Games

A homebrew "sequel" to Haunted House originally for the Atari 5200 by Mean Hamster. You enter a mansion with thirty or sixty rooms, depending of your selection. You are searching for treasure but beware of the ghosts and creeps that haunt the mansion. You can turn on a light in any rooms to find hidden items. Somewhere in the maze of rooms is a sword that will make you immune to most bad guys. Once you have the treasure, make your way to the south wall of the starting point to exit and win.

Released in 1982 on Atari 8-bit, by Sun Electronics.

Ms. Pac-Man is a maze-chase game and follow-up to Pac-Man. The player guides Ms. Pac-Man through a series of maze layouts, eating dots and bonus fruit while avoiding four ghosts. A round ends when all dots are cleared, and a life is lost if any ghost touches Ms. Pac-Man. The game has no conventional ending, instead continuing through increasingly difficult rounds until the player runs out of lives.

Microgammon SB originally started out as an Apple IIe game. According to programmer Steve Baker, he had originally developed the game for the Apple when he decided to port it to the Atari 5200. Since the 5200 possessed a high resolution mode that was on par with the Apple's, the conversion was pretty straightforward. However one side effect of using the 5200's high-res mode was that the graphics were in black & white only. However most players find that this really doesn't distract much from the game since it uses black and white pieces anyway. It was meant to be released in September 15th, 1983. It was later included in Atari compilations.

Released in 1983 on Atari 5200, by Activision.

A prototype game that was never officially released for the Atari 5200, Frisky Tom is a port of the obscure Nichibutsu coin-op of the same name in which you play a plumber who must climb up and fix broken pipes to keep a steady stream of water flowing from the tank at the top of the screen to the reservoir at the bottom. Unfortunately this house is infested with mice which roam the screen, gnawing through pipes and generally causing problems for our man Tom. Once a mouse gnaws through a pipe, you'll see the flow of water stop and a pipe piece will fall to the ground. To repair the pipe Tom must pick up the fallen piece (you can hold two pieces a time), and put it back into the hole. To get to where the holes are, Tom must carefully climb up and navigate the maze of pipes. Although Tom can cross short gaps in the pipes, he'll need to go around the larger ones. While climbing around on the pipes, Tom will run across several different kinds of mice. Each mouse has its own color and purpose. When the flow of water is interrupted, the timer in the reservoir will begin to count downward from 5000 at the rate of 100 points per second. The only way to stop this countdown is to restore the water flow by fixing the pipes. If the timer reaches zero, Tom will lose a life and play the current level over again. If Tom is able to get enough water into the reservoir (keeping the timer above 1500), he'll be rewarded with a bonus intermission showing a woman taking a shower. - Excerpt from

Meteorites is an arcade action game featuring gameplay similar to Asteroids. You control a spaceship surrounded by numerous asteroids; your goal is to destroy them! Each time you shoot an asteroid, it will break up into smaller asteroids. Eventually the pieces will be small enough that you can destroy them. When you have destroyed all of the asteroids, you will move on to the next, more difficult level. Meteorites was originally called Disasteroids, but the name was changed under pressure from Atari.

Stinger is a tank-shooter with several enemies, levels, power-ups and items to pick.

You're actually one of B.A.T. (Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters) sergeants, and a new mission awaits you. Vrangar, a top scientist, and Merigo, a small-time crook, have announced their intention to set off nucturobiogenic bombs in Terrapolis, the largest city on Selenia. The ultimatum leaves the government only 10 days to evacuate the city and draw up a deed of ownership in Vrangor's name. Beyond this time limit, Selenia will be blown out of the galaxy. The countdown has begun, and it's up to you to play and foil Vrangor's evil plans. Don't forget: The Fate Of Terrapolis Lies in your Hands! Be entranced by graphics, sound effects and an atmosphere that are out of this world! Visit over 1100 different places including restaurants, gun-smiths, discos, hotels, arcades, parks, etc... Feel free to stop someone on the street to get information or just to say hello.

Yucatan Sam explores the temples of Quintana Roo searching for the keys to open the ceremonial vault and acquire the riches inside.

The Atari 5200 port of Pac-Man, which is a port of the Atari 8-bit version. One of the most popular and influential games of the 1980's, Pac-Man stars a little, yellow dot-muncher who works his way around to clear a maze of the various dots and fruit which inhabit the board.

Tempest is a shooter using wire-frame graphics. Each Wireway is taken on in turn, and has a network of lines guiding the movement paths of both yourself and the aliens. You remain on the outside and keep shooting as the aliens move towards you. Any that reach the outside are fatal to touch, thus limiting your range of movement greatly if 2 or more achieve this. Some aliens move sideways - in dealing with these, plan ahead, allowing for the time your shots to take to travel. Tempest was not officially released for the Atari 5200 platform. But an initial prototype was finished by Tempest's original programmer Keithen Hayenga and released by AtariAge in 2009.

"Oh dear." The scene: Space. The cosmic edge. Never deeper, never darker. The Home Team: A Stargate. A squadron of Hyperfighters. A glittering, pulsating sea of unstable energy. (Please--no quick or sudden movements.) The Challengers: Dreadnaughts. We're talkin' size LARGE. Behemoths. Invincible. Or so some say. You succeed: Universal applause. Life in the fast lane. Early retirement. Endorsements. You name it, it's yours. You fail: Not a viable alternative. You want I should draw you a picture? Distinctly unpretty. The Big Zip. Kaput. Finito. Capice?

Astro Grover (along with Muppet Go-Round and Big Bird’s Hide and Seek) was part of Atari’s planned children’s line of games for the Atari 5200. These titles would have utilized the 5200 Kid’s Controller, which was actually just a giant keypad that would have easy for children with small hands to use. However, while the 2600 children’s line was released (featuring completely different games), the 5200 games and controller never saw the light of day. The games were however eventually released by CBS on the Atari 8-bit computers and the Nintendo Entertainment System, although some were slightly retooled. As you may have guessed, Astro Grover is an educational game featuring that lovable blue demon Grover. Although the title suggests a game about discovering the solar system, Astro Grover is really about counting and numbers. Atari simply borrowed Grover’s astronaut persona from the reoccurring skits on Sesame Street to make it more interesting. Astro Grover consists of five different mini-games offering up some amusing edutainment that would appropriate for 5-8 year olds.

Beef Drop is a port of the popular arcade game Burgertime, which Ken Siders first ported to the Atari 5200 and 8-bit computers. This version of Beef Drop beature POKEY sound support, for much better audio than the 7800 can produce without this chip. The 7800 version also features better graphics than the 5200/8-bit version, making the 7800 version the definitive release of Beef Drop.

Chase is somehow similar to Gnome Robots but in real-time game and with several items and power-ups.

An extra-rare prototype cartridge. Only one is known to exist. 5200 Menu is a rare prototype that seems to be a kiosk of sorts. The game features Asteroids, which was never released for the system, Quagmire, which nothing is known about as it was canceled, and Failsafe, which was the working-title name for Countermeasure.

Berzerk is a port of the arcade original for the Atari 5200.