So I hit up a garage sale over the weekend and bought a genuine, working-condition Atari 2600, with a huge stack of games nearly mint in their boxes, for a song. I thought I’d scan the box covers and give you all a look back into the fun of yesteryear.
Related Articles
154 users responded in this post
That was funny.
Never owned a 2600, but had a great time playing them.
Furthermore, the 2600 joysticks were some of the best I ever used for my Commodore 64 — (which also had many underrated games that seem crude to today’s gaming generation, but were importantly FUN. ‘Forbidden Forest’ rules.) Simply made — and more importantly, damn near indestructible.
Epyx’s C64 classic ‘Summer Games’ wrecked more of my precision joysticks with those damn running events (which we ‘banned’ in group competition for that reason) than I care to remember — except for Atari 2600 joysticks.
Oh man, these brought back my childhood. I owned several, each one holding a special place in my heart.
Especially Aliens vs. Ghosts, and it’s eventual TV spinoff, The X Files.
The 2600 — for all of its 4K/8K games and hypersymbolic gameplay — remains one of the purely golden aspects of my youth. (And look at that cover art! Gorgeous!) And yes, those joysticks were fantastic. There’s just something missing on emulators without those sticks.
The sad/scary thing isn’t that someone paid $24.95 for Atari Pinball — it’s that someone also paid as much for E.T.
And I miss the Atari Force comics. Blowing up universes long, long before Countdown.
You nearly had me there for a second. Great artwork. Looks completely legit.
It took me too long to realize you were photoshopping. (I actually passed over “Obligatory Educational ‘Game’”, and then had to go back and look at it again.) I’m still not sure where some of them are photoshopped.
Hey, I loved Buzz Aldrin’s Space Rainbow Tennis when I was a kid.
[…] MightyGodKing takes a look back at the halcyon days of Atari with some box art fun: […]
Also Dugg, as it should be.
My grandma, who loved her thousands of grandchildren ALMOST as much as she loved saving a buck, bought us a huge box of Atari 2600 games without instruction booklets. I distinctly remember Dude - We Shouldn’t Have Done That Acid, My Hands Feel Twizzlers… Oh, Man, Twizzlers being one of them. If you have a spare copy of the instructions laying around, let me know what the fucking point of the game was. It’s been a mystery to me for about 20 years now.
I will say one thing, some of those games had amazing box art. Terrorists in the year 3000, better known as Slot Racers, brings back bad memories. If more folks played that one, then E. T. might not have the rep it does as worst game of all time.
The illustrations alone could be children’s sci-fi book covers from the 70s and 80s.
Oh….that brought tears to my eyes. Beauty of this magnitude is simply too good for this world.
WE DON’T DESERVE YOU!!
I always wondered too, who exactly is Yars?
I thought “I Wasted My Life” was better known as Second Life these days …
These are eerily similar to the covers for Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books! I’m beginning a conspiracy theory about it — check out my book, coming out in ‘09 ~ “Buzz Aldrin’s Space Rainbow Tennis & Attack of the Meta-Sphinx from Mars, You Decide!”
[…] Apparently, this guy has a different, considerably more awesome recollection of the game titles. […]
Sadly, “Backgammon for Friendless People” and “It’s Fucking Checkers” took up so much of my childhood. And, let’s be honest, my adult life as well.
I’m an idiot. I didn’t suspect anything until Fucking Checkers, and then I sat there for a few minutes wondering how that was allowed into the stores…
I was too young for most of these, but I do have fond memories of watching my uncle play Old-Timey Cop With A Stick. That cop never could catch Gallagher.
I think “I Am A Vegas Showgirl” needs to get a trophy.
Either that, or “It’s Fucking Checkers.”
[…] Link (via) […]
You’ve been Metafiltered, as well.
[…] Uncategorized For those that still fondly remember playing video games on an Atari 2600, this site will bring back […]
[…] April 21st, 2008 by COD If you wasted away part of your childhood with an Atari 2600 you will so enjoy this trip down memory lane. […]
For some of these, if they came in a poster size, I’d buy them. They are comic art. E-mail me if they do, please.
[…] Fun From Yesterday! [Mighty God King] […]
And now BoinbBoingGageted, which means Cory’s next summary post will bring you massive amounts of traffic…
[…] Sure you played Asteroids and Defender, but did you play these? […]
Congrats dude . . that was some funny shit . .. .took me WAYYYY back. .
[…] Mightygodking.com » Blog Archive » Fun From Yesterday! (tags: via:nelson games Atari-2600 retro funny) […]
Yar IS the fly. The enemy is the Qotile.
Very good work. And you summed some of them up pretty accurately (especially Demons to Diamonds and Math Grand Prix). But you didn’t find any Activation or Imagic titles in your new collection?
I have got a mint in box Oh! I Say, but it is PAL so probably not worth much
[…] out these “scans” of some rare and wonderful Atari 2600 games. Some absolute classics in there, like Every Sport Ever: In Pong Form, It’s Fucking Checkers, […]
OMFG. I remember so many of these games.
I remember playing COMBAT! with my sister. I claimed that the one big plane was better then the 3 small planes so that she would play it. I would then proceed to destroy her because DUH the 3 small planes can dodge the bullets.
NICE FIND! You win.
[…] stung my cheeks when games never lived upto the promise these mini Da Vinci’s promised. Mighty God King have a great parody (that is barely a parody at all) of these awesome covers of ye olde times! […]
There need to be more games with a Latin Mode.
That’s superb. I remember Old Timey Cop with a Stick. Hours of fun!
Hell yeah, i wanna play ‘Gay French Mario Bros.!’
You had me up until “Obligatory Educational Game”. From there it was pure joy. “And all of them are Checkers. Seriously, you want this?”
joystiq’s got it too.
[…] Salvador Dali’s Pinball and other beauty from the Atari Age. share: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web […]
[…] Old Package Designs Mightygodking.com
Sweet Jeebus, these are wonderful! Who would’ve thought the Internet could be more than a fabulous porn pipeline?!
“It’s Fucking Checkers” made me laugh/snort out loud at my desk at work.
I’ll be the millionth person to do so, but I have to say it: some of that box art is absolutely stunning, and seriously outclasses what you see on the shelves today.
Funniest of all is the “Spaceship Engineering” art’s incongruity with its original title: BASIC.
And is it just me, or does the checkers king not look more than a little like Paul Darrow?
That is a HUGE find– I am so jealous. We have just started having game nights in our school library and that is a true treasure. We always have a “classic” system set up, but yours is a huge winner. The kids think it is so cool to play the “old-school” games. I love the checkers! Wow.
Yars’ Revenge was definitely my favorite game. If someone were to remake that one for one of the newer game systems, then I might actually be tempted to buy one.
[…] Länken. […]
Man those are GREAT! You can’t even tell they were edited!
Any chance of offering high-res pics of these? I’d love to print out a few and put them on my cube at work.
Superman has a Superman-shaped penis.
Weird. o_O
Absolutely Brilliant how did you cobble the artwork together??
Wow, so many memories came flooding back. I too played many of those games as a wee lad, and loved every second of it. I recognize the “education game” as Math Gran Prix. A racing game that let you advance by answering simple math questions (2+2, 2×3, 6/3). That game helped me learn my numbers it did! And “Oh I say” taught me to speak with a cockney English accent, what what. Keep them coming!
[…] April 23, 2008 in comedy, cool, funny, humor, lifeTags: 2600, atari, checkers, games, video God, I love this shit! […]
Funniest thing I’ve seen in forever.
[…] This set of photoshopped Atari 2600 game box art is genius, and one of those rare times when gaming humor is actually funny. (RIP Old Man Murray). […]
I have a Raiders of the Lost Ark that I have no idea how to play. I can get past the start menu (sometimes) then I usually end of promptly falling off a cliff (for no apparent reason) or some undulating pixel blob somehow kills me. I love my Atari for that reason, as a twenty something I still don’t even know how some of the games work….
Since I’m studying English history, I really enjoyed Magna Carta. I never knew Atari had a game that involved Levellers and Diggers (what about Cromwell?). Fuck, all I had was Night Driver and Real Sports Baseball.
Completely brilliant. Well done.
‘Wild and Groovy Space Combat’- yes.
I, too, would be tremendously interested in buying a poster or two with these on them.
Please create, ???, profit!
where’s “Championship Soccer Darts”?
“Slam Dunk Battle Tank”?!?
even “Kid Lazer and the Robot-Ghosts on Planet Frightening!” is missing
Can anyone identify all of the actual game names? I see (in no order) Defender, Othello, Breakout, Circus (?)…
[…] okładek z Mighty God King jest prosta. Autor nabył drogą kupna Atari 2600 i stos gier, których okładki zeskanował i […]
These are awesome. I did a similar thing a while back to the Pitfall cover
http://p9g.tumblr.com/post/25114833
I love these!
Very, very cooly done
[…] MightyGodKing via Kotaku, some fun photoshopped Atari 2600 titles to fill your nostalgic snark requirement. I […]
[…] Fun From Yesterday! [MightyGodKing via Boing Boing Gadgets] […]
CLASSIC. The names are amazing.
Die. Don’t Die. That’s about it…. Genious!
[…] okładek z Mighty God King jest prosta. Autor nabył drogą kupna Atari 2600 i stos gier, których okładki zeskanował i […]
damn straight! genius!
[…] Fun From Yesterday! […]
most of this games are old school games but you can steal playing all this games on you computer try to looking for atari emulator to let you play on you computer and the games you wan to play look for atari roms now you can play all this old school games on you computer.
I see many guys talk about this games but none of this guys give a result opinion how to play all this games again.
[…] Rejected Atari 2600 Games “Every Sport Ever (in Pong form)”, “Gay French Mario Bros.”, “I’ve Wasted My Life” and more… […]
[…] how these vintage Atari games bring back memories. Fuzzy memories. Kinda. Well, […]
[…] Mightygodking.com » Blog Archive » Fun From Yesterday! […]
[…] insultant A poil Ca trace Pub You FAIL Mentos Ils sont marrants ces avocats Sevran c’est mort Atari 2600 Steampunk PC Google Domain Name Les licences DS, c’est vraiment nawak Métro à l’eau […]
[…] Old Atari 2600 box art + photoshop = fun! […]
Warlords RULES!
[…] Fun From Yesterday!: Check out these “forgotten” Atari games. I totally cracked up over most of these. Some examples: “Every Sport Ever - In Pong Form,” “Find the Koala - find him again and again!” “Gay French Mario Bros.” …and more! […]
Those two smug people on the box of “It’s Fucking Checkers” are fantastic! Such smugness is hardly ever seen on video game boxes these days.
On a slightly sadder note, we had a 2600 but none of our games had boxes. We were too cheap to buy anything new. That didn’t stop us enjoying such classics as 96 Fighter-Jet Games that are all Exactly The Same.
[…] friend pointed me to Fun from Yesterday, a blog post that pokes fun at the Atari 2600 and its game box […]
[…] you’ve got 5 minutes to burn or even if you don’t, you need to check out this link to http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/04/21/fun-from-yesterday/. Some guy took a bunch of Atari 2600 games and did a little photoshopping on them for a good […]
wasn’t checkers a dog?
Someone was asking what the games were. From my own memory, these are the ones I know (yes, I could be wrong. Please be gentle):
“Magna Carta” - Warlords
“Aliens vs. Ghosts” - Defender
“Every Sport Ever…” - Video Olympics
“Obligatory Educational Game” - Math Grand Prix
“Oh! I Say!” - Dodge ‘em
“Pixel Bondage” - Surround
“Rainbow Tennis” - Breakout
“Motorbike Kids vs. The Hot-Rod Menace” - Street Racer
“Find The Koala” - Hunt and Score
“Dude - We should have done that acid…” - Haunted House
“It’s Fucking Checkers” - uh…Checkers? (Okay, “Video Checkers”)
“Winchester ‘73″ - Outlaw
“Tim Curry’s Magic Board” - Othello
“Starship Engineering Future Challenge!” - BASIC Programming
“The Dots of War” - Codebreaker
“Backgammon for Friendless People” - Backgammon
“Flannals Attack” - Brain Games
“Parachute Pete” - Sky Diver
“Superman: The Game” - Superman
“Salvidor Dali’s Pinball Thrills” - Video Pinball
“Gay French Mario Bros.” - Circus Atari
“Wild and Groovy Moon Combat” - Space War
“I’ve Wasted My Life” - Video Chess
“Buzz Aldrin Space Rainbow Tennis” - Super Breakout
“Pixels At War” - Air-Sea Battle
“Terrorists in the Year 3000″ - Slot Racers
“Atari Video Computer System (Conversation)” - Yar’s Revenge
“Old-Timey Cop with a Stick” - Maze Craze (no relation to that jalapenio)
“Atari Video Computer System (Literal Translation)” - Demons to Diamonds
“Wrong Button!” - Missle Command (”Don’t ever push the red button.” - Duck Dodgers)
After cheating, the Vegas Showgirl is Casino (wasn’t sure if it was a variant cover for Blackjack), and the “Apollo 19″ mission is Space Ship, which I’d never heard of up until now. (Not so sure that isn’t the Sears title.) http://www.xocolatl.com/carts/at2600.lst
“I have a Raiders of the Lost Ark that I have no idea how to play.”
Hint: Use both controllers. One joystick moves you, and the other controls advanced things, such as inventory. It was a pretty good game, actually.
[…] that never existed […]
[…] friend passed this link on and I couldn’t help but share. The whole blog post had me rolling. Check it out!Oh, and on […]
[…] Plenty more at Mightygodking.com. […]
[…] LINK Blogroll […]
[…] first one of these is weirdly reminiscent of […]
Wow… just wow…. put these on t-shirts and you could make a fortune!!! Hell, I’ll buy one!!!!
[…] by Marcy “Still owns an Atari 2600″ LaViollette as found at MightyGodKing.com: Man, those games of yesteryear never looked so […]
[…] Fun From Yesterday! Vanhojen Atari-pelien kansia, with a twist. (tags: blog retro pelit wtf kuvat) […]
[…] Mightygodking.com » Blog Archive » Fun From Yesterday! So I hit up a garage sale over the weekend and bought a genuine, working-condition Atari 2600, with a huge stack of games nearly mint in their boxes, for a song. I thought I’d scan the box covers and give you all a look back into the fun of yesteryear. (tags: mightygodking.com 2008 mes3 dia24 at_home games Atari 2600 blog_post image) […]
[…] click here and prepare to laugh. Especially if you owned a good old Atari […]
I am looking at these for the second time today, and I again literally have tears of laughter. The first time, at work, I had to stop because I was disturbing my coworkers. I simply cannot thank you enough. Bless you.
Aliens vs. Ghosts and Rainbow Tennis were perhaps my favorites. Find the Koala and It’s Fucking Checkers a close second. And Tim Curry’s Magic Board. God, I can’t even choose. Genius.
[…] up, the hilarious: via crummy.com, a link to literal translations of Atari 2600 game cover art. Brilliant. My personal favorite would have to be “Backgammon for Friendless People”, […]
absolutely hilarious
I’m mildly amused by these faux Atari 2600 game titles, but absolutely aghast at the number of you who not only found this site but chose to spend time formulating comments about it. No wait. Were those real titles? Let’s contemplate this question on the tree of woe!
lol, oh man, I feel dumb. It took “Fucking Checkers” to realize they were faked. Great photoshopping there.
[…] Fun From Yesterday! This entry was written by meat and posted on April 27, 2008 at 2:05 pm and filed under Url. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. […]
That has to be the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long while….
[…] Mightygodking.com » Blog Archive » Fun From Yesterday! […]
You gotta love the cover art, nothing like the game at all ^^
I thought that Apollo 19 was actually Space War. Very funny stuff though!
[…] caval-arcade of Atari games from a world I’d like to live […]
Awsome!!!! I’m still giggling……Excellent job!
[…] Mightygodking.com » Blog Archive » Fun From Yesterday! # # Hey, Wait A Minute (tags: 80s covers design vintage photos) […]
http://www.digitpress.com/archives/interview_warshaw.htm
DP: What’s the story behind the name?
Warshaw: The working title was originally Time Freeze. I wanted an action game with a lot of colors and sounds – something I would enjoy playing. The concept was, at some point, time would “freeze” and there would be a countdown to a gigantic explosion. One of the things I wanted to do was have the first full-screen explosion.
There’s an interesting story of how Yars became Yars. Marketing had sent down some names for it – all of which were really terrible. So I asked if I could submit a name, and came up with Yars’ Revenge. I even included a whole storyline to support it, which was later used for the comic book.
Now, Yar is Ray spelled backwards, and the game’s story takes place in the Razak solar system, which (backwards) is similar to Kassar, and that stood for Ray Kassar, Atari’s CEO. Once the name was under consideration, I “leaked” this secret to a friend of mine in Marketing and Product Management, adding that Ray found out about the name and liked it! I knew that no one in marketing would ask Ray about it, and if they knew he liked it then they would use it, which is exactly what happened!
But there was one person who actually tried to kill of Yars. He hated the game, and kept insisting there was something wrong with it. He eventually sent it to be play-tested. This is where groups of people would play it, along with another game, and then judge them on a score from 1 to 5 (5 being the best). Well, the game it was pitted against was Missile Command, which was THE game at the time. It was a very good translation, and on top of that had name-recognition. I thought for sure that was it. I was able to see the scores as they came in, and the first couple were around 3.5 – not good! As it turned out, Yars ended up testing with an average of 4.5, rating it as one of the highest play-tests Atari ever did.
[…] Fun From Yesterday!. 19 kinds of checkers! […]
gay.
Awsome - incredible stuff! I like the “I’ve wasted my life”…
very nice article.
[…] fucking thing we’ve seen in as long as we can remember, we offer you just a taste of the mightygodking.com blog’s treasure trove of Atari 2600 cartridges, “discovered at a garage over the weekend.” Who […]
[…] fucking thing we’ve seen in as long as we can remember, we offer you just a taste of the mightygodking.com blog’s treasure trove of Atari 2600 cartridges, “discovered at a garage over the weekend.” Who […]
[…] Cool Shit. […]
[…] old timey Atari boxes […]
[…] actually plugged it in and saw the game in all of its 8-bit glory. I stumbled upon a post over at Mightygodking a while back and thought I would take the opportunity to share it with you. Basically it’s a […]
[…] sistema añejo. Viendo que alguna de las portadas son realmente impactantes decidió escanearlas y publicarlas en su blog. Algunas son fantásticas, otras hilarantes, alguna es WTF y después está la portada de Gay […]
[…] Fun From Yesterday! […]
[…] #1: A couple months ago, I ran across a very funny blog entry at MightyGodKing.com, wherein he’s photoshopped alternative titles onto some classic […]
[…] mightygodking.com index.php 2008 04 21 fun-from-yesterday « Sunday Type: circumflex type | i love typography, the typography and fonts blog […]
[…] just check out this flickr set that I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to for years or this post full of atari game covers which has should help you to put those ‘modern’ ones at the top into […]
Do you have the original scans of these? I’d love to see them pre-Photoshop.
[…] Click Aquí para ver toda la Galería […]
[…] © mighty god king […]
[…] Mightygodking.com » Blog Archive » Fun From Yesterday! (tags: vintage atari gaming humor history culture retro photoshop parody illustration) […]
It’s cool how probably the best video game system (ATARI 2600) of all time could to this day, have a very huge cult following. It’s amazing that a controller (JOYSTICK) only had “1″ button (FIRE) to play the game unlike controllers of today that you have to press 3, 4, or 5 buttons just to make something work. And the Atari 2600 games were so simple that it was a pure pleasure to play.
LONG LIVE “OLD SCHOOL” GAMES AND THEIR SYSTEMS.
[…] Other classic Atari box covers here […]
[…] I had had traffic floods before, of course, most notably when Fark found the Atari boxes post. That time, Hostpapa (my former server) locked me down for a few hours, then we had a nice talk and […]
[…] Atari 2600!’ Well, there are a lot of titles you’ve probably forgotten. Here are some more (bad language […]
[…] [http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/04/21/fun-from-yesterday/] tagi: cytat photoblog wersja strony: 0, ostatnia edycja: 1227250763|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z (%O […]
[…] always did think that Atari box art was pretty incongruous with the actual games. Posted in Uncategorized at April 22nd, 2008. […]
[…] link! remember these atari 2600 titles? me […]
Great covers. Looks very old.
You know, I think I like these better than the *real* manuals I have up on my kitchen wall as artwork…you know, to go with my Ms. Pac-Man machine.
That “It’s Fucking Checkers” one slays me.
[…] thanks to Marvin who brought this post over at Mighty God King to my attention. I made a post last year about the beauty of oldschool […]
Hello. And Bye.
Hilarious. I think I’m technically too young to have enjoyed such games, but I had an older cousin who graciously donated his Atari to my sister and I once he had a newer system.
im almost possitive this is a joke
i owned a 2600 and dont ever remember seeing covers any where near as odd as those ones
as a matter of fact i still have the 2600 plus a few games, doesnt work though
[…] Link […]
OMG… it’s 1979 all over again. All this weird box art has me laughing out LOUD!
Who need a 360 when you have a 2600 anyway?
Go play “Tax Avoiders”! (yep, that was a 2600 game…)
[…] Mightygodking.com » Post Topic » Fun From Yesterday […]
[…] mismo, les dejo otro link… que nos transporta a los años del atari.. El post se llama Fun for Yesterday y espero lo […]
I remember so many of these, I can’t breathe I’m laughing so hard. Fabulous!
[…] 80s, you aren’t going to care about this, but if you did, please continue. From the mightygodking blog, via monkeys for […]
Oh, I was there all right, but even still I was fooled because many of these games were released by Sears under different names so even though I knew that “Magna Carta” was really “Warlords” I thought, “Well, maybe.” I think “Obligatory Educational Game” finally clinched it, and everyone around me at work had to see why I was dying with laughter. Everyone knows that one of my favorite Atari cartridge was Backgammon so that, naturally, got a howling reception.
I wonder if anyone ever noticed that the Outlaw cartridge cover was a ripoff of Clint Eastwood’s “The Outlaw Josey Wales” poster.
See here:
http://www.filmesmm.blogger.com.br/The%20Outlaw%20Josey%20Wales.jpg
I think I had the superman game. You could walk to a phone booth and transform from Clark Kent to Superman, then fly around to various screens with different color backgrounds. There was literally nothing else in the game- change into superman, fly around in an empty world, call it a day.
les dejo otro link… que nos transporta a los años del atari.. El post se llama Fun for
Thts a sweet sort of collection. zabardast kaam kia hua hia.
Leave A Reply
Please Note: Comment moderation maybe active so there is no need to resubmit your comments