Atari 2600 Games Online – 321 Classic Atari Games
The Atari 2600 (1977) is the console that made home video games a mass market, and its cartridges are the roots of whole genres: Adventure (the first action-adventure game), Pitfall! (the first side-scrolling platformer in spirit), River Raid, Yars’ Revenge, Missile Command, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Combat and the Activision catalogue. Past Play hosts 321 Atari 2600 games in the browser – everything from the 1977 launch titles to the 1990s homebrew scene.
The 2600 had a joystick with a single button, mapped to the arrow keys and Z. Many games also used the console’s difficulty and game-select switches, which the emulator exposes from its menu – a lot of 2600 cartridges hold several game variations behind those switches. Each game is a few kilobytes, so they load instantly; save states are available but most of these games were designed to be played in one sitting for a high score.
