51 of the BEST Atari 2600+ Games You Must Get & Current Values!

you know the Atari 2600 plus has been trending big time since it was released in November and it's got about 98% compatibility with the Atari 2600 cartridge Library Atari is feverishly working on some updates for this bad boy and well well the first ones will be coming out very soon so I'm told hey everyone I'm Dr Scott and welcome to the game closet where we talk about and review video games with a comedy twist now over the last couple of months I gave you guys what I feel are some of the essential Atari 2600 games Atari published games and third party games there's tons of retro fun in these games and here are 51 of those games for you with their current loose price charting values so you'll know what to expect when hunting for these Classics so cuddle up with your brand new Atari 2600 Plus or your heavy sixer and grab some popcorn and let's Dive In [Music] Style asteroids is one of my personal favorites on the 2600 even though this arcade translation is a tad repetitive there are many variations on this two-player game that give you many ways to shoot up the space rocks satellites and UFOs it's a really good time and I can play this thing until I flip it which I believe is 100,000 points Missile Command is another great arcade port and it's fairly faithful as well your six cities are under attack by missiles and bombs your job is to guide your missiles to intercept the incoming threats it gets faster as you progress now Missile Command is a true Gem and it was one of the original games that I had for my 2600 when I was a kid and I have a lot of nostalgia for this game no you don't have a roller ball like you would have in the arcade but the joystick operates fantastically for this excellent arcade title the Atari 2600 was no stranger to Arcade ports and this is the third one on the list it's Space Invaders move your base behind the shield to shoot the incoming aliens now that's pretty simple but they do move faster the more you shoot them and they get closer and closer to you as they fire their lasers at you if they land you're dead that's it simple and quick there's tons of variations on this cartridge so you can have hours and hours of fun Activision's Pitfall may be the very first sidescrolling Adventure game you are p fall hairy and your job is simple pick up all the loot you can as you run through the jungle avoiding the deadly creatures sink holes and rolling logs the crocodiles may get a free lunch if you slip up so just don't slip up freeway is the second entry on this list by Activision and I love playing this game with my little girl it's a great time for kids and adults alike because the premise is as simple as the old joke why did the chicken cross the road so grab the joystick can move your chicken up or down to avoid the oncoming traffic now one or two players can play you can choose the type of traffic patterns cars or trucks faster or slower Etc why' the chicken cross the road well to play freeway of course he Magic's classic Space Invaders clone demon attack is more than meets the eye and it's more than just a clone especially if you aren't on your toes the space demons attack as your ship fires upon them now they get faster and they change types as you progress and eventually they split in two then dive bomb at you demon attack is fun and it can get very fast and nerve-wracking it's a must have Miz Pac-Man doesn't look like the arcade game but Atari at least made a real effort here and this is a fantastic Port even on the Atari 2600 Miz Pac-Man runs from the ghost eating the pellet and the super pellets give her the ability to eat the ghosts The Mazes actually change every couple rounds when you complete them it's simple and fun unlike that other game they made the Empire Strikes Back is a fairly simple game but it's worth your time unlike the other Star Wars games on the 2600 your snow speeder flies at the snow Walkers shooting them to take them down bomb hatches appear occasionally on the adats and a sharp shot to them will immediately destroy the Adat stay alive for 2 minutes and the force will be with you making you invulnerable for 20 seconds it can get repetitive but most games from this era are repetitive The Empire Strikes Back is a worthy entry for the Atari 2600 from the Star Wars franchise Activision had a few few racing titles but Enduro was the ultimate racing title on the 2600 far better than pole position in my opinion because as you race you must pass the shown amount of cars before the sun comes up yes there is a day and night driving feature and fog hence the endurance and Enduro your driver drives night and day to win the race the sound and Graphics give you the sense of speed even on the Atari 2600 playable for more than 10 minutes for sure Enduro is the greatest of Atari 2600's racing games well in my opinion in Activision's hero you play as rodri hero flying his helicopter pack into mines to rescue trapped miners our hero has to avoid creepy crawlies lava and blow up walls with dynamite or his laser all before the power runs out in his helicopter pack each level gets more and more difficult and is arguably one of the best games for the Atari 2600 heck just ask metal Jesus I have never played a bad version of digdug the Atari 2600 may not look as sparkly as its bigger Brothers like the 7800 [Applause] version but the game play is there and so is the fun you are digdug digging through the soil trying to eliminate the pukas and the dragon likee fryars watch out they breathe fire armed with your handy dandy air pump and The Rock above you you clear the screen and get onto the next level but watch out these little critters can phase themselves through the dirt to try to catch you smash the button to pump those baddies full of air and full of fun in this arcade Port you play as the cute penguin pengo now your job is to kill the snow bees with ice blocks before they kill you all while trying to get three diamond blocks together in a row for bonus points the bonus points aren't easy to get either especially if you're trying to go for the 10,000 points as opposed to the 5,000 5,000 if they're against the wall and 10,000 if they're in the middle of the maze not touching the wall I have played this game for hours in one sitting before and it can be quite addictive as most good arcade games are this one can go for around $40 loose but honestly it's worth every penny Parker Brothers brings the Sega retro arcade Masterpiece Frogger home and you know what all of the fun is right here as our cute little frog friend you jump across the river avoiding oncoming traffic to get to the river once at the river you jump on to logs and turtles backs in order to get to your Lily Pad bonuses appear as lady frogs asking for help to the other side and flies to eat on your Lily Pad don't fall in or get eaten by the crocodiles because frog legs are on the menu like many Atari titles the arcade game Mr du came home to the Delight of 2600 owners Mr du a circus clown digs his way through tunnels on the map collecting cherries and running from the creeps his bouncing Powerball and the movable giant apples are his only defense against the little buggers eliminating the lettered creeps to spell extra gets Mr du an extra life the Atari version is one more arcade feather in atari's arcade cap becoming a Starfleet captain isn't easy Mr Sulu plot an intercept course that's why the Star Trek strategic operations simulator was developed to Herald in a new class of future officers with three-dimensional thinking piloting the USS Enterprise in the simulation your mission is to save space stations from the Klingons visual Battle Stations all while managing your ship's energy weapons and shield levels too many hits to the shields will leave you vulnerable to destruction in the vacuum of space Shield's collapsing Captain yet another absolute Atari favorite of mine and this arcade Port does quite well to translate the game to home consoles any suggestions Admiral prayer Mr savic the Klingons don't take [Music] prisoners in berserk your character is running through endless mazes with electrified walls shooting laser firing robots sounds fun doesn't it where's Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator when you need him don't hang about in any room too long or evil Auto a big bouncing smiley face that's so evil will come to kill you run shoot and don't touch sounds like security at a Los Angeles Nordstrom store minus the shooting of course either way berserk is a great title that no Atari collection should be without well it's time to connect up the pedal controllers because it is time for you and up to three friends to play Warlords each player is a knight defending his warlord who sits behind a defensive wall of blocks each player catches bounces or throws a fireball in play at the other walls to destroy the blocks and an attempt to destroy the other player's Warlord the last warlord standing is the winner for the round now this game is best played with at least one other person as the computer players can act erratically and sometimes they're playing suicidal long before the dawn of Halo land parties there was Warlords your ship is an arc in Space the cosmic Arc is traveling through the universe collecting new species from other planets these species are guarded by by automatic lasers that will shoot your landing craft upon approach beam up the Little Critters before the asteroid alarm sounds off or you might get hit by an asteroid then get back into space now once back in the void you defend your Arc from incoming asteroid attacks from four sides the game gets faster and faster until well ultimately Kaboom Cosmic Arc supplied hours of fun for me and my neighborhood friends back in the day and should give you some challenges today as well this game is based on the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage of the same name your ship of doctors is shrunk down to microscopic size then injected into patients in order to save them from their bodies parasites and ultimately unclog a deadly blood clot before moving on to the next patient it's sort of like riverid inside a human it's fast and fun especially if you read the manual beforehand to know what you're doing you don't want to hit the sides of the walls and cause antibodies to come out and you don't want to hit the white blood cells either some things you're supposed to shoot and some things you're not supposed to so be a good doctor and well save your patient well we've arrived at my absolute favorite Atari game of all time Activision sequ Quest it's really simple it gets really really fast and it is a lot of fun your sub is diving to search for lost divers here's the simple part shoot everything that moves underwater see a Barracuda how about a sub shoot them now the divers can't be shot but you touch them to pick them up you get six divers then you head to the surface before you run out of oxygen be sure to surface after the patrol boat goes by or he'll just crash right into you now if you begin to run out of air before you get to six divers surfacing for air will remove one of the divers from your sub count it gets really fast so be ready to dive and remember in this game there's no calling for a bigger boat you're going to need a bigger boat Activision's pit Fall 2 is arguably one of the top games to play on the 2600 it stretched the limits of graphics and sound and implemented A specialized sound chip just for this game but that is the reason it won't work on the emulation console Retron 77 let's check the Atari 2600 plus compatibility list untested Atari didn't test it well since Pitfall 2 may be a questionable title and it may not work on atari's new 2600 plus I'm going to recommend a a game that was tested beam Rider Activision's beam Rider is arguably one of the top games to play on the 2600 and it will work on the 2600 plus but the similar home brew Juno 1st may not in beam Rider your ship flies high above the Earth around a restrictor Shield shooting at enemies attempting to destroy you and annihilate the planet now as Shooters go like Space Invaders and galaxian beam Rider is much more fast-paced and that's why people love this game a real must have for your arari collection did you ever wonder what happened to the people of Atlantis well they fought to keep their last existing City safe from the Gorgon in the a magic video game for the 2600 you control three gun bases that fire at the invading Gorgon once your bases are destroyed the game is over think Missile Command meets air sea Battle but much prettier ultimately the cities are destroyed and the remaining survivors Escape at the end and that's where Cosmic Ark comes into play wizard of War for the 2600 is an arcade Port that frankly I am really surprised even exists when you look at Atari Pac-Man then this game you wonder how Atari messed Pac-Man up so badly your Warrior wanders around the maze hunting various monsters it's far simpler than the arcade version but if you dig the original 2600 version there was an Atari home brew that was even better and the Commodore 64 version is just stunning Monster hunting on the Atari 2600 who would have thought the arcade Originals of centipede and milliped are pillars of the quarter plunking 1980s when it was ported to home consoles they did an admirable job representing Archer and the villainous millipede and his other creepy crawly foes in the mushroom Garden the major difference is the horizontal screen versus the vertical or portrait screen with the 2600 Port of course the finer graphical details are traded for the typical Atari Sprites but the gameplay is mostly the same standing side by side you can tell they are cousins that play the same game and that's what matters hey Yar I thought I told you not to come back in here you want some y's Revenge huh so what are you going to do about it butthead huh you think you could beat me by nibbling through my shield and blow me up with your zoron Cannon huh I have my weapons too pal I have a smart missile that's going to follow you around and keep you moving or eventually hit you with my fiery swirl keep trying y cuz I'm not going to stop butthead say hi to your M for me Activision presents Mega Mania a new video game for your Atari video computer system 1 2 back in the day my best friend Greg and I saw the commercial for Mega Mania on TV and we lost it it was the best Marketing in the world to capture the imaginations of 21 year-old kids and make them want to buy this crazy Activision shooter your Enterprise likee ship blasts away a falling enemies of various shapes and each wave moves in unique trajectories to keep you hopping this is no Space Invaders and it's no Galaga either in my opinion it's far more difficult and our friend Gary carnucci co-founder of corgs Gaming Expo in Columbus well this is his favorite game of all time hey he's got good taste oh on a side note when the commercial was finished for Activision well Greg and I were blown away but my dad was standing there and he was from the old old school he looked at us both and said looks like a bunch of hippie then he left the room what do you say to that Mega Mania is a video nightmare because it's impossible to stop as a kid I loved haunted house today I have great Nostalgia for the original game but since Atari built in variants on the cartridge they made the simpler first variant seem like a baby toy you roam through this Haunted Mansion with 24 rooms searching for three pieces of the ear belonging to the House's ghost Zachary Graves the ghost is accompanied by a bat and a tarantula to thwart you from getting the completed earn and exiting the front door as an adult you should try the variant where all the rooms are dark there are more enemies creatures move the ear pieces randomly and some doors are permanently locked it can be a real Challenge and that's all courtesy of a game made in 1982 IM Magic's games rivaled Activision and creativity like Activision a few of atari's designers left the company to begin a new one so they could have some creative control that all said laser Gates is a sidescrolling shooter where you guide your ship through a cavernous cryptic computer that has electrified Gates and other enemies in order to destroy the four fail safes and stop the computer from self-destructing although it has mixed reviews it's faster paced than the Atari 2600 version of Vanguard and is challenging enough to keep you coming back for more and more this arcade Port of tidos arcade game has simpler gameplay but don't let it fool you into thinking simple can't mean challenging or frustrating you play as a safari Adventurer swinging through the jungle swimming crocodile filled Rivers armed with a knife and it's not easy to kill those buggers either let me tell you plus you dodge smaller and larger Boulders then jump over evil cannibals in order to save your beautiful lady companion my local Hills depart store back in the day used to have this out in the vestibule and let me tell you I plunk down tons of quarters on this game and I was happy to bring it home on the Atari 2600 we go back to Activision Stables again to play River raid a vertical shooter where you fly your jet Behind Enemy Lines destroying all the enemy Bridges boats planes and helicopters you can possibly find while refueling your jet along the way speed up or slow down to shoot the enemy and watch you don't accidentally dive bom into them it's a fun Atari 2600 game that's easy to see where truckton got its SE legs Tron yes Mark truckton rules but so does River raid my grandmother used to play two Atari games with me and one of them was airc Battle also known as Target fun under the Sears telegames label it's a carnival shooter where you drop bombs on ships from airplanes or shoot aircraft From Below plus it has a shooting gallery it was one of atari's launch titles and it's a fun title that has really stood the test of time if a kid and his grandma can play it together it's a keeper and a game the whole family can play you know I never played Activision's frostbite back in the day when I was a kid and didn't play it until it was recommended to me about 5 or 6 years ago you play as frostbite Bailey and your job is to build igloos by jumping on the ice floating on the river but king crabs geese clams and polar bears attempt to stop your igloo building plus the temperature stop you too jumping back and forth across the ice flows much like Frogger on the river builds your igloo block by block as the ice in the river changes from white to Blue building the igloo it's a lot of fun and it can be challenging frostbite was a surprise to me and I'm sure you'd want it for your collection too in 1986 Atari produced Junior Pac-Man and I will tell you what it's hard the ghosts are much more aggressive and it's a good thing they gave us a huge maze with with a screen that Scrolls back and forth I have played this game many many times and I will tell you that I've never gotten Beyond clearing two mazes it's a real Challenge and if you're not an Atari Enthusiast at all because you think the games are too simplistic this one is the one that's going to change your mind Junior Pac-Man is much closer to the game that atari's Pac-Man should have been I want to be upfront with you all I capture all my Atari footage including this super breakout footage using my hyperen Retron 77 via HDMI output now the Retron 77 does very poorly with paddle games it's extremely Hit or Miss as you can see here on the Retron footage it works perfectly on all of my actual Atari 2600s of course and my paddles have zero Jitter as I refurbish them myself according to Atari they tested super breakout on the Atari 2600 plus and it works just fine with paddles super breakout is a brick breaking game where you bounce the ball off the paddle at the bricks it has many variants and it's a wonderful title for your collection and you should grab a copy for your Atari 2600 I'm just sorry I don't have good footage to show you Parker Brothers made a more than decent Port of cubert for the 2600 cubert is in the class of the first isometric video games ever and as cubert you jump up and down a 3D pyramid to turn the 28 cubes a different color by making contact with them all the while you're being chased by different creatures attempting to kill you pretty typical in most video games it's also possible to fall right off the pyramid also cubert has Escape discs at his disposal on either side of the pyramid they help him Escape certain death and they transport him back to the top of the pyramid the 2600 version isn't as pretty as its more advanced cousins on the 5200 8 bit or kico Vision but it's a great Port nonetheless in turmoil by 20th Century Fox your ship is trapped in a place facing seven tunnels you can travel vertically up and down a column that intersects the tunnels in order to shoot the enemies that attempt to crash into you an orb can occasionally appear at the end of the tunnel and if you act quick you can grab it for a bonus but if you're too slow it will turn into a missile that will detonate upon impact it's a very fast-paced shooter hence the title turmoil Stargate also known as Defender 2 published by Atari is a fantastic game that looks almost exactly like the arcade game what a fantastic Port right here on the Atari 2600 but let's look at atari's very own Atari 2600 plus compatibility list wait a second Defender 2 isn't even on the list what about Stargate untested Atari didn't even test their own damn game well as great of a game as it is we're going to have to wait to see if it will work on the Atari 2600 hold the phone chat Atari did test argate after the original video was made and I tested it too and yes it works so if you're up for a very faithful Port of the arcade game on the Atari 2600 plus it works then this game should be in your collection but it's going to cost you around [Music] $17 Spiderman by Parker Brothers is the game that Crazy Climber for the 2600 by Atari should have been and it's tested on the 2600 plus as working yes sir re Bob yes you play as Spider-Man web slinging your way up the skyscraper to catch criminals randomly moving from window to window and you must reach the bombs at the top of the building planted by the Green Goblin catching criminals helps replenish your depleting web fluid if you run out you will fall to your doom reach the bombs at the top of the building before you run out of web fluid Spiderman Spider-Man does whatever a spider can and does it better than crazy Climer on the 2600 Mario Bros or Mario Brothers if you're from the other side of the fence yes that's correct Nintendo's Mario Bros is on the Atari 2600 it is the same game albeit not graphically as awesome as the arcade version or the 7800 version or other ports but it's the same game playing alone as Mario or co-op with Luigi the two plumbers must Chase Turtles crabs fighter flies and other icky creatures out of the pipes bonus stages offer you coins like the arcade game and it's Mario Bros on the Atari 2600 come on but if you want an even prettier game grab grab it for the 7800 either way it's fun from Nintendo with love now before you Gran I know it's a movie tie-in game but hear me out Gremlins for the Atari 2600 is two games in one on the very first screen you are Billy catching mwai falling off a roof kind of like Kaboom in an attempt to stop them from eating hamburgers after midnight when the wave is over you go to a second screen to shoot the oncoming Gremlins before they get you the faster the game gets the more the Gremlins multiply the game can get quite fast-paced and crazy and guess what it's a film tie-in and it's a great asset for your Atari 2600 and for your 2600 Plus I spent many hours playing galaxian on my Atari 2600 and it's just a great Port of the arcade game period the premise is that your Starship is supposed to clear each wave of the attacking dive bombing aliens the different colors are worth various points and if they are in flight when you shoot them they're worth even more each color of alien also has its own flight and attack pattern so they may slam into you if you're not keeping watch Atari really knew what they were doing when they future proofed this game way back in the 1980s want to fight off some of Activision spiders well son 1982 spider fighter is the place you do it you blast spiders and other little iys to save an Orchard's crop of fruits this is a challenging game where the bugs are relentlessly firing at you as they wor about spiders and icky bug nests yuck as much as I love spider fighter well I need a lot more practice at it because I stink fast food is a surreal enough game that you may think it was made by surrealist painter Salvador Dolly but it wasn't it's so simple in concept you're a pair of lips chomping down on every piece of fast food thrown at you food food fight is a completely different game brother Bluto while you're eating gobble up as much as you can but if you you eat six purple pickles the restaurant feels you've had your fill and closes for the night it's fastmm moving fun that's surely Sur in your face you're so dumb well that wasn't nice Mattel made the intellivision gaming console and they made games for Atari 2 now that's double teaming she plays for both teams you play as Tron and you're in an arena playing the disc elimination tournament against various enemies Tron can withstand multiple disc hits from enemies but the enemies are eliminated with one hit you can lock doors and Escape through doors Allah Pac-Man style it can get fastpaced so watch your back user I have tons of nostalgia for atari's ported Defender while it's not a perfect PT and it's not as close to the arcade version as Stargate is atari's Defender is the seventh highest selling Atari 2600 game and over 3 million copies sold Defender is a horizontal shooter where your ship is defending astronut on the planet's surface from various Alien Invaders that try to kidnap and mutate the astronauts due to creative decisions Atari 2600's Defender looks and behaves a little differently in how it approaches weapons fire and hyperspace also there are no mountains and astronauts but cities and citizens a potato potato it's different but it's still good hey it's why I played the hell out of this game in the 80s Activision must have been taking a queue from atari's Defender then they said how can we simply y that and take it up a notch so they made a military helicopter shooter where you are protecting a convoy of trucks from enemy helicopters and jets it's fast-paced and of course it's fun and it takes a bit of patience to not just charge in and start blasting away because you'll get your butt handed to you you know you've done well when you hit 1 million points now just ask retro Bliss gaming he's done it I sure haven't cuz I suck you suuck Hey look it's Kaboom a paddle game that I can actually play on the Atari 2600 plus oh yeah I just love playing so I can finally record some Atari 2600 paddle games for you and one of the most popular paddle games is Kaboom by Activision the mad bomber is dropping bombs on you as quickly and as erratically as he can across the top of the screen your job is to catch the bombs in the three buckets with your paddle controller the game gets faster and you lose one bucket every time you miss a bomb the game is over when you kick your last bucket Moon Patrol is yet another Atari arcade Port you control the moon buggy scrolling to the right on the moon surface you must Dodge craters mines and moon rocks while shooting down different types of UFOs some can create new craters for you to fall into interestingly this is one of the first Home console games I recall there being check points now it's certainly not as easy as it looks and you can easily get caught up in Moon Patrol's Gra gravity of moon bouncing fun third party developer IM magic reaped gold once again with their fantastically imaginative game dragon fire the two-stage game has your player running across a castle drawbridge dodging the dragon's blasts as you run toward the castle once inside the castle you must Dodge the fire blasts as you steal the dragon's Treasures collect all the loot to open the door to the next level the next level begins with you on the drawbridge again dragon fire really keeps you on your toes and makes you wish for a pause button how about another game involving fire fire fire in Towering Inferno by Us games you are a firefighter looking for victims in a burning building putting out fires as you go there is a meter at the top of the screen that shows how many people you can save on that floor put out the Flames with your fire hose on each level so you can reach the panel that opens the exit door get out as quickly as possible in order to to save the remaining victims on your meter it's not a graphics Powerhouse by any means but the game play is solid and something different from just shooting Invaders demons birds or dive bombing ships fire I must admit I didn't play Stampede until about 8 or N9 years ago my younger son turned me on to it and thankfully he did Activision wants you to get those little doggies to get along by lassoing as many as you can without letting too many get past you if three cows get past you you're fired you'll spend lots of time rustling up them little doggies just make sure you don't get put out to pasture you're will there be more Atari 2600 plus essential games in the future we'll see you soon hey thanks so much for watching please hit the like button because it helps the YouTube algorithm spread the video to more awesome people just like you subscribe for more here in Dr Scott's game closet and there's plenty more where this one came from so click on a video for more video game Shenanigans we'll see you all very very soon

Channel: GAME CLOSET

Views: 5,955

Keywords: gaming, video games, retro, video, game, Game Closet, reviews, games, video game review, Atari 2600+, Atari 7800, Retron 77, Hyperkin, Combat, Haunted House, Missile Command, Yars' Revenge, Pac-Man 2600, Pole Position, Frogger, RealSports Boxing, Activision, Jr Pac-Man, Game Rant, Game Review, H.E.R.O., HERO, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Ms Pac-Man 2600, Ms Pac-Man, Beserk, Cosmic Ark, Defender, Stargate, qbert

Id: aq4oPDW9tb0

Length: 32min 4sec (1924 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 16 2023