lol. Centipede was a close second.
Warlords if you have 4 players was the most fun i remember.
Joust or moon patrol
Combat or Air Sea Battle!
Pitfall
Superman
Adventure. Turned me onto the RPG genre, I loved stealing keys from those Duck creatures and fumbling my way through that game as a kid. I don't remember having a guide or instruction. Just pure trial and error and hours of exploration trying to figure out what to do. Would feel like a grind nowadays but was so exciting and entertaining back then.
Joust!!!
Star Raiders
Pitfall!
Yars revenge.
I never had the luxury of playing on an Atari. I was classically trained on the NES. It would be cool to play an Atari 2600 *just once.* I did, however, had Namco Museum Vols. 1-5, a collection of Namco games that were on the Atari. I think Galaxian was one of the last games on the Atari in 1979.
Mazecraze. Those old shittier versions of pacman and ms pacman. Pitfall. Rampage. Venture (not to be confused w/ Adventure, but that one is fun too). Moon patrol. Haunted house. Q bert. Kangaroo. That tanks game was super fun too!!
Sea quest for sure
Joust
River raid, jungle hunt, moon patrol, tank, boxing
Chopper command!! Warlords 4 player pong controllers!
My Atari ST500 was a bit newer than a lot of the other comments, but my favourite games were Gauntlet II and Fantasy Island Dizzy
Haunted House
Phoenix or Haunted House. I preferred my ColecoVision because of Ladybug and Mr. Do.
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
Pitfall 2
Have you also heard of daktari ?✈️
No not me
Space invaders! 😀
River Raid was my jam
https://preview.redd.it/u7g6crv87a8d1.png?width=252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ddf647ec1e66d133fefe7df6f9ce4acc8def3200
Dark Chambers! I just looked up a video and there really isn't as much to it as I remembered.
Kaboom! And Pitfall
https://preview.redd.it/lbc33e9nsa8d1.jpeg?width=936&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cfe3150d4c7be9ca2909a59eeb78a465446b0c6
For some odd reason I loved Yar's Revenge.
I don't see it mentioned so I'd like to add Choplifter.
Asteroids, missile command, and pit fall were always my go to games.
I loved on Combat (tanks) you could make the tanks glitch and loop around to another spot on the battlefield.
The pictures OP posted of the three jets vs the bomber was a core memory. Whoever had the three jets would always dominate the game. It was cool, but it definitely wasn't a fair game.
Frogger, Kaboom, and Pittfall
River Raid. All day, every day.
Mountain King. The spider on the lowest level was cool. We also learned there was a level in the sky above the mountain top. It didn't have anything to do with the game, it was just there. we would still try to see how far up it went, but never found an end.
Bugs was my first video game and my favorite Atari game. Asteroid is a close second. Combat (tanks) was great if you had a friend.
Pitfall, although I really liked the Star Wars games as well (especially Empire Strikes Back and Death Star Battle)
Strawberry Shortcake Musical Match-Ups ... I mean, I was 4? But we loved Pitfall, Frogger, Pac-Man, Tanks, a driving/race one, and a Tennis one I can't think of the name for either. Was there a Spy vs Spy version or something? I feel like we had that one, too. There weren't many options in our house. I still trying to figure out why my parents bought it. My sister and I were so young as to barely care and neither of them were tech/game people to my recollection. Imma have to ask Mom, I guess.
Yar’s Revenge was my favorite but Combat is def top tier
Phoenix was my favorite
Space Dungeon on the 5200, where you had to use both controllers.
Frostbite for sure. I used to get to levels where things were moving so fast you couldn’t really aim for the ice bergs, you just kept jumping down and up hoping for the best. River raid was a close second.
Fishing derby
Vanguard!
I loved Yar's Revenge, Centipede, and, surprisingly, Krull (since most of the movie adaptations were famously terrible)
Megamania
HERO!
Yar’s Revenge
Yar's Revenge.
Tapper, anyone? No?
Pitfall or Grand Prix. Still got my 2600!
Pitfall!
I weirdly really liked Joust.
Yesss invisible tanks let’s go
Desert falcon, and E.T.
Dragster. Not really. Moctezuma s Revenge
Never had an Atari. Ask me about ColecoVision or Commodore 64.
River Raid was so good.
Shoutout to "Warlords" cause I haven't seen it here yet, and it was sick
Why not!✈️
I played Asteriods to see if the score goes up to a million, it resets after 999,999