An Atari 2600 All-Time Favorite
You play a flying bug, which appears to be a dragonfly, fighting an enemy named "Qotile" behind a rotating shield. Your goal is to shoot at and wear away at the shield, then touch the quotile. This initiates a missle from the edge of the screen, which follows you vertically and lanches when you fire the joystick button. You must carefully time and position the launch to hit and destroy the quotile. The catch is that you will be chased by what appears to be a heat-seaking missile, which will destroy you in one hit. The multi-colored zone in the middle acts as a free zone, allowing you to avoid the heat-seaking missile, but also prevents you from firing. It sounds simple, and it is, but its simplicity is what makes it very addictive and quite fun.
The graphics in this game are some of the best you will see in an Atari 2600 game. The "dragonfly" looks reasonably well made, at least looking like a bug of some kind. Though its difficult to tell exactly what the enemy is, its obvious that your goal is to penetrate his shield and destroy him. The fact that the shield rotates is actually quite interesting, and represents more effort than most developers of the time put into their games. The heat-seaking missile that chases you relentlessly is nothing more than a dash, but the fact that it chases you makes its purpose obvious. The center line used to avoid the missile is very well done, with multiple oscillating colors, it does constitute a basic graphics trick that most teenage programmers did at one time or another (myself included).
How many games which originated from the old Atari 2600 are so legendary that they still produce pop culture references in television, movies, and even other video game releases in the 25 years since its original release? I wager that "Yars' Revenge" is the only one. Its one of the few Atari 2600 games that is still fresh in the minds of those gamers among us old enough to remember those early days of home videogaming. It deserves its high status in videogame history.