Atari 2600 Reviews U-V

Despite the ho-hum name, this was one of my arcade favorites way back in "the day". The object is to navigate your "buggy" (which looks like a Volkswagen Bug) down some single-lane, zigzagging streets, collecting flags and avoiding collisions by jumping over (or onto) other cars. I was really looking forward to reliving the thrills of my youth through this 2600 cartridge. Imagine my dismay when I turned this thing on and saw some of the most horrific graphics I've ever seen.

The blocky, jagged roads look more like steps, and those cars are pixelated blobs! Vehicles and flags flicker badly and often disappear completely. This is one of the worst looking games I've ever seen on the Atari 2600, and that's saying something. After the initial shock, I started warming up to this game. The controls aren't bad; you can easily change speeds, and I soon remembered that jumping is not only for squashing cars, but also for leaping from one road to the next.

Once you collect all the flags, you're off to a totally different course. The roads are poorly rendered, but you start to learn where the bridges and hills are by the color scheme. The game is seriously challenging and undeniably fun. I really couldn't put it down once I started playing it. The background music is annoying, but at least it's faithful to the original game. When all is said and done, I like Up 'N Down. If you can stomach the graphics you're in for a good time. © Copyright 2002 The Video Game Critic.

Vanguard can be fun if you have a reliable arcade-style joystick. This shooter introduced several original concepts to the world of arcade games, including stages that scroll in different directions, the ability to shoot in four directions at once (!), and invincibility power-ups. But perhaps its most significant innovation was the "continue" feature, which let you pay another quarter and pick up where you left off. Like it or hate it, the continue feature caught on in a big way.

This Atari 2600 edition of Vanguard attempts to incorporate the same features but comes up a bit short. For one thing, it doesn't do a good job of simulating the dual joysticks of the arcade game. In this version, pushing the joystick in any direction not only fires in that direction but moves your ship slightly. Holding down the fire button lets you move quickly but halts your firing. Typically players will rotate the joystick rapidly to maximize their firepower but gradually meander around the screen. It really hurts your arm after prolonged play. Atari half-heartedly addressed this problem by supplying the option of automatic forward fire, but that makes the game entirely too easy.

Vanguard isn't much to look at, and even the rainbow colors can hide the horrid blockiness of backgrounds. Vanguard does have a nice variety of stages, each of which brings its own unique style of play. The zones scroll horizontally or vertically but not diagonally. The "stripe zone" is the most interesting, with two different paths and two sets of adversaries. The "bleak zone" features floating snakes that you can "dock" with for big points. The trick is to shoot the snakes just before docking, so you can collect the points for killing them (you can only do this three times).

Vanguard's most disappointing stage is the "gond" (remember the commercial? "Luther kills the gond!"). This blocky rainbow snowman is supposed to be the "boss", but all you do is shoot him in the face. It's hardly a challenge and definitely anti-climactic. The second level features the same set of stages, only harder and in a different order. Vanguard isn't a great shooter, but it's certainly original, and it'll give your arm one heck of a workout. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.

I was anxious to revisit Venture for the Atari 2600, especially after being so critical of the Colecovision version. I caught a lot of flack for that review! Venture looks amazing on the Colecovision but I struggled with its stop-and-go controls. Atari 2600 ports are typically less flashy but have better controls, in large part because you can use a real joystick.

Venture's gameplay is super simple as you move between rooms full of monsters. You shoot them, loot the treasure, and get the [expletive] out of dodge. Take too long and a "hall monster" enters to chase you out. That's really one of the more exciting parts of the game; high-tailing it to the nearest exit before that skull-shaped thing can catch you.

Your character is supposed to be a smiley face but I don't think he's anatomically correct. His head looks too angular. Instead of shooting arrows he shoots dots, and they don't travel very far. The creatures moving around each dungeon are poorly animated, but I do appreciate the vivid colors of the dungeon boundaries.

This Venture has control issues of its own. You can't really stop to shoot, so if your shot misses you're in trouble. That's because you're navigating in close quarters with little room to work with. I really really wish that when I held in the button, my guy would stop and shoot. That way I could actually aim properly.

It only has eight rooms instead of twelve, but Venture for the Atari 2600 is still fun. I feel like it captures the essence of the arcade, but the lack of eye candy adversely affects the sense of discovery. I mean, you'll still discover stuff, but then you'll ask "what the [expletive] is that?" © Copyright 2022 The Video Game Critic.

Tim Snider has brought new life to the venerable adventure game, creating new monsters, treasures, and more complex dungeons. The dungeon layouts are basically the same, but now the rooms have extra walls. This is a double-edged sword. Although the rooms are more interesting and allow for more strategy, they can also cause frustration as you easily get hung up on them. I found the new monsters to be pretty interesting and original. This time you'll encounter floating swords, swarms of bugs, and octopus among others. Venture II is a nice effort, but it still has the flaws of the original game. © Copyright 2001 The Video Game Critic.

Checkers isn't the most exciting concept for a video game to begin with, and this particular version has other problems to boot. An awkward control scheme forces you to move the joystick diagonally, which is painful if you're using a standard 2600 joystick. In addition, although the computer response is fast during the easy levels, the wait can be unbearable (up to eight minutes!) in the advanced ones. You'll just have to stare at a black screen while the computer decides what to do next. There are 19 game variations, but it's overkill. Check out the artwork on this game - that looks like Luke Skywalker! © Copyright 2001 The Video Game Critic.

My original review of Video Chess was pretty superficial, fixated on CPU wait times which admittedly can be pretty long. But after reading an article about artificial intelligence (AI), I've had a change of heart. Apparently some guy staged a chess match between an Atari 2600 running Video Chess and ChatGPT, and guess what? The 2600 won! The circa-1977 console then went on to defeat Microsoft's esteemed Copilot AI engine. After being notified of these two butt-whippings, Google's Gemini AI wants absolutely no part in playing the 2600.

For all its energy-sucking, money-burning, number-crunching prowess, modern-day AI systems regard the Atari 2600 as a grand master of chess. Keep in mind this cartridge is a meager 4K ROM! This bizarre circumstance reminds me of the original Star Trek movie (1979) where an old Earth satellite (Voyager) was found by an alien race who exalted it as a god!

The graphics in Video Chess are minimal. The pieces are rendered with horizontal scan lines, rendering in pink and white. I read the AI had trouble differentiating the pieces, but they're fairly easy to discern via the human eye. The interface for moving pieces is simple and intuitive. When the CPU returns from his move, the screen highlights exactly what it did.

When I say "returns", it's because when the CPU is thinking over its move, the screen flashes colors. Depending on the skill level it may take from 15 seconds to 10 hours for it to calculate its move. I recently had a few friends over who are legitimate chess masters, and even waiting a few minutes was more than they could endure. At one point I asked Scott M why he was taking so long to enter his next move, and he exclaimed "I'm giving this thing a taste of his own medicine!!" That's cold.

The manual details an interesting feature that could in theory allow you to "preserve" a long-running game without keeping your Atari running for weeks on end. When you want to turn your system off, snap a picture of the chess board. When you return later, you can use the difficulty switches to reconstruct the board as it was, allowing you to resume where you left off. It's amazing they included this feature in 1978. Talk about foresight!

If you're not a chess pro, the early skill levels provide sufficient challenge for a casual game with minimal waiting. The long wait times are a deal-breaker for chess masters however, and I hear a "bug" even causes the program to cheat on occasion. But pound for pound, this has got to be the most computationally-intense cartridge in the history of games. I'm starting to think Video Chess is a national treasure. © Copyright 2026 The Video Game Critic.

What a stroke of marketing genius it was to bestow the moniker "Video Olympics" upon this cartridge. Just look at the menagerie of athletes adorning the cover! The olympic theme isn't too much of a stretch when you consider the game contains tennis, soccer, ice hockey, basketball, handball, and even volleyball variations. And it gets bonus credit for not having a breakdancing competition.

Video Olympics may be a glorified Pong game, but its sheer number of variations (50) is impressive. Events are spiced up with special features like the ability to add speed to the ball or apply a "whammy". The manner the programmers implemented volleyball and basketball is very imaginative. Even if you don't enjoy those variations you have to admit they are pretty clever.

But where Video Olympics truly shines is its multiplayer action. The two-player head-to-head is a blast but the four-player, two-on-two action is positively gangbusters. I played this with friends recently and it was a riot. Their chief complaint was that the action was too fast! You rarely hear a complaint like that leveled against a cartridge from 1977!

I do have a few minor quibbles. Some of the high-pitched beeps can be hard on the ears. In the Foozpong variations there are just way too many objects on the screen at a time. I'm supposed to control twelve paddles at once?? Also, the catch variations are crap because you never know if you're going to release the ball towards or away from your own goal.

The paddle controls are super-precise and responsive as usual. This game is at its best when played by four players, so bump up the grade by a letter if you happen to have some friends handy. Video Olympics may not look like much but it represents multiplayer fun at its purest. Sure it may be Pong at its core, but this might just be the One Pong to Rule Them All (TM). © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

This is a perfect example of a game's sum being greater than its parts. At first glance, Video Pinball looks like a whole lot of nothing. Its blue "table" is sparse and those square bumpers are hard to get excited about. The two white flippers at the bottom of the screen are small and less responsive than I'd prefer. Two white "spinners" on each side tend to slow the ball down more than they speed it up. Still, Video Pinball proves addictive and fun.

The key is its excellent nudge controls which let you influence the ball's movement much more than you can in real pinball. Once you learn how to manipulate the ball without tilting, a lot of strategy unfolds. First, you'll want to focus on hitting the diamonds at the top which increase the bumper multipliers. Next, try to earn an extra ball by hitting the Atari-symbol rollover four times. Once you master the nudge control, you can get the ball to bounce through the rollovers almost indefinitely!

By working the rollover on the right side, you can earn some outrageous bonus points. This is the kind of game that you can play over and over again, and you'll do a little better each time. I remember playing Video Pinball with my childhood friend Billy, and he could keep one ball going forever (much to my chagrin). It bears little resemblance to actual pinball, but Video Pinball's unique style of play makes it an enjoyable experience all of its own. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.