Checkers (Activision)

Checkers

Atari 2600 - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Activision Publisher Activision Published 1980-07-?? Platforms Atari 2600 Genres Board game, Single-screen, Strategy, Turn-based strategy Multiplayer Alternating versus Distribution Commercial

Checkers is a video game version of checkers developed and published by Activision for the Atari 2600 in 1980. The game supports human versus human, or human versus AI at three levels of difficulty.

Activision beat Atari to the market with the better-looking Checkers, but Atari's version, Video Checkers, is the more complete game with an alternate game mode and a more complex AI (Atari's will typically beat Activision's expert difficulty at level 5).

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. Novice AI with first move. 6 pieces remaining.
Finished	2024-07-16.

Since the game is just checkers, I made no attempt to buy or even play this game for most of my life. However, after making a list of winnable Atari 2600 games, I wanted to finish more of them, so I tried this one. I beat the AI at its easiest difficulty settings and have little interest in trying harder difficulties.

Review

2	3	3	1	4

Best Version: Atari 2600

Good

• The game competently simulates a standard game of checkers.
• The AI is adequate, a difficult feat on such weak hardware.

Bad

• The graphics are decent, but still pretty dull.

Ugly

• The game is just checkers. Other than the AI, there is nothing special here. It would be far more cost-effective to buy a cheap board.
• The audio is just annoying beeps. No attempt at a fanfare or jingle was made, and there is no music.

Media

Box Art

The art shows a checker board, but, the observant viewer will notice it's 12 spaces wide instead of the proper 8.

• 

  Atari 2600.

Documentation

• 

  Manual.

Videos

Review - Atari Archive.

Play Online

Atari 2600

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	This game doesn't have characters.
Bechdel test?	Fail	This game doesn't have characters.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	This game doesn't have characters.
Queer character?	Fail	This game doesn't have characters.

Credits

Role	Staff
Entire Game	Alan Miller
Acknowledgement	A. L. Samuels

Links