We gotta be honest, there actually weren't very many "good" games on the 2600 and if anyone were to play them today they would very quickly lose interest. This has a lot to do with the fact the computing power of every single 2600 combines is probably about 1/10 as powerful as 3rd generation smartphone. But this is how time works, right?
There were a couple of winners out there in terms of how unique they were and how much replay value they had. I believe Yars' Revence is one of them.
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like all Atari games, the box art was significantly better than the actual game
By the way, i just read a "markup guide" and now i know how to use my images a bit better. It's all a learning process!
Yars' Revence was similar to a great many other games because there really isn't a whole lot you can do with the 2600's processing power. You needed to eliminate this shield protecting a core of some sort by chewing on the shield surrounding it.
You could also keep your distance and use some sort of bullets on the shield but this was significantly more time consuming than chewing on it. Some little dot was constantly following you and would kill you if it touched you, but you were safe from this if you stayed in the glowing middle area. The dot that chased you also could not move through the top or bottom of the screen, but you could and then emerge on the other side.
The makeup of the shield would change as the levels progressed thereby making it more and more difficult for you to get to the power core behind. The ultimate objective was to eliminate enough of the shield in order to activate this missile that you have on "your side" of the screen and fire it at the power core. This was the only way to advance.
As far as i know this game didn't have an end, it would be progressively more difficult as the levels went on (of course) but mostly you either ran out of lives or just got bored and switched it off.
Funnily enough; the developer of this game was considered to be one of the top programmers at Atari and his name was "Ray" (Yar backwards.) He would later make a few more games for Atari including Raiders of the Lost Arc (great game) but was also the lead designer for E.T. which is the game that is attributed with nearly killing the video game industry.