Asteroids is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade video game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.
Kaboom! is an action video game published in 1981 by Activision for the Atari 2600. The game involves a Mad Bomber dropping bombs at increasing speeds as the player controls a set of water buckets to catch them. The gameplay was based on the Atari arcade video game Avalanche (1978). Kaboom! was programmed by Larry Kaplan with David Crane coding the graphics for the buckets and Mad Bomber. It was the last game designed by Kaplan for Activision, who left the company shortly after it was released. The game was later ported by Paul Wilson for the Atari 5200 system.
Solaris is a space combat video game for the Atari 2600 published in 1986 by Atari. The game involves a player seeking out the planet Solaris via their starship. To accomplish this, the player must navigate the galactic scanner to explore quadrants of a map. Doing so allows them to explore Federation planets to refuel their ship, and engage in combat with hostile aliens known as the Zylons.
Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and published by Sega. In North America, it was distributed by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct five frogs to their homes by dodging traffic on a busy road, then crossing a river by jumping on floating logs and alligators.
Berzerk is a multidirectional shooter designed by Alan McNeil and released for arcades in 1980 by Stern Electronics of Chicago. Following Taito's Stratovox, it is one of the first arcade video games with speech synthesis. Berzerk places the player in a series of top-down, maze-like rooms containing armed robots. Home ports were published for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Vectrex.
Qix is a 1981 puzzle video game developed by husband and wife team Randy and Sandy Pfeiffer and published in arcades by Taito America. Qix is one of a handful of games made by Taito's American division. At the start of each level, the playing field is a large, empty rectangle, containing the Qix, an abstract stick-like entity that performs graceful but unpredictable motions within the confines of the rectangle. The objective is to draw lines that close off parts of the rectangle to fill in a set amount of the playfield.
Phoenix is a fixed shooter video game developed for arcades in Japan and released in 1980 by Taito. The player controls a space ship shooting at incoming enemies that fly from the top of the screen down towards the player's ship. There are five stages which repeat endlessly. The fifth is a fight against a large enemy spaceship, making Phoenix one of the first shooters with a boss battle, an element that would become common for the genre.
Demon Attack is a fixed shooter video game created by Rob Fulop for the Atari 2600 and published by Imagic in 1982. The game involves the player controlling a laser cannon from the surface of a planet, shooting winged demons that fly down and attack the player in different sets of patterns.
Dragonstomper is a video game developed by Stephen Landrum for the Atari Video Computer System and released by Starpath. The game follows the adventures of a dragon hunter who is given a quest by the king to defeat a dragon and reclaim a magical amulet that was stolen. The player makes their way over the countryside, vanquishing various adversaries and gaining gold and experience. After achieving enough strength, the player can enter a shop in an oppressed village where equipment can be purchased, soldiers hired, and special scrolls obtained to defeat the dragon in its lair.
Starmaster is a video game written for the Atari 2600 by Alan Miller and published in June 1982 by Activision. The game involves the player travelling through space attacking enemy starfighters who are invading starbases. The player traverses through a map called the galactic chart to destroy all the enemies and survive against oncoming enemy attacks and crashing with meteors.
Robot Tank is a first-person shoot 'em up written by Alan Miller for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1983. It is similar in design to Atari, Inc.'s Battlezone tank combat arcade video game and more so to its 2600 port. Robot Tank adds different systems which can individually be damaged—instead of the vehicle always exploding upon being shot—and weather effects.
Keystone Kapers is a platform game developed by Garry Kitchen for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1983. The game involves a Keystone Cops-theme, with the player controlling police officer Kelly, who traverses the many levels of a department store, dodging objects to catch the escaped thief Harry Hooligan.
Alien is a 1982 maze video game for the Atari 2600 published by Fox Video Games. The game has the player control a human moving through the hallways of a space ship avoiding the adult alien and destroying the small alien eggs.
River Raid is a video game developed by Carol Shaw for the Atari Video Computer System and released in 1982 by Activision. The player controls a fighter jet over the River of No Return in a raid behind enemy lines. The goal is to navigate the flight by destroying enemy tankers, helicopters, fuel depots and bridges without running out of fuel or crashing.
Frostbite is a 1983 action game designed by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600, and published by Activision in 1983. The game has a player control Frostbite Bailey, who must hop across several ice floes to collect ice while avoiding falling in the water and avoiding the hazardous natural elements such polar bears and snow geese.
Megamania is a fixed shooter video game developed by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600. It was published by Activision in 1982. A pilot of an intergalactic space cruiser has a nightmare where his ship is being attacked by food and household objects. Using the missile launcher from their space cruiser, the pilot fends off the attackers. The game was later released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit computers.
Borderline is a vertically scrolling shooter maze game released by Sega as an arcade video game in April 1981. The player controls a jeep and has to destroy enemy refineries. There are four stages with different gameplay. The first stage plays like a vertically scrolling shooter. In the second stage, the player maneuvers his Jeep through underbrush, and enemies can only follow on its path, a concept later found in Namco's Dig Dug (1982).
Superman is a video game programmed by John Dunn for the Atari Video Computer System and released in 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls Superman, whose quest is to explore an open-ended environment to find three pieces of a bridge that was destroyed by Lex Luthor, capture Luthor and his criminal gang, and return to the Daily Planet building. The game world is populated by antagonists such as a helicopter that re-arranges the bridge pieces and roving kryptonite satellites that cause Superman to revert into Clark Kent.
RealSports Baseball is a 1982 sports video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. originally for the Atari 2600. It was also launched on the Atari 5200 and 7800 machines. A version for the Atari 8-bit computers was in development, but cancelled.
RealSports Soccer is a 1983 sports video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200, concentrating on the sport of association football.
