🕹️ The 9 best Atari 7800 games
This is our pick of the Atari 7800 essentials: the games that have aged best and are worth coming back to the console for. For each one we explain what makes it special, with a couple of tips, and every one of them plays right now in your browser — no downloads, with keyboard, gamepad or touch controls.
#1Centipede
1987 · Arcade · Shooter
This Atari 7800 version brings Atari's 1981 arcade hit home with its mushroom field intact. You control a small shooter confined to the bottom of the screen while a centipede winds down through the mushrooms toward you. Every segment you hit becomes a new mushroom, and shooting it in the middle splits the creature into two heads that move on their own. A bouncing spider invades your space, fleas drop straight down seeding more mushrooms, and scorpions poison them so the centipede plunges right at you. Centipede is remembered for that crowded, tense feeling of clearing room to breathe while the field keeps filling up.
Tip: Keep the area near the bottom clear of mushrooms; a cluttered zone leaves no room to dodge the spider.
▶ Play Centipede
#2Ms. Pac-Man
1987 · Arcade · Maze
Ms. Pac-Man drops you into a maze to eat every dot while four ghosts steadily close in. Swallow one of the large energizers and the hunters turn blue for a few seconds, letting you chase them down for growing points before they recover. Compared with the original, this sequel switches mazes as you progress, sends bonus fruit wandering through the corridors and makes the ghosts harder to predict, so memorised patterns help less. The Atari 7800 version brings the arcade game home with clean, bright graphics and the same tense rhythm of fleeing, baiting and turning the chase around.
Tip: Hold off on energizers until several ghosts are nearby, then eat them in a row for much bigger points.
▶ Play Ms. Pac-Man
#3Food Fight
1987 · Arcade
Food Fight is exactly what it sounds like. You play Charley Chuck, a kid racing to reach an ice cream cone before it melts, while angry chefs climb out of holes in the floor to grab him. Piles of food are scattered around the screen: tomatoes, pies, peas, watermelons. You scoop them up and throw them to keep the chefs back, and they throw plenty right back at you. Each screen is a short, messy dash where you balance pushing toward the cone with defending yourself. This Atari 7800 version brings home Atari's arcade game, remembered for its playful humor and frantic pace.
Tip: Watch the ice cream: it melts over time, so stop throwing and head for the cone once your path is reasonably clear.
▶ Play Food Fight
#5Joust
1987 · Arcade
You ride a lance-carrying ostrich, flapping to stay aloft over floating ledges and a pit of lava. Enemy knights ride buzzards, and every collision is settled by height: whoever is higher wins. Beaten riders leave an egg behind, and it pays to grab it before it hatches into a fresh opponent. The rhythm of flapping, the drifting momentum and the screen that wraps from side to side turn each wave into a small aerial duel. This Atari 7800 version adapts Williams' 1982 arcade game and keeps simultaneous two-player play, where partners can cooperate or knock each other off.
Tip: Stay slightly above enemies; meeting at equal height just bounces you both apart with no winner.
▶ Play Joust
#6Joust
1987 · Arcade
Joust puts you on a flying ostrich, lance in hand, above a pit of lava. Enemy knights ride buzzards around a handful of floating ledges, and every collision is settled by height: whoever is higher wins. You have to keep flapping to climb, so momentum and timing are the real skill. Beaten riders drop eggs that hatch into new enemies if you don't grab them in time, and a hand reaches up from the lava to catch anyone flying too low. Williams' 1982 arcade original is remembered for its odd premise and its tense, physical feel, and this Atari 7800 version keeps that core intact.
Tip: Stay slightly above your opponents; a level collision settles nothing, and attacking from below loses.
▶ Play Joust
#7Robotron 2084
1987 · Shooter
By 2084 the robots have wiped out nearly all of humanity, and you control the one genetically enhanced human left to fight back. Each wave drops you into a single open screen surrounded by dozens of machines closing in, and you survive by moving one way while shooting another. On top of that, the last human family is wandering around the arena, and you score big by reaching them before the robots do. Robotron: 2084 began as a Williams arcade game by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, and this Atari 7800 version keeps its frantic pace and its toughness, so clearing even one more wave feels earned.
Tip: Never stay parked in the middle; keep moving and clear an escape path by shooting where you want to go.
▶ Play Robotron 2084
#8Pole Position II
1987 · Racing
Pole Position II brings Namco's arcade Formula One sequel home. Every race starts with a timed qualifying lap: finish it in time and your lap sets your spot on the starting grid, then the real race asks you to pass rival cars and reach each checkpoint before the clock runs out. You pick from several circuits, Fuji among them, and shift between a low and high gear. Clip another car or a roadside sign and you go up in a fireball, losing precious seconds. The appeal is rhythm, learning each bend until you can take it with the throttle nearly open.
Tip: Start in low gear and shift to high once you pick up speed, or you'll fall behind right off the line.
▶ Play Pole Position II
#9Xevious
1987 · Shooter · Vertical
Xevious first appeared in arcades in 1982 from Namco, and this Atari 7800 version keeps its central idea: you fly the Solvalou over landscape scrolling upward through forests, rivers and roads, using two separate weapons. A forward shot handles enemies in the air, while bombs, aimed with a sight that floats ahead of the ship, take out targets on the ground. Watching the sky and the terrain at the same time is what makes it demanding and hard to put down. It is remembered for giving vertical shooters ground that felt like a real place rather than a backdrop.
Tip: Keep an eye on the bombing sight: when it lights up over something, there is a ground target beneath it even if it is hard to see.
▶ Play Xevious
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