I've been playing around with "Atari Anthology" (PS2). My favorite Atari 2600 game is Gravitar, although I've been playing on the "no gravity" setting. The controls are similar to "Asteroids". Push D-Pad up to accelerate, and left and right to rotate the ship. Once the ship gets going in a direction, it continues to travel in that direction until you turn around and thrust to counteract the movement or ram into something. Very difficult to maneuver in tight quarters.

The object of the game is to clear all the planets in each solar system by destroying all the enemy bunkers on each planet. The bunkers fire in random directions, and flying saucers will come after you and try to ram you. You also have to beam up fuel from fuel depots with a nifty tractor beam.

There are four galaxies to explore, each with three solar systems. Each solar system has three or four planets. The first two galaxies play normally. In the third and fourth, all of the planetary terrain is dark; you can't see it unless you fire your guns at the terrain to temporarily light it up. Upon completing the game (all four galaxies), it loops back to the first one and lets you continue playing with your score intact. The first time I beat the game, I played through three complete iterations and lost my last life on the fourth. This time I made it to the seventh iteration!


My totally awesome score

Here are some of the insane levels I navigated during my intergalactic adventures...


Not too difficult, although getting to the fuel depots is tricky. Green bunkers leave fuel depots when destroyed.


An easy one, but that far left cave is tricky.


This one must be an asteroid or something. You can circle around the entire mass.


The first cave level. Lots of walls to avoid ramming into.


A tougher cave level.


Just getting into the cavern is a feat. Those tunnels are barely wide enough for my ship to fit through.


I call this one "The Fuel Yard". Lots of green bunkers, and some tricky caves at the left.


This one is just insane! Lots of lives have been lost here.


Not too tough, but the bunkers create an area of crossfire in the middle.


Only tricky part is getting to that bunker on the ceiling at far left.


The ultimate cavern. Tricky on the sides and in the middle.

Now all I gotta do is conquer it with the gravity on. Let the insanity fly!

On a related note, I have conquered Gravity. It was difficult and I was never able to do it before, but I finally did it! I'll be laughing at everyone from above their houses now.

Seriously though, good work. I sucked at that game.

Played again and scored over a million. As I suspected, the score resets to zero when you hit a million. Bummer. There was little point to playing further. I guess the designers didn't expect anyone to get that far.

Still a great game.

I've been working on trying to play it with the gravity on. Also been playing the arcade version of Gravitar, which is included with the Atari Anthology. Pretty cool that they give you both versions of the game, although I like the 2600 version best.

Jamos - I sucked at it, too! It takes practice, patience, and perseverence. The first time I saw most of those levels, I was floored by how impossible it looks. I crashed many times. The first time I saw that dark pink level with the S-curves on the sides leading down into the cavern below, I was like, "How am I even gonna get down there?!" Then I saw the yellow one with obstacles filling the screen. It's brutal! Got an addictive quality to it, though. Gotta beat the level! As I worked on it and kept trying, I started to get familiar with how the ship moves and thrusts, and I started working on strategies for safely getting through. It's quite the rush to make it through a level without crashing or getting killed once.