I was six years old when Atari started showing up in living rooms and, because it was the 80’s, in basements, where we spent all our time.
Perhaps everyone else thought it was a bit odd that the cover art for the cartridge had little to do with what the actual game looked like, but I felt I was the only one.
Berzerk looks like an amazing shoot em up. An early version of DOOM.
Defender implies a whole back story. A city. The woman you love. An alien attack. You are; the Defender!
Sky Jinks just looks like what it is. I guess they didn’t want to pay an artist to work on it. The balloons/parachutes and trees could have made epic art, but Word Zapper would have been tough in oil paint.
Yars’ Revenge looks epic. Like a prog rock album cover. Robot space bugs with guns!
(You can click on each image to see a close up of the art.)
