The 6 best Atari 2600 games

Ranked by the scores that magazines gave these games when they came out. The list draws on 507 review scores of 272 Atari 2600 games; 66 of them have enough reviews to be ranked.

#	Game	Platform	Year	Score
1	Ms. Pac-Man	Atari 2600	1982	100
2	The Activision Decathlon	Atari 2600	1984	100
3	Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space	Atari 2600	1983	97.5
4	Cookie Monster Munch	Atari 2600	1983	94.3
5	Phaser Patrol	Atari 2600	1982	93.3
6	Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Death Star Battle	Atari 2600	1983	91.1

Highly rated, with fewer than 3 reviews

17 Atari 2600 games have a score of 90 or more, but from only one or two reviews, and no Metacritic score.

Game	Platform	Year	Score
Alpha Beam with Ernie	Atari 2600	1983	100
Chopper Command	Atari 2600	1982	100
Encounter at L5	Atari 2600	1982	100
Pac-Man	Atari 2600	1982	100
Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle	Atari 2600	1983	100
Space Attack	Atari 2600	1982	100
Track & Field	Atari 2600	1984	100
Tunnel Runner	Atari 2600	1983	100
Word Zapper	Atari 2600	1982	100
Escape from the Mindmaster	Atari 2600	1982	93.5
Moonsweeper	Atari 2600	1983	93.5
Dragonstomper	Atari 2600	1982	91.5
Frogger	Atari 2600	1982	91.5
Ghost Manor	Atari 2600	1983	91.5
Spike's Peak	Atari 2600	1983	91.5
Swordquest: Fireworld	Atari 2600	1983	91.5
Pitfall!	Atari 2600	1982	90

How the ranking works

The scores are the ones magazines gave when the games came out, all converted to a 0–100 scale. Only one review per magazine counts for a game: the most recent.
A game's score is half the average, half the median of its magazine reviews. A title opens the game's page on uvlist.net; a score opens the report with every review behind it.
A game needs at least 3 magazine reviews to be ranked. With equal scores, the game with more reviews comes first.
Metacritic already sums up many reviews, so it is never mixed with the magazines: it is used only for games with fewer than 3 magazine reviews, as their only score.
Each list shows every game with a score of 90 or more. Games with fewer than 3 reviews and no Metacritic score are shown apart: their score is promising, but rests on one or two opinions.

The lists are rebuilt each time reviews are added. To filter by genre, year, magazine or publisher, explore all the scores in the report.

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