The Atari 2600 is practically a dinosaur, but when it was released we that were alive during that time were all overjoyed. Prior to that we only had a handful of games to play at the arcades and well, if you were my age at least, the quarters required to play them didn't ever go as far as you needed them to. So when the first major home console, the Atari 2600 was released, those of us who loved games were absolutely overjoyed.
To be honest with you I was too young to even know it existed, but once we had one thanks to my Papa, I was always on the lookout for new games. I would trade with friends and well, that was pretty much it. There was no internet back then so you relied almost entirely on word-of-mouth and whatever the local store had on display. Here are the games that I personally remember as being my favorites from that time. This may end up being a two-part thing. These are not in any particular order
Maze Craze
The levels were randomly created and it was 2-player. You had to find your way out of the maze before you pal did. I would play this now and after i finish writing this article I may do exactly that.
you could never become the best at this because you never knew what "level" was going to be introduced. I might be wrong about this but well, it was just lots of fun
River Raid
It was necessary to pick up fuel pods to keep going while dodging incoming fire and well, destroying stuff along the way. Was this the birthplace of shooters?
Circus
Look at this. It's F%%king stupid right? Well, in 1982 trying to get rid of all the "balloons" while on a teeter-totter launching two people up into the sky was the shizzle and I loved it.
Pitfall
This one you probably know regardless of your age. You could walk to the left or the right, taking shortcuts to jump the pixelated scorpions below or stay up top and face jumping on the backs of crocodiles. I have been told there is a way to "beat" this game but i never found it. It didn't stop me from playing it endlessly though.
Adventure
This one encapsulated a lot of my time as a kid. It deserves at least 2 pics.
Was this the birthplace of RPG's? It was the first I ever encountered for sure. That arrow you found? That was a sword, and the magnet was necessary to draw certain things to you. When you were being chased by a dragon made of 16 square pixels was fracking scary! It had several difficulty levels and the world's first "easter egg" contained inside. This is pretty impressive for a game that contained a total of 4k of data (one of your low-resolution accidental pocket photos has thousands of times the amount of data.)
Well that is a start. I have to have a think about what i am going to do with the 2600 yet. Just remember, you don't need to think it is special now (because it isn't) to appreciate the fact that people were absolutely elated to have access to this stuff in their homes in the early 80's. I know that my family was