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showing 1 - 50 of 102 games

name	publisher(developer)	year	description
Indy 500	Atari;Sears (Atari)	1977	RACE CAR: Whether you compete against the clock or another player, your race car tackles the curves of some dangerous tracks. During 1-player games, you race against the clock using your left controller to move the car. The top left number on the playfield is the number of laps; the top right number is the time keeper. In 2-player games, players race against each other. The top two numbers represent the number of laps each player completes. The right score refers to the right-controller player; the left number shows the left-controller player's score. You'll hear the engines when they accelerate, and the CRASH when your car crashes into the opponent's car or playfield boundaries. Car races begin at the starting line. Then, get ready, get set...GO!* [48][media=youtube]hXTeUCguG5Q[/media]**The original package contained this game and 2 Driving Controlers. Was also avaialable in the Racing Pak (#PRO811) package with only 1 Driving Controler, and the game Slot Racers. Requires the Driving Controllers. [Zerothis]
Combat	Atari;Polyvox (Atari)	1977	CX-2601 Combat by Sears. Rarity 1 Common+ (possibly the 3rd most common). 2 players, 2 Joysticks. North America NTSC. model# 99801 4975124 Tank Plus by Sears. 2 Common. North America NTSC. Combat by Polyvox. Unknown rarity. South America NTSC. Combat by Dynacom (pirate). Unknown rarity. Brazil NTSC. Frontline by Zellers (pirate). Rarity 4 Scarce+. North America NTSC. Game originally packaged with the Atari VCS on its launch. First game EVER for Atari VCS. It required two players, as no artificial intelligence was developed. The gameplay is the same throughout the game (chase your enemy across the screen and destroy it), but there are 27 variations on it. It was pretty funny, especially in the levels with aircraft. The first stereo video game for a home system ever? [Zerothis]
Polo	Atari	1978	[media=youtube]U7j5W3iAfW8[/media]***Prototype cartridge. Ralph Lauren asked Atari to develope a polo game to be given away with their Polo cologne. The game was finished, RL didn't follow through with their promotion.
Space War	Atari	1978	SPACE WAR GAMES You and your opponent blast off into space. Each player controls one Star Ship with the Joystick Controller. The object is to score points by shooting your opponent's Star Ship with missiles fired by the red button on your Joystick Controller. Aim the nose of your Star Ship in the direction you want to fire. Space War games last ten minutes or until one player scores ten points. Player's scores appear at the top of the playfield and are color coordinated with the Star Ships. The two lines to the right of your score refer to fuel and missile supply. The top line is the fuel gauge; the bottom line is the amount of missiles remaining. Each player begins with eight missiles. Once the arsenal is depleted, the game will automatically reset each player with eight more missiles ONLY when both players are out of missiles. In most War games, fuel cannot be resupplied. In games 6 and 7, players can refuel and resupply missiles by docking with the Starbase. Fuel is used by adding 'thrust' to your Star Ship or by putting your Ship into Hyperspace. GAME 1: It's war in space as two players attempt to score 10 points first. You have Galaxy boundaries in this game. GAME 2: Engage in combat in a galaxy which features Galaxy Boundaries and Hyperspace. GAME 3: Oppose your space opponent in a galaxy which has Warp Drive. Use Hyperspace as a defensive move. GAME 4: The Space Sun in the center of the galaxy exerts gravity during combat. Avoid your opponent or collision with the Space Sun by using Hyperspace. You also fight within Galaxy Boundaries. GAME 5: The Space Sun, Warp Drive, and Hyperspace are the features of the galaxy playfield. GAME 6: You can refuel and receive more missiles at any time during this game. Steer your Star Ship to the Starbase. This galaxy also features Galaxy Boundaries and Hyperspace. GAME 7: Steer your Star Ship to the Starbase at any time during the game to refuel or receive more missiles. This galaxy also features Warp Drive and Hyperspace. SPACE SHUTTLE GAMES If you have mastered the exercises, you are ready to try Space Shuttle. Connect your Star Ship with the Space Module to score. Recommended strategy is to first match your Star Ship's speed to the Space Module's speed. Then slowly maneuver your Star Ship towards the Space Module. During Shuttle games the Star Ships have an unlimited supply of fuel. In 1-player games, you control one Star Ship with the left joystick controller and compete against the clock. You have ten minutes to score a maximum ten points. During 2-player games each player maneuvers his Star Ship to score. In 2-player games with two Space Modules, the target Space Module will be the same color as your Star Ship. First player to score ten points or the most points in ten minutes wins. 2-PLAYER GAMES GAME 8: Two players each control one Star Ship and attempt to connect with the Module which is color coordinated with the Ship. Warp Drive is present in this galaxy. GAME 9: Two players each control one Star Ship and compete to connect with the same Space Module. This galaxy features Warp Drive. GAME 10: Each player controls a Star Ship and attempts to connect with a color coordinated Space Module. This galaxy has a Space Sun and Galaxy Boundaries. GAME 12: Galaxy Boundaries characterize this galaxy. Each player controls a Star Ship and attempts to connect to the same Space Module. GAME 13: Each player controls a Star Ship and attempts to connect with the Space Module that is color-coordinated to the Star Ship. Galaxy boundaries are featured. 1-PLAYER GAMES GAME 14: One player controls a Star Ship and attempts to connect with the Space Module. This galaxy features Warp Drive. GAME 15: A Space Sun and Warp Drive characterize this space galaxy. One player steers the Star Ship to connect with the Space Module. GAME 16: One player controls a Star Ship and attempts to dock it with the Space Module. Galaxy Boundaries characterize this playfield. GAME 17: A Space Sun and Galaxy Boundaries could affect one player's strategy to connect the Star Ship with the Space Module.*The cartridge includes 17 game variations. Variations 1–13 are duels between two ships and 14 to 17 are for one player. In some of the variations the ships fight near a planet which has gravitational attraction*[media=youtube]3krEw2b7_jo[/media]
Slot Machine	Atari	1979	In 1-player games, you are competing against the computer. The computer makes a random bet for each play. The game ends if you or the computer go broke. To continue play, depress the game reset switch once. This adds 25 coins to each bank. As in 2-player games, the player with coins remaining when the game ends does not lose those coins when the game reset switch is depressed once those coins when the game reset switch is depressed once.***[media=youtube]0vj4YjgMESs[/media]
Sonar	Atari	1979
Sky Diver	Atari;Sears (Atari)	1979	Your initial task is to guide the Sky Diver onto the landing pad. Your ultimate task is to score more points than your opponent. To hit the landing pad and score points you must: * Release the Sky Diver from the airplane. * Open the parachute. * Control the downward drift of the Sky Diver. * Land squarely on the pad at the bottom of the screen. There are five two-player games in Sky Diver. You and your opponent have nine jumps each in which to score points. Games 1 and 2 are identical with one exception. In Game 2 the width of each landing pad is smaller, making it more difficult to score points. The landing pads are placed in different spots for each jump. In Games 3 and 4 the landing pads move back and forth. There is no wind factor. The landing pads in Game 4 are smaller in width. Play 'chicken' in Game 5 with your opponent. There's only one landing pad in the middle of the screen. The first player to land squarely on the pad scores points; the other player receives no points for that jump.***[media=youtube]UG_Xh-yiZ2M[/media]
Backgammon	Atari	1979	The backgammon board is divided into two halves or tables. The divider is called the bar. The inner table is the portion at the bottom of the playfield; the outer table is the portion at the top of the playfield. Each table is also divided into halves. The red player's home or inner table is on the lower right side of the playfield; the white player's home or inner table is on the lower left side of the playfield. The red player's outer table is on the upper right side of the playfield; the white player's out table is on the upper left side of the playing field. Each player's inner and outer table has six points. The point is the area on which you rest your you pieces as you move around the board. Each point is numbered for reference starting in each player's inner table. The white side is number 1 to 12 starting at the bottom right side of the board.*[media=youtube]8o2ipJRr9zk[/media]*Atari CX2617, rarity 2 Common+, Sears #99848, Rarity 3 Scarce. 1 player or 2 players. Uses the paddles controller. The Atari cart comes in text label and picture label variations. NTSC. [Zerothis]
Video Pinball	Atari;Sears;CCE (Atari)	1980	Published by Atari / Sears / CCE / Zellers / Quelle* [48]* [48]
Adventure	Atari;Polyvox (Atari)	1980	An evil magician has stolen the Enchanted Chalice and has hidden it somewhere in the Kingdom. The object of the game is to rescue the Enchanted Chalice and place it inside the Golden Castle where it belongs. This is no easy task, as the Evil Magician has created three Dragons to hinder you in your quest for the Golden Chalice. There is Yorgie, the Yellow Dragon, who is just plain mean; there is Grundle, the Green Dragon, who is mean and ferocious; and there is Rhindle, the Red Dragon, who is the most ferocious of all. Rhindle is also the fastest Dragon and is the most difficult to outmaneuver. There are three castles in the Kingdom; the White Castle, the Black Castle, and the Golden Castle. Each castle has a Gate over the entrance. The Gate can be opened with the corresponding colored Key. Inside each Castle are rooms(or dungeons, depending at which Skill Level you are playing). The Castles are separated by rooms, pathways, and labyrinths. Common to all the Skill Levels is the Blue Labyrinth through which you must find your way to the Black Castle. Skill Levels 2 and 3 have a more complicated Kingdom.*[b]About the release date[/b]: Could be 1979 or 1980. According to the game developer, Warren Robinett: [quote]I am pretty sure the Adventure cartridge was released during the 1979 Christmas season. But I was in Europe during that time. People were definitely playing Adventure in early 1980 [...] Anyway, the Adventure cart was definitely out in the world by June 1980, and had been out there for a while. My belief is that it was released during the 1979 Christmas season, but I did not actually see an Adventure cart in a retail store prior to Jan. 1, 1980. So I guess I don't truly know for sure.[/quote]* [48]***Adventure was released in North America by Atari, CX2613, picture and text labels rarity 2 Common+, NTSC. Sears 49-75154, picture label rarity 4 Scarce+, text label rarity 3 Scarce, NTSC. Released in South America by Polyvox, NTSC. This game was inspired by another game called [game=Colossal Cave Adventure]Colossal Cave Adventure[/game] (later known as [i]Colossal Cave[/i]) by Will Crowther and Don Woods. Adventure was hundreds of kilobytes in size and ran on a room-sized mainframe; Mr. Robinett's Adventure fit in 2k and ran on a VCS, which is smaller than a VCR. Mr. Robinett developed this game against his boss' instructions (who said it was too big). [spoiler=The first videogame with an easter egg (secret):;Close]Find the hidden dot that removes a wall and enter a secret room where the words 'Created by Warren Robinett' are spelled out.[/spoiler] Mr. Robinett also did this without permission and it was discovered after he'd left employment with Atari. At the time, programmers at Atari were not given credit, could not discuss their work in public, had no official creative input, were not allowed to collect royalties and were being paid less then some of their own secretaries. In a development version of the game, there was a roadrunner character that just ran around. Late in the development of this game, Mr. Robinett was told by marketing to change the game to 'Superman' to ride the hype of the Superman movie that was released in 1978. John Dunn came to the rescue and volunteered to do the [game=#99763]Superman[/game] game. [game=Rocky's Boots]Rocky's Boots[/game] was the followup to this game and uses a later version of the adventure engine (ADV# engine). [Zerothis]
Asteroids	Atari;Polyvox;Sears (Atari)	1981	Its not vector. Shoot the asteroids into pieces and shoot the pieces into itty-bity pieces, and then (due to 8-bit physics) they disappear when shot. Destroy them all and the screen fills up with asteroids again. Watch out for the occasional UFO. Move around with thrusters if you want, or teleport to a random place, or even shift phase to pass through solid objects. Hacks: [i]Arcade Asteroids[/i] is fixed to look more like the arcade version. It is one of the games for the [gametag=flashback Atari Flashback 2.0]flashback Atari Flashback 2.0[/gametag]. [Zerothis]
Alien	20th Century Fox	1982	It's [game=#5506]Pac-Man[/game]! What a rip off! No wait, this is a better version, of Pac-Man. [Zerothis]
Bachelor Party	Playaround (Mystique)	1982
Bugs	Data Age;Game World (Data Age)	1982	Bugs by Data Age #DA1005 in1982. Rarity 3 Scarce. 1 player or 2 players. Uses the paddle controllers. NTSC. Released in North America. Bugs! and Bugs by Game World #133-005 in 1983. PAL. Released in Europe. [Zerothis]
Coconuts	Telesys;Beagle Brothers	1982	Stanley must dodge the coconuts being dropped by the monkey. If his umbrella is hit, he'll still be protected by his hat. If his hat is hit, he has no protection left. If he's hit with no protection, game over. At both 500 and 1500 points, Stanley can earn a lost item of protection. The monkey must rest occasionally, and will not start throwing coconuts again until provoked by Stanley's movement (press the joystick button). Each round goes faster than the last. Points are scored points for each coconut dodged. [b]A[/b]dvanced difficulty means Stanley moves slowly. With [b]B[/b]eginner difficulty he's faster. Players take turns losing protection in two player mode. There is not interaction between players. "Beagle Brothers" is a mysterious label that many Atari cartridges have that are not produced by the similarly named "Beagle Bros". It may be a pirate operation, but this is unknown. Coconuts is one such game available with the Beagle Brothers label.
Combat Two	Atari (General Computer)	1982	[media=youtube]yVvh-62RcVk[/media]***CX26156. This prototype game developed in 1982 was eventually released with the [gametag=flashback2.0 Atari Flashback 2.0 system]flashback2.0 Atari Flashback 2.0 system[/gametag] [Zerothis]
Commando Raid	US Games;Quelle (US Games)	1982
Cubicolor	Imagic	1982
Donkey Kong	Coleco;Zellers;Star Game (Coleco)	1982	[media=youtube]1Py4AEKTi4A[/media]* [126]You are Mario and that big old gorilla, Donkey Kong, has run off with your girlfriend. It's up to you to struggle up those ladders and balance on those beams to rescue your lady fair. She's held captive at the very top. But Donkey Kong is not ready to giver her up so easily. He's tossing barrels and fireballs at you at every turn. It's up to you to outmaneuver that wily ape. Good luck, your lady awaits.Published by Coleco / Zellers / Star Game / CBS Electronics / Pet Boat Coleco had gotten the rights to a guaranteed bestseller. They had 90 days before Christmas to take advantage of it. They went searching for an independent programmer with Atari VCS experience. At this point in history experience VCS programmers worked for Atari or they worked for Activision. It has been said there were only 7 VCS programmers in the world that didn't work for Atari, at that time, and 6 worked for Activision. They were able to track down Gary kitchen who had independently using his own resources, reverse engineered the VCS and several games in order know how it worked. He had developed one VCS game that US Games had published. Coco a management apparently had reasoned that they had the hottest arcade game license and it would sell no matter what. The game didn't have to be good, just needed to turn on and not crash, people would buy it. Kitchen was able to become authorized to use a 4K cartridge rather than a 2K cartridge. he had never in fact worked with 4K cartridges but he knew that the 2K cartridge especially wouldn't cut it. He would have liked to have had a six or a cake cartridge and has stated that an 8K cartridge version would have had four full levels. With the 4K cartridge, and only 90 days, the game would only get two levels. And informed his bosses that do the game property would take 3 to 4 months and at least a 6K cartridge. They said thank you and send him back to work on the 4K cartridge. It has been said that Coleco had no other path to the VCS version of Donkey Kong. Kitchen has assured people that even if he had been given an 8K cartridge, the 90 day deadline still would have arrived at the game that he provided. From a business point of view, Coleco expected to sell every copy they manufactured. They had little incentive to spend three to four times more money on the cartridge and still sell the same number of them. They had every disincentive to delay the game until after Christmas. They would have most definitely sold less copies of the game in that case. Gary kitchen has expressed a desire to do an 8K version of Donkey Kong for the Atari VCS but adamantly states that he never will so long as he continues to work with Nintendo. There are some aspects to this game which are notable achievements. There is no flicker which was a problem with a number of arcade games converted to the VCS platform. And preserves the slanted platforms. Many VCS conversions did not bother with slanted platforms from arcade games and simply redesigned the levels to have only horizontal platforms.* [48]
Entombed	US Games	1982
Knight on the Town	Mystique;Playaround	1982	Lady in Wading is a version variation with reversed roles. Instead of the man you control the woman.
Kyphus	Apollo	1982
Night Stalker	Mattel;Telegames;M Network (Mattel)	1982
Picnic	US Games;Carrere Video;Teldec (US Games)	1982
Piece o' Cake	US Games	1982
Racer	Atari (Roklan Software)	1982	1 player or 2 players simultaneous competitive/concurrent. The first 2600 game developed by Roklan. The game features the Atari logo (they intended to offer it to Atari for publishing?). One or two racers proceed to race down the road that scrolls vertically. Beginning with wide gentle turns and eventually improbably narrow or filled with arbitrary obstacles. It relentlessly increases in speed at set intervals unless the teddy bear mode (easy/child mode) was selected. Two players can bump each other into walls and cross to the other side of the screen if they so choose but each racer is by default, assigned one half of the screen which is a mirror of the other player's side. The courses for one and two player modes are identicle (one player always races on 'two player tracks'). [Zerothis]
Riddle of the Sphinx	Imagic	1982	Hieroglyphics on an ancient obelisk tell a strange tale: These are dark times. Death's long shadow rests across the Valley of the Kings. Anubis, jackal-headed god of the dead, has cast his curse over all of Pharaoh's kingdom. A plague of scorpions and hordes of thieves lie thick upon the land. O hear the thin whine of despair! Sing of Pharaoh's Son, all hail the Prince of Egypt! Deliver us from this curse! Brave the dangers of the desert. Seek the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx. Pay Anubis' ransom with your treasures, O cunning Prince of Wiles. Reach the Temple of Ra, source of light and life. Pharaoh's heir--be wise, be wily--and beware!* [48]*Imagic IA3600 published in the North America, Rarity 2 Common+, NTSC. Uses both joysticks the switches on the Atari 2600 console to play. Riddle of the Sphinx is an surprisingly complex adventure game for the 2600. Players will not likely accomplish much without reading the manual first. The Left joystick is used to move around, shoot at enemies, and use items. The Right joystick navigates the inventory and status screens. Difficulty switches and B&W/Color switches select the different status views. There are Egyptian deities to deal with, some enemies, some allies, some neutral. Likewise there are nomadic traders of various alignment and and thieves. Carry too many treasures around and any nomad might find to a temping target for theft. You score points for advancement in the game and destroying thieves. You lose points and/or health for attacking deities or nomads, regardless of their alignment. To advance in the game, find and trade objects to deliver the correct objects to the correct temple or deity.
Seahawk	CCE;Tang's Electronic Co;Sancho	1982
Sky Patrol	Imagic	1982
Submarine Commander	Sears (Atari)	1982
Tax Avoiders	American Videogames (Dunhill Electronics)	1982
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre	Wizard Video Games	1982
Time Warp	Funvision;CCE;Zellers (Panda)	1982
Warplock	Data Age;Game World	1982
Wizard of Wor	CBS Electronics	1982
Worm War I	20th Century Fox	1982
3-D Genesis	Amiga	1983
3-D Zapper	US Games	1983
A Mysterious Thief	ZiMAG;Emag;Vidco	1983
Anteater	Mattel	1983
Aquaventure	Atari	1983	The was a prototype cartridge developed in 1983. It was eventually released via [gametag=flashback2.0]Atari Flashback 2.0 system[/gametag] [Zerothis]
Bobby Geht nach Hause	Quelle;Bit Corporation;CCE (Quelle)	1983	[48]***This game's graphics and sound a pretty amazing for a 1983 VCS game. It approaches Colecovision or Intellivision quality. Animated objects all over the background. A nice to day-night transition. A moving star field. Flowers blowing in the wind. This game also is one of the few to use every pixel of the VCS' maximum resolution. The gameplay isn't that bad either. Seems everybody was impressed with this game, so it was pirated all over the world. Except in the USA, where it was virtually unheard of until many years after the 2600 was discontinued. Bit Corporation did apparently publish at least one known cartridge in the US. This list is probably incomplete: TITLE [ENGLISH], [SKU,] COMPANY, COUNTRY, TV-TYPE, YEAR Bobby Geht nach Hause [Bobby goes home], Quelle, Germany, PAL, 1983 Bobby Geht Heim, Bit Corperation, Germany, PAL Bob Go Home, Mega, Brazil, PAL-M Bob Is Going Home, JVP, Brazil, PAL-M Bob''s Going to Home, Tiger Vision/Eram, PAL-M Bob's Home, Greek Games Software, Brazil, PAL-M Bob's Home, MaxGames Software, Brazil, PAL-M Bobbi, DataSoft Software, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby, [Taiwan (V-Case)], Europe, PAL Bobby, JVP, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Is Going Home, [Taiwan (Cooper Black)], Europe, PAL Bobby Is Going Home, Bit Corporation, Europe, PAL, 1983 Bobby Is Going Home, Bit Corporation, USA, NTSC, 1983 Bobby Is Going Home, CCE, Brazil, PAL-M, 1983 Bobby Is Going Home, CCE, Brazil, PAL-M, 1983 (alternate version) Bobby Is Going Home, Dactar, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Is Going Home, Digitel, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Is Going Home, Rentacom, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Is Going Home, Robby, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Is Going Home, Star Game, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Is Going Home, Supergame, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Is Going Home, [Taiwan (Cooper Black)], Europe, PAL (alternate version) Bobby Is Going Home, [Taiwan (V-Case)], Europe, PAL Bobby Is Going Home, Videomac, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Vai Para Casa [Bobby Is Going Home], CCE, Brazil, PAL-M Bobby Torna a Casa [Bobby Comes Back Home], Fujistyle/Bit Corporation, Italy, PAL Bobby Va a Casa [?], Edu Games/Edu Juegos, Argentina, NTSC Bobbys Go Home, Digivision, Brazil, PAL-M Bobe Volta Para Casa [?], Tecmagic, Brazil, PAL-M Boby, JVP, Brazil, PAL-M Boby Is Going Home, Game Action, Brazil, PAL-M Felix Return, Hot Shot/Goliath, Germany, PAL Jumping Jack, DY-293005, Dynamics, Germany, PAL Jacky Jump, Home Vision/Gem International Corporation, Belgium, PAL Niky Wanders, [Taiwan (Cooper Black)], Europe, PAL [Zerothis]
Bouncin' Baby Bunnies	Telesys	1983
Confrontation	Answer Software;TY Associates	1983
Depth Charge	Amiga	1983
Dice Puzzle	Panda;Sancho;CCE	1983	Published by Panda / Sancho / CCE / Tang's Electronic Co
Gamma-Attack	Gammation	1983	MSRP: $24.95 Only 2 copies of this game are known to exist. They are not prototypes. This is a fully finished and published game. But there's just 2 of them. Made and sold in the USA. Catalog number GA1003. Gammation published only one game, this one. It is unknown what Catalog numbers GA1000-GA1002 were meant to be for. Gammation also manufactured and sold the "FP-1" accessory. It promised to add automatic rapid fire to any Atari CX-40 Joystick without any soldering. If customers ordered any FP-1s ($9.95) they could add Gamma-Attack to their order for the reduced cost of $14.95.***You are the commander of the only GAMMA ship in this stellar field. The Vegan war fleet has taken control of your GAMMA outpost planet and is defending it with Vegan planet in this star system, and you must stay there and fight the Vegans as long as you can!
Gauntlet	Answer Software	1983	(This is a completely different game from the Atari Games/Tengen coin-op and it's licensees.) You must prove you manhood by running a gauntlet of arrows, tomahawks, and rocks to reach the ceremonial torches and extinguish them. You have three water jugs to extinguish the three torches. If you successfully extinguish one you'll get a bonus water refill. You can optionally duck under arrows and leap over rocks. You can optionally give water to the thirsty old hermit for bonus points. The game autoscrolls vertically.
Go Go Home Monster	Home Vision;ITT Family Games (Home Vision)	1983
Halloween	Wizard Video Games	1983	Looking up information about this game might lead one to the conclusion that Wizard Video Games set out to capitalize on violence of the Halloween movie franchise by selling an ultra gory game to young children. In fact, its all true, except for the children. They clearly designed and marketed their game for adults. In the movie, Michael Myers is a psychopathic killer escaped from a mental institution to kill the rest of his family (having killed his sister who was babysitting him many years earlier). Additionally, he targets all female babysitters. In this game, The Killer primarily targets children. The game lets the player to control The Babysitter in a sequence loosely based on the climax of the first Halloween movie. In the movie, Laurie unsuccessfully tries to avoid Michael in her home, while successfully keeping two children she's babysitting out of harms way. The game is basically the same, only much simpler. There's unlimited children and two rooms where the kids can be locked away safe and points scored (just 1 room in the movie and only 2 kids). The house has 6 other rooms where The Killer can appear from the side of the screen or a door in the middle. The 8 rooms fit together more or less realistically. And there are two floors. When there is a door in the middle of the screen on both floors, The Babysitter can enter and exit the other one to go up stairs or downstairs. There are windows but The Babysitter cannot fain escaping out the window to fool The Killer as Laurie did in the movie. The Babysitter can also find a knife to temporarily stop The Killer, and score some points, if an attack can be successfully performed. Laurie used three different weapons in the movie, and she got the knife from Psychopath. Occasionally, the lights in certain rooms the house will flicker and go out out. This results in complete darkness and is a real problem if The Killer is in the room at the time. Otherwise just wait, the lights come back on eventually. Once you have a child safely locked away, another child will leave start to wonder around the house. If The Killer finds one of the children, he slashes them to death and blood spurts out of the body. The designers managed to outdo the movie on this one, as the children are never physically harmed in the movie and are actual never targeted by Michael. If The Killer catches The Babysitter, he will decapitate her. The Babysitter's body will take off running, spurting blood in the air. What, you don't remember any decapitations in the movie? That's because there were none. There were only slashings, impalings, stabbings, strangling, throat cuttings, and shootings. Anywho, you win the game by...[spoiler=show win conditions;close]Actually, the game ends after The Killer decapitates The Babysitter for the third time then he presumably kills the unlimited supply of children. The Psychiatrist never arrives to empty his revolver into The Killer chest. The children are never safe. You lose, the end.[/spoiler] Violence being their main selling point, the game delivers as well as can be expected for the 2600. It just manages both blood and gore. Slashings, child slashing, spurting blood, and spurting blood decapitation unmistakably depicted. The Halloween movie theme music is present in the game. Quite rare for a 2600 game to include any complex music at all, let alone replicate a well known theme. It plays in the 'title sequence' and whenever The Killer enters the room. Oh, and something important to note is the characters are never named in the game, on the cartridge, or in any of the game's materials. When Wizard Video Games realized the game was not going to sell well, they began shipping bare cartridges without making labels for them. They simply wrote "Halloween" on them with a black marker to save costs. The ratio of labeled to unlabeled copies is not yet been determined with certainty by collectors but 50/50 seems to be a safe guess.

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