I really wish I had discovered River Raid at an earlier time in life, I really enjoy playing it, even though I suck at it, but I can easily see why it is remembered in such a good light.

There is no ending and it is interesting how the developer did it. She programmed a random generator into the code and broke the screen up into three sections along the horizontal. This gives the game variety, allows endless levels, and likely you never play the same game twice (though the actual variety of visuals is limited by the cart size).

Just so amazing what they were doing back in the day, then add in what more modern developers are doing with their knowledge of new game ideas, tricks, etc and it is likely the Atari 2600 will never truly die.