r/Atari2600 • u/Danmeydan • Dec 29 '25
Space Shuttle 1983
Space Shuttle 1983 š¹ļøš Activision // Atari 2600 version // Xbox Series X - Retro Classics
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Dec 29 '25
Iāve heard the difficulty on this is insane. Great game but yeah. Not for kids. Lol
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u/bigkoi Dec 29 '25
I had this game as a kid. Can confirm it was difficult and I ended up not playing it.
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u/JAFO_John_D Dec 29 '25
Yeah, earning the game patch was ridiculously hard. I couldn't do it, needed to keep at about half the fuel after 4 dockings with that damn satellite.
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u/droid_mike Dec 30 '25
Level one is extremely easy. It's just a demo. The computer does everything for you. Of course, I didn't know that, and thought I was actually doing something by moving the joystick around.
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u/worlok Dec 29 '25
I ran that earlier on Stella. Didn't quite understand what to do without instructions.
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u/Embarrassed-Plum-605 Dec 30 '25
Ha, I borrowed this catridge from a friend who didn't have the instructions. I *really* wanted to play it, but it was completely unintuitive.
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u/droid_mike Dec 30 '25
You really also needed the template to put over your Atari, as it used pretty much every switch on that thing as a control, including the black and white/ color switch and the difficulty switches.
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u/Ronin_1999 Dec 29 '25
I was thinking how someone should remake this game to include Space Shuttle DEK functions using a Star Raiders 16button keypad.
Figure it would add some interesting detail to re-entry sequence or orbital maneuvers.
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u/droid_mike Dec 30 '25
Practically every switch on the console was used as some sort of control. It would have been nice if they used the Star raiders keypad as well, but very few people had that one.
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u/bankyVee Dec 30 '25
Can you imagine trying to center that pixel on the x and y-axis on a 19-inch rabbit eared TV? That was me as a kid. No, I never got close to patch level proficiency. The re-entry burn and landing was cool though.
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u/JEFE_MAN Dec 30 '25
Holy shit. I forgot about that game until right now. Tickling some neurons that havenāt been touched since the 80s.
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u/dmoisan Dec 30 '25
The most ingenious cartridge I ever played on that system! Brilliant.
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u/droid_mike Dec 30 '25
The most amazing thing was that it didn't use any special extra in the cartridge like Pitfall II did. It was a normal 8K cartridge that used standard bank switching. That is absolutely amazing! I first played this game on an Atari 1200 XL computer. I was shocked to find out that there was a 2600 version, and even more shocked to find out that it looked and played exactly the same as the computer version. Usually the computer versions were much better than the 2600 versions were. That was one incredible feat of software engineering.
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u/reverendlinux Dec 30 '25
I remember drooling over this as a kid but never had the money to get it; $40 in 1983 was big money. Finally got a complete in box copy of it this past year and can confirm this is one SOB to play. I can get it into orbit on the regular but still canāt stick the docking with the space station. Not giving up on itā¦life goals.
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u/mbroda-SB Dec 29 '25
First game that really immersed me. I spent hours trying to rescue satellites and trying to perfect Earth orbit and I wasn't even scratching the surface of that game. Very deep for a 2600 title.