Based on the short film of the same name, Alien Holocaust is an adventure game for the Atari 2600 where you must dodge the aliens, explore the scenarios, collect items, and, above all, try not to go crazy!
This classic Atari 2600 title is the first ever action-adventure game, spawning an entire genre. The developer, Warren Robinett, famously hid his name inside a secret room – which became the first ever Easter Egg to be released in a console game. Adventure was introduced to a new generation of fans by the character James Halliday in the novel Ready Player One, who says "finding Robinett’s Easter Egg for the first time was one of the coolest videogaming experiences of my life.”
Two 4-man teams. Each player controls one team member. Computer controls the other 3 men on each team, moving them to simulate two full 11-man teams. Two simulated 45-minute halves. Screen "scrolls" to follow the ball, so you can pass to an off-screen man. Player on defense can intercept passes or steal the ball. Scoreboard keeps track of goals scored, time left in each half and which half is being played.
With only a slingshot in hand our mighty little Hero is set to fight the mighty flame throwing Alien. Only by using his immense strength can our endangered Hero spin and hurl his arsenal of fireballs to successfully destroy the enemy. But at the same time, he must be wary of the Alien's savage attacks and do what he can to dodge the deadly missiles, otherwise he will lose his chance to defeat his adversary.
Gravitar is the Atari 2600 port of the arcade game of the same name, which is a color vector graphics arcade game released by Atari, Inc. in 1982. The player controls a small blue spacecraft in a fictional solar system with several planets to explore. If the player moves his ship into a planet, he will be taken to a side-view landscape. Unlike many other shooting games, gravity plays a fair part in Gravitar: the ship will be pulled slowly to the deadly star in the overworld, and downward in the side-view levels. In the side-view levels, the player has to destroy red bunkers that shoot constantly, and can also use the tractor beam to pick up blue fuel tanks. Once all of the bunkers are destroyed, the planet will blow up, and the player will earn a bonus. Once all planets are destroyed, the player will move onto another solar system.
Crystal Castles is the Atari 2600 port of an arcade game released by Atari, Inc. in 1983. The player controls a cartoon bear by the name of Bentley Bear, who has to collect gems located throughout trimetric-projected rendered castles while avoiding enemies out to get him as well as the gems.
Crystal Castles is notable for being one of the first arcade action games with an actual ending, whereas most games of the time either continued indefinitely, ended in what was termed a "kill screen" or simply just restarted from the first level, and to contain advance warp zones.
Motocross is a motorcycle racing game viewed from a top-down perspective. The player rides a bike against an endless number of opponents on a straight road, trying to avoid running into them. In addition, the player has to watch the amount of gas left in the tank. The goal of the game is to overtake a specified amount of bikes.
Ski Run is a downhill skiing game where player must avoid obstacles on the ski run with further distances earning higher scores. Don't hit trees, other people or animals while going down and make sure to jump over gaps.
Wizard was to be the last of Atari's 2600 games, but went unreleased in favor of the new 5200 games. Chris Crawford puts it this way:
"Wizard was spec'd as a 2K game, but just four months later, when it was ready, the marketing people had decided that everything should be 4K, so they asked me if I could expand it to 4K. To be honest, I really didn't want to work on the 2600 -- I was eager to get going on the 800. So I told them that you don't just expand a 2K game to 4K: you start from scratch and design it for 4K from the ground up. That was true, and marketing lost interest, so I got to move to the 800."
Since Wizard was never advertised in any Atari catalogs and it was never assigned a part number, most people don't even know if its existence.
Wizard can best be described as a cross between Berzerk and Wizard of Wor. You control a wizard (at least I think he's a wizard), who must attempt to destroy the swirling star shaped creature. The board layout is a giant maze, which makes it hard to run from the creatur