Atari 7800

After it became clear the Atari 5200 was a failure, Atari quickly decided to make a follow-up to it, but the Great Video Game Crash put a halt to their plans and so they moved to the personal computer market, as the damage seemed irreversible. However, once the gaming industry started recovering Atari decided to bring back their project to clean their reputation and thus the Atari 7800 was born. It was too late, however, as Nintendo had already dominated the market at this point, and so the 7800 was sadly overlooked.
The 7800 was a huge step-up from the 5200, being a nice overall machine. While its library was limited mainly due to Nintendo's policy of not allowing third-parties from publishing games on competing systems, it had some pretty nice games. Also, it was fully backwards-compatible with 2600 games.
==The list==
Box art	Title 	Genre 	Description 	Screenshot
 	Asteroids 	Shoot 'em Up 	The 7800 version of Asteroids ditches the iconic vectors for chunky looking sprites but is otherwise a solid conversion. Also includes 2-player simultaneous team and versus modes. 	
 	Ballblazer 	Futuristic Soccer	Arguably the best version of Ballblazer on any system, including the Famicom/NES. Control a futuristic "rotofoil" hovercraft and play futuristic soccer by shooting the ball into your moving goal while the opponent tries to do the same. Has great smooth scrolling and some of the best music on the system due to being one-of-two games to include a POKEY chip on the cartridge. 	
 	Centipede 	Shoot 'em Up 	A very faithful and fun conversion of the arcade classic only let down by no native trackball support. Shoot the moving centipedes as they come down the screen, but try to shoot the head as hitting the middle causes the centipede to split. Also has the same 2-player team and versus modes as Asteroids. 	
 	Dark Chambers 	Action/Adventure 	A Gauntlet-style overhead exploration game, where you traverse the labyrinth levels while collecting items and fighting the hordes of enemies. 	
 	Desert Falcon 	Shoot 'em Up 	Isometric styled shmup in the vein of Zaxxon where you control a falcon. Unique in that you can control your flight speed by holding up or down. 	
 	Dig Dug 	Maze 	The classic Dig Dug on 7800 looks worse than the NES port but otherwise plays just as well. Dig through the dirt and pop the monsters using your inflation pump, but be careful as the monsters can faze through the dirt to get you. Starts you with 5 lives but gets rapidly more difficult. A great port all round. 	
 	Donkey Kong 	Platformer 	A port of the 1981 classic Nintendo game. Is missing the "pie factory" level, but is otherwise a good version and is comparable to the version on the NES. 	
 	Food Fight 	Shooter 	One of the few exclusives for the 7800 that's worth playing. Throw the food at the chefs while you try to eat the melting ice-cream in order to progress to the next level. Almost plays like a slower paced, more cerebral Robotron 2084 where you can only shoot in your facing direction. 	
 	Galaga 	Vertical Shooter 	A classic shmup from Namco that's the sequel to Galaxian. Be sure to start on the Expert setting though as the default Beginner mode is very easy. 	
 	Joust 	Action 	Williams 1982 classic Joust appears on the 7800 in fine form with an excellent port. Control a flying ostrich and joust/collide with the other riders, with the rider with the highest lance being the winner. Complete wave after wave to survive as long as possible. Has the same 2-player simultaneous mode available as the arcade. 	
 	Mario Bros. 	Platformer 	A great port of the 1983 arcade game. Also contains the simultaneous two player mode from the arcade version. 	
 	Midnight Mutants	Adventure 	Excellent adventure game where you must send a witch back to her grave and save Al Lewis your grandpa who's been trapped by her in a pumpkin. 	
 	Ms. Pac-Man 	Maze 	The beloved Ms. Pac-Man gets a great port on the 7800 that is debatably better then either the Tengen NES port with its scrolling screen, or Namco's NES port with its slow pace and awful sound-effects. However, this game is now basically obsolete with the release of Bob DeCrescenzo's homebrew Pac-Man Collection! for the 7800 which basically includes the same Ms. Pac-Man port with minor improvements.	
 	Ninja Golf 	Beat 'em Up 	It has ninjas, so of course this is the best 7800 game! 	
 	Pole Position II	Racing/Driving 	The pack-in launch game for the 7800 makes for a decent showpiece of the system's hardware compared to the 2600 and 5200 versions. Race on 4 different tracks, including the classic Fuji raceway from the original game, for as long as possible to get the highest score. 	
 	Robotron: 2084 	Shooter 	A good port of the arcade. You can use two controllers for the proper dual-stick control scheme. 	
 	Xevious 	Vertical Shooter 	A pretty good port of the arcade shmup. Not as pretty as the NES port but still plays very well. 	
==Videos==
20 Games That Defined the Atari 7800
Category:Third Generation
Category:Atari