I used to love going to the pool halls to play pool (billiards), and not only that; I also had tons of fun playing the video arcade games. These are the ones that cost a quarter a game to play. If you were addicted, you’d stand there for hours pushing buttons and swinging joysticks.

One of my favorites was Asteroids, which was made available by Atari in 1979. Now I can play it at the Atari website. It’s not a remake, they’ve got the original code and have converted the game to a format you can play on the web.

Here’s the current list of Atari games you can play at their site:

(quotes from Atari)

Asteroids
No history of the Golden Age of Arcade Games is complete without praising Asteroids, a game so popular that video arcade owners were sometimes forced to install larger boxes to hold the amount of quarters that were spent by players.

Adventure
Few games can be said to have created a genre. But Atari’s Adventure is rightfully considered by many to be the first ever action-adventure game. It was also the first ever to allow a player to have a stash of items, requiring the player to select which one to use at any given moment. Your mission: find the enchanted chalice and return it to the gold castle.

Battlezone
A forefather of today’s 3D action games, Battlezone was introduced in 1980. It was so advanced at the time that the U.S. Army ordered modified versions of the games for training purposes.

Crystal Castles
Noteworthy for being one of the first arcade games with an actual ending, in Crystal Castles the player controls Bentley Bear, who collects gems located throughout castles while avoiding enemies out to get him as well as the gems.

Lunar Lander
Often duplicated, never equaled. The objective of Lunar Lander is to pilot a lunar landing module as it prepares to touch down on the moon. With gravity, a finite fuel supply and the craft’s handling characteristics to contend with, find one of the flat areas for a safe landing.

Yars’ Revenge
Atari’s best selling original title for the 2600, you are a Yar: an insectoid creature who must nibble or shoot through a barrier in order to fire his “Zorlon Cannon” into the breach and destroy the evil Qotile.

Here’s where you can play the games:
http://www.atari.com/arcade

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