Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming

by Jamie Lendino

The sprawl of Adventure. The addictiveness of Breakout. The intensity of Space Invaders. Once upon a time, you could only experience this kind of excitement at the arcade. But in 1977 that changed forever. You, and maybe a friend or a sibling, could instantly teleport from your own living room to a dazzling new world—with nothing more than a small plastic cartridge. This was the promise of the Atari 2600—and it was delivered in ways no one ever expected. No, the games it put on your TV weren’t what you saw when you plunked in your quarters at the convenience store or in the noisy, smoky business on the other side of town. But they brought the arcade home—and it hasn’t left since. With Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming, Jamie Lendino takes you to the front lines of the home gaming revolution, exploring the history of the world-changing console and delves into the coin-op ports and original titles that still influence gaming today. Before your next trip to a magical universe with your Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Nintendo Switch, see how the home gaming industry truly began.

Genres: Gaming, Video Games

278 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2018

About the author

Jamie Lendino is an author, editor, mix engineer, and technology enthusiast. He writes books about old computers and video games, and what it was like to experience them when new. Jamie has written for PCMag, ExtremeTech, Popular Science, Electronic Musician, Consumer Reports, Sound and Vision, and CNET. He has also appeared on CNBC, NPR’s All Things Considered, and other television and radio programs across the United States. Jamie lives with his wife, daughter, and two bonkers cats in Collingswood, New Jersey.

Reviews

[John Galluzzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was there, man. I was about 9 years old when the 2600 appeared under the Christmas tree. I sent away to Activision for the River Raid patch. I blew on the inside of the cartridges when I thought there might be too much dust on them. I hated when my friend made me be the "fat" plane against his three small biplanes when playing Combat. We had a stack forty or fifty games high by the time the 2600 phased out, and I knew them all inside and out.

This book puts the system into its historical context, mostly through a focus on the games themselves. Separating them into eras, Lendino explains the impacts the more important games had, which games should never have been made, or perhaps rushed into production (see Pac-Man and E.T.) and explains the programmer workforce-related reasons why Activision and Imagic arose as rival game production companies to the Atari in-house studio.

Imagic probably had it right. The name is a play on "imagination" and "magic," and when it comes down to it you needed a strong imagination to truly understand the earliest console games. It got better through time, but in those early days your character, like in Adventure, could simply be a square. In Haunted House, you were a pair of eyes. Cartridges like Yar's Revenge came with back stories, and by the end of the 2600 run comic books accompanied games. Programs had 4KB - four kilobytes! - with which to work to produce a game that was supposed to grab your attention and hold it for long periods of time.

I learned a lot from the book, things that slipped past me as a kid. I had no idea that Imagic's Cosmic Ark was the sequel to Atlantis, that the vessel that leaves the underwater city when the city is finally destroyed is supposedly the ark carrying the survivors to their new destination. Pretty cool. There were things I believed were missing, but only in the "if I wrote the book I would have said" way. Where was Riddle of the Sphinx? I can't tell you how many hours I spent on that game. And why was there no mention of the fact that if you hit the dragons on the nose in Adventure, you could rush behind them and press up against their backsides to end up in their bellies? My siblings and I found that quirk to be hilarious. Ok, obscure.

Nostalgia is the perfect word if you are of the right vintage. Despite the fact that in the end we lost 99.9% of the time, as games in those days simply got faster and faster until you "died," and there rarely ever seemed to be a victorious ending achievable, the Atari 2600 started me on a lifelong love affair with gaming, and even a career in the arcades in the 1980s and 1990s.

Read the book, and when you're done, meet me at Atarimania and we'll rendezvous with Pitfall Harry.

[Jason Deaville · Rating 5 out of 5]

I acquired, and read, this book specifically for a trip from Canada to Norway. It was the perfect companion for all the flights, trains, and evenings spent in hearth-warmed arctic cabins. As an Atari 2600 aficionado, I immediately felt a kinship to Jamie - like he and I could have been best friends back in the early-to-mids 80s, running home after school to while away the evening in a fantastical world of 8-bit. Jamie's descriptions and knowledge of games from this era is incredibly impressive, and his narrative wholly immersive... it literally felt like the pages melted away into a joystick. Kudos, Jamie! Would love to see a second volume dedicated to 2600 games.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was an Intellivision kid growing up but I was always a little jealous of the Atari owners out there. This is the second book of Mr. Lendino's that I have read (Attract Mode was 1) and they have both been wonderful blasts from the past.

[Ray Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best takes on the Atari 2600

This is a fantastic short history of the Atari 2600 and its gaming library, both good and bad. It’s well-researched while keeping a tight focus. Really well-done.

[Will Cowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good history, interesting coverage of some important games across the console's lifespan. Not controversial or very deep, a fun breeze through the beginning of console gaming.

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stretch Armstrong, Star Wars, The Six Million Dollar Man, and the Atari 2600.
Life was great!