Game of the Week: Zaxxon for Atari 2600

Arcade enthusiasts were blown away in 1982 when the game Zaxxon was released. Zaxxon was the first arcade game to feature isometric projection, which is basically a fancy way of saying the game appeared to be three-dimensional.

No, the game's graphics didn't pop out from the screen at you, but they did appear in three dimensions. Before Zaxxon, video games appeared flat, in only two dimensions.

Zaxxon was a hit game at the arcades, and since the Atari 2600 was the top selling home video game system at the time, fans couldn't wait for Zaxxon to be ported to the Atari.

Well, as history shows, the Coleco version of Zaxxon that made its way to the Atari 2600 didn't look anything like the arcade version of Zaxxon.

The graphics were flat, two dimensional. For that matter, there didn't seem to be that many graphics to look at. There were relatively few items on the screen at any given time.

Looking back, that should have been expected. It wasn't like the Atari 2600 was known for great graphics. Still, Zaxxon fans were mostly disappointed.

That being said, Zaxxon for the Atari 2600 was still fun to play. Similar to the arcade game, the player controls a space ship flying over an enemy alien base while shooting down enemy ships, satellite dishes and fuel tanks. Of course the Atari version of this game took some getting used to, mainly because of the not-so-great graphics, but once your eye was familiar with everything, you really could play a pretty good game.

No, it wasn't real Zaxxon, but Zaxxon for the Atari 2600 was fun enough that it can stand on its own.