| BARNSTORMING 1983, Activision |
 
Barnstorming was a game developed by Steven Cartwright for the Atari 2600 VCS in 1982-1983, and published by the first third party games company, Activision.
In Barnstorming, you fly a biplane, probably somewhere in the midwest, "storming barns" - ie - flying the plane THROUGH barns. Each variation gives you a different number of barns to fly through. The whole goal of the game, is to fly through the alotted number of barns in the least time possible. You are given 2 obstacles other than the barns themselves to deal with, which includes flocks of little white birdies that will slow your plane down, and various windmills that you must fly over. Basically it's another "hi score" goal game, like much of the Atari 2600/VCS catalog. Barnstorming is considered a classic, but more of a "B" or "C" Tier classic when compared to staples like PItfall, Asteroids, or Space Invaders. It does turn up pretty regularily on various VCS compilations and has no arcade ports. I've owned two copies in my time as a collector, a complete in box copy, and now this copy with the loose manual I got with my Heavy Sixer in late 2024.My Experiences My first experience with Barnstorming was on the original Playstation back in the 2000's. I bought one off a classmate for $20 because he put a Backstreet Boys sticker on top of it, and cut a square into the top of the Disc Lid and filled it with green pain. I'm not even sure what happened to that Playstation to be honest. I think it was lost in the move, or something. Anyway, the first game I bought for the playstation was Activision Classics - a collecton of Atari 2600 games for the Sony Playstation, and one of the games on there was Barnstorming. So I tried it out and added it to my Atari VCS want-list. About a year later, I was browsing a thrift shop near the hospital where my mom worked in Valley Alabama, can't remember why I was there. I DO remember, however, buying an entire stack of Atari 2600 games, most in BOX with manuals, for a nice chunk of change. One of the boxed games was Barnstorming. I later sold that copy, got another copy somewhere along the way, and then sold that too to fund Dragon Warrior IV around 2021 or so, then recently bought another copy because I got the manual with my Heavy Sixer Restoration Project in late 2024. So currently I have Barnstorming. It's weird, Atari 2600 games, it's amazing how much one's preferences can change and come and go in a lifetime. Barnstorming was partially sold because I felt sorta' "meh" about it, but as I got older, I started appreciating it again...go figure. Video soon to come in 2025.Videos Walkthroughs/Manuals/Reviews |
