Back in the day, the Atari 2600 was ubiquitous. These days, you can fit the entire console into what used to be the joystick (which are still the best joysticks ever made, by the way). So yeah, technology has marched forward, and most of the games that used to be cutting-edge and impressive are things that would look rudimentary on your cell phone. Still, there were some gems from the Atari Age that are worth more than sheer nostalgia—these suckers have some gameplay left in them.

10. Keystone Kapers

One of the highlights from Activision, a company that had a lot of highlights for the Atari (see also: Kaboom!, Barnstormers, Freeway, etc.) Crisp graphics, speedy gameplay, and one of the best earworm sounds from 80s games—play this for a while, and just see if you don’t hear the chock-chock-chock of the running cop in your sleep.

9. Circus Atari

This was one of the games that your parents bought you so the paddle-controllers didn’t seem so useless (the other was the also-excellent Night Driver). This game was a variation on the classic Breakout, only with clowns and a seesaw—which somehow made a difference in how fun it was. Maybe it was the way the clown can get stuck up top, and hang there for a while as you rack up points…or maybe it was when he misses the seesaw, and he pancakes with a satisfying splat.

8. Outlaw

Designed by David Crane, who would later go on to be the wunderkind of Activision game design, this early Atari port was extremely simple, and blocky as hell. But it was still seriously fun. Long before networked deathmatches, how else could you digitally shoot your friends? This game is the grandfather of Doom, Quake, and all the first-person-shoot-em-ups that followed.

7. Asteroids

Okay, so it wasn’t vector graphics, or even close. And yeah, that ship looks a little too much like the nipple of a baby bottle. But get past what you knew from the arcade, and this was an eminently playable adaptation—unlike the rightfully vilified Pac-Man port the following year. And it’s still pretty enjoyable to blast those big rocks into little rocks…as strange as it sounds to claim.

6. Adventure

One of the first games to include an easter egg, or hidden secret “trick” for players to find and exploit (this one revealing a secret room in which the designer gave himself the credit that Atari didn’t bother with back then), Adventure was also one of the first fantasy games for home consoles. And if you look at it that way, you can sort of forgive the fact that the dragons look like ducks.

5. Dodge ‘Em

A little-remembered game that never got much credit, Dodge ’Em is sort of a Pac-Man ripoff, auto-racing style. But that description sells it short—it’s a lot more fun than that. Exactly the sort of short-lived but fast-paced game that you can play and enjoy while in line at the DMV to register the car you’re not allowed to drive at top speed in small concentric circles.

4. Combat

The pack-in cartridge with Atari units, this game’s sheer ubiquity worked against it to some degree, and made it seem less special than other games that you had to track down and beg your parents to buy for you. But Combat really was one of the most fun games the Atari 2600 had to offer—from the rumble of the tank treads, to the hollow thud of a shell hitting armor, this was a game that you had from the beginning and just kept playing.

3. Megamania

A weird and totally addictive update of the classic Space Invaders, Megamania was the first game to actually award excellent gameplay. Back when most games didn’t even have an ending (most of them just got progressively more impossible until you’d lose), this was one of a few Activision games that boasted a prize—if you scored over 45,000 points, you could take a picture of the screen and send it in and get a Megamaniac patch. That’s awesome with a side of extra awesome sauce.

2. River Raid

This game is known for a few things—the first vertical scrolling game, and the first designed by a woman (Carol Shaw) in what was then a very male-dominated field. More importantly, it’s a whole lot of fun too. From shooting enemy planes to refueling yours on the go (or shooting the fuel tanks for points), the titular river seems endless—remarkable in the days when most games had two (count ‘em, two!) levels due to the limitations of memory.

1. Pitfall!

Arguably the most notable game for the Atari 2600, Pitfall! was a genuine phenomenon in 1982. With its side-scrolling gameplay, its unique graphics, smooth movement, and straightforward treasure-hunt plot, it was the game that everyone had to have. A lot of games tried to get away with fake excitement by adding an exclamation point to the title—but Pitfall! was a game that totally earned it.