Indy 500

Released in 1978
Atari 2600

This game lead to a lot of shouting matches between my brother and I when we were kids, and it still manages to be pretty exciting today when playing with 2 players.

Indy 500 is obviously a racing game, and so it uses the Driving controllers for the 2600. They look just like the Paddle controllers I mentioned in the Breakout review, but these apparently work differently. Don't ask me why. The space age technology behind the Atari 2600 should not be questioned. Just accept the fact that you will need a new pair of controllers with the "Driving" symbol on them.

Now the game itself has a half-dozen different variations. There is several variations centered around standard lap races of course, including ice variants, but the real entertainment for me came from Tag mode and Crash mode (sadly nothing like our modern day Crash mode a la Burnout).

In Tag, one car is flashing and the other isn't. You just have to tag the other car. First player to 99 points wins. Very simple, but like any game of tag, it can lead to violence.
Crash mode, in my imagination, is where one or two players compete to run over a spectator who was foolish enough to wander onto the track. Each time said spectator is eliminated, another is tossed onto the track, and a mad dash to run them over ensues. The person you're racing to may just be a dot, but imagination made everything more exciting in the days of Atari.

So I suppose Indy 500 is still kind of cool today, but only if you don't have access to any technology made after 1985.
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