Activision

Activision was formed, surprisingly, on October 1, 1979 by a couple of disgruntled Atari programmers. Sick of getting no credit in games, and even mad about not getting their names mentioned in manuals, a group of four programmers—Bob Whitehead, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, and Alan Miller—formed Activision.

Eager to beat Atari at it's own game, the newly-formed Activision went on to become perhaps the best third-party company of the era. They released smash-hits like Pitfall, HERO, and what some would say was the most complex and complicated Atari 2600 game ever, Space Shuttle.

Activision was one of the only major game developers to survive the video-game crash of 1984. After a brief stops with the Colecovision, Intellivision, Commodore and Atari 5200, Activision settled as a Nintendo licensee in 1987. They released a reworked version of Pitfall as their first game. More games came after that, most notably Ultimate Air Combat, which is my personal favorite flight simulator for the NES. Others just don't compare—especially their first failed attempt at a flight simulator, Stealth ATF.

After their final release in 1991 (Swordmaster), it seemed Activision disappered off the face of the earth. It turns out they were purchased by tech company Mediagenic. Then—the usual resurface, doing 16-bit games. Nowadays Activision is in full force, releasing a slew of titles for the Playstation, PC, and Dreamcast. So, any recommended games? Well, Ultimate Air Combat is about it, as far as games I own go...hahaha.

The complete list of Activision games.




Archon                               Activision              B
Die Hard                             Activision              B+
Galaxy 5000                          Activision              A-
Ghostbusters                         Activision              B-
Ghostbusters 2                       Activision              B
Predator                             Activision              C+
Rad Gravity                          Activision              B-
Stealth ATF                          Activision              C+
Super Pitfall                        Activision              C+
Sword Master                         Activision              A-
Three Stooges                        Activision              C+
Thunderbirds                         Activision              C+
Ultimate Air Combat                  Activision              B+