Activision Anthology is really great. I think Activision really understood the Atari 2600 and made simple, fun games with great design in every aspect of the product.

      The box art and cartridge art are great. I’ve often thought of owning a complete collection of Activision Atari games because they have such a good look to them that is consistent from game to game.

      I love the manuals with their full page of tips from the programmer in the back. This company let their creators take a priviledged spot in the presentation of the games, and I appreciate that. These are games by real people not some faceless corporation.

      Finally there are the games themselves which all share a similar design. Of the many Activision games in this collection, nine of them became my current favorites. I thought I’d link up a bunch of screens of these games and try and figure out what about the design makes Activision games some of the best on the 2600.  

     Barnstorming is a race against time. You are given a certain number of barns to fly through and a timer. When you fly through the last barn, the game stops and you record your time. Higher difficulties just add more barns. You also have to fly over towers and avoid birds. It's so simple, but quite fun. The image here uses big bold primary colors and lots of space to manuever. Detail is kept to an absolute minimum, but it's just enough to convey the elements of the game. 

     Boxing is super simple but fun because the controls work well. You try and get jabs in the opponent's face and keep pounding away. It takes a moment to get the feel of it and the timing right, because the AI player can easily get his own jabs in as well. You get points for head punches and there's a timer for the rounds. Highest point count wins. What could be simpler? The design is bare minimum, but you don't really need more, because it's all about the gameplay. The controls are fast and responsive and that's the important part. The screen is just easy on the eyes with no distractions from the task at hand.

     What can I say about Ice Hockey. It's just plain fun with two players or against the AI. It's two-on-two with control switching automatically to whichever player is closest to the puck. You can knock a guy on his butt, drive to the net and out fox the goalie for the big score. What more do you need in a hockey game? It's hockey at it's most basic elements and handled perfectly. I think that's what Activision did right. They stayed within the limitations of the Atari 2600 and nailed the controls, keeping the graphics simple and colorful, and making sure the gameplay was rock solid.

     Plaque Attack is not quite as elegantly designed as some other Activision games, but I couldn't help enjoying this as I paniced over loosing teeth. Here's something we can all relate to immediately, tooth decay. All you do is shoot toothpaste on food to stop it from destroying the teeth. 

     Seaquest is a fun game were you rescue swimmers while avoiding fish and other enemy subs which come from either side of the screen. You have an air meter that you have to watch, surfacing every so often to resupply your air. Again, it's just Activision's simpliciy of gameplay and visual design that makes this so appealing.

     Skiing is like many of Activision's sports games in that it nails the basic mechanic of the sport, in this case, angling your skiis to turn. This is a race against time and you just have to stay within the flag posts. What I like a lot about Activision games is the amount of space the game gives you. You're not crowded by objects or have to navigate a tiny path. You have plenty of environment and can focus easily on the specific task of the game.

     Stampede is my all-time favorite Atari 2600 game. It's so simple but tricky to get to the 3000 point goal to qualify for the Activision Patch. Your horse stays on the far left and you move up or down while you lasso doggies in such a way as to not let any pass you by. The basic strategy is to keep the slowest moving doggies on the screen and open one path at a time. The doggies come at you in waves starting with a static skull or Angus and then the fastest moving doggies up to the slowest. The Angus gets you the most points as do the slowest moving doggies but you want to lasso them carefully to keep any from passing you. You get to let three doggies pass before the game ends. After a while the whole game speeds up and its gets harder. It's just a fantastic game that plays great and allows for a little strategy that's very satisfying when you get it to work just right. And look at that design. Simple and to the point. No unnessessary visual business.

     This one brings me way back to when I was a pretty serious tennis player in high school. Tennis is simple as can be but surprisingly nuonced. If you hit the ball on the very edge of your racket you can get a wicked angle. Hit it slightly differently and you can make a drop shot just over the net and make the opponent rush forward. You can even pop the ball up high. I'm not totally sure how all these moves are exactly done, but when you play it you will get a sense for it. It all adds up to a really fun one-on-one battle where you can move the ball around the court at your whim.

    I also liked Atlantis, but it is actually an Imagic game although it shares some of the same aesthetic of the Activision games. It plays a lot like Missile Command accept that your attackers are space ships that cross horizontially.

    So I think Activision games are some of the best on Atari 2600 and mainly because they get the controls right and they have a simple and colorful design. They are works of beauty and fun, may favorite combination in games.