A History of All Atari Made Atari 2600 Games Introduction

 

Introduction

The Atari 2600 was one of the most popular consoles of the second generation of home consoles. For a time Atari was the king of the video game industry. At one time Atari had been the fastest growing company. The Atari 2600 was the first console system for many people. This book covers all the games that were made by the Atari company itself for the 2600.

The Atari 2600 was released in 1977. At first, Atari was the only company to make games but over time more and more firms would come in and make games for the system. This is part of what lead to the Video Game Crash of 83. The Video Game Crash nearly destroyed both the arcade and home consoles. The Atari 2600 would ride out the storm and continue until 1992 when the system was finally discontinued. It would be one of the longest lasting consoles. It would last long enough to not only see the third generations of home consoles but the fourth generations as well.

You may see some patterns emerge as you read about each game. As is common for games at the start of a console's life the earliest games were graphically and technologically inferior to later games for the system. The earliest games for Atari would often be electronic versions of real-world games and original games were not common until later.

Eventually, Atari would make more original games which were new to the 2600. These games would range from ones that are fondly remembered, forgotten but decent games, and games you wish you would forget.

While original games were made for the Atari 2600 it also featured tons of ports of popular games. Ports of arcades games made by Atari were the most common. A pattern emerges here as well. Many games sold very well and were similar to the arcade counterpart. However, it was also common to see games which were nothing like the original game which they were a port of, or they were poor ports of the game.

Finally, the end of the system saw games that were great compared to the earlier games. These games could not compete with games made for new systems of the time. Now that you have gotten a brief introduction it is time to play the games.

More of the book coming soon!