September 16th, 2010

Free Atari Games Online

The Atari 2600 is one of the oldest gaming consoles on the market. It was released in 1977 and it is known as the console that made the cartridge containing games popular. Before that, the consoles were using integrated games. So this way you were able to play just about any game you want to buy, and you could also exchange cartridges with your friends. So this is how the history of gaming began…first they were stocked on some kind of cassettes and cartridges, later on diskettes, then CD-s and today most of the games come on DVD-s. the Atari 2600 console came with 2 joystick controllers, a cartridge game and also a conjoined pair of paddle controllers. All you had to do is connect the console to your TV, and enjoy all your favorite games .

This gaming console was really popular in the 80’s and probably most of you that were kids in that time used to have such a game. If you did had an Atari gaming console, you probably remember of games such as: Pacman, Pitfall, Missile Command, E.T the Extraterrestrial , Atlantis, Kaboom, Space invaders and others.

Today you can find most of the games for free on the internet, and for today we’ll discuss about a free online Atari game – the Pitfall. This is the second most famous game of the Atari console and it was sold in around 4 million copies. It was released in 1982, and for its time it is quite a good looking game. It is composed out of 255 different jungle scenes, which are laid out horizontally. By getting to the end of one scene you will get to the next one and so on until you complete the game. As you advance you will encounter many dangers and obstacles that you have to avoid. The character of the game is called Harry and he searches for 32 treasures. He has only 20 minutes to complete his mission, so he can also use underground passages to get there faster.

Each underground scene that you go through covers 3 above ground scenes, so it is much faster. But unfortunately not all the underground scenes are shortcuts, and some of them are dead ends. With your player you can run left and right, and of course your objective is to advance and go right all the time. But if you encounter obstacles or enemies, you can also go left, and get back to the previous scene. A good thing is that when you die trying to cross an obstacle, you will restart the game on the other side of it. There are many good shortcuts, and one of them is to avoid your worse enemies – the crocodiles. If you take the latter found in the 15^th scene you will avoid some crocodiles, but you will find scorpions. Don’t worry because they are easier enemies. The latter that goes up will take you to scene 33, and this way you will skip 4 crocodile scenes and also a gold bar. But don’t worry if you skip this bar, because between levels 41 and 57 you will find 6 other treasures.

So now let’s see how you can avoid the worst enemies – the crocodiles. Run to the edge of their lake and then wait for them to close their mouths. All of the crocs will close their mouth at the same time. Then jump on the first crocodile and position Harry just behind his jaws in such a way that this crocodile or the next one can’t touch you. The blue surface is the water, so be careful to not step on it because you will fall. Wait for their mouths to close again and do the same thing on the second croc and then on the third one.

As we said earlier, you don’t necessarily need an Atari console to play this game, because you can find it for free on many sites on the internet. The controls for the online version are the left and right arrow keys for controlling Harry and the space bar for jumping. When you begin the game you have a time limit of 20 minutes, three available lives and a score of 2000. and of course when you start the game the time will begin to decrease and the score will decrease too if you get hit by logs. Whenever you jump, collect a treasure or you get killed, you will hear a noise…noises that are specific to the games of the 80’s. and there is even a funny noise, the one that Harry makes when he jumps on ropes. And this noise sounds similar to the one made by Tarzan. To be honest, the game is quite difficult to play, and especially when you have to jump. It is probably easier to play with a joystick, but for this you will need to have an Atari gaming console.

So in case you loved this game when you were a child, you can play it again now, for free on the internet. And this was just one example of a free online Atari game, but of course there are many more others. So in case you know some other that are really cool and worth playing, tell us more about them. We wait for your comments and until then, have a nice day!