Atari Image Gallery

Pitfall, Galaxian, Asteroids, and Breakout. Nothing beats turning off all the lights and playing a few hours of Atari. I'm glad I stopped to make this post because I just remembered I have a USB Atari joystick for exactly this occasion. 

Also this post is an Atari Image Gallery. Some of these are screenshots I took, and others are just artworks I've collected from the web.

Atari 5200 Ad

Nobody is hotter than Atari this summer. Check out this radical advert for the new 5200 Computer System. Far out! Totally!

Asteroids Atari 2600/VCS

One of my favorite games on the 2600, Asteroids uses the hardware well to create an addicting game with a fun premise. Everyone like space shooters, and the idea of being a rogue fighter pilot is classic. It's almost as if the display could actually be a representation of a futuristic ship, something of a remote-control Ender's Game type situation. 

After a few practice runs, I managed to roll the score over twice and get 247,940 points tonight. My strategy is pretty basic: I never fly around, just spin and shoot the closest asteroid. Getting the angles right is key, but the game remains challenging. I never have more than 10 lives stored up, and when one life is lost, a few more tend to follow. 

Asteroids is reason enough to own an Atari, and it and Missile Command are available on most of the Atari reproduction consoles and collections.

In some ways, I like this version better than the arcade original. The arcade game tends to be about keeping 1 asteroid on the the screen and farming UFOs. That's not how you play the one on the Atari, and in that sense it's a much better game. Having to farm UFOs (or spiders in Centipede) can only hold one's attention for so long, and I think that's the reason game with progressive levels (Missile Command, Galaga, Galaxian, Pac-Man) continue to be more popular.

There is no reason to ever be bored if you own Asteroids for the Atari 2600.