So you remember when Activision were a plucky upstart underdog, and not the cynically greedy Call of Duty machine that they are these days?

I do, and I also remember that almost every single one of their Atari 2600 releases, at least for a time, was an instant classic.

1983 title Keystone Kapers is one of those classics, and it’s not just one of the best Activision games for the 2600, but one of the systems finest games altogether.

In Keystone Kapers, you’re a policeman trying to apprehend a robber in a big department store. You have to catch him before time runs out, with you starting from the bottom floor and having to make your way up as he ascends through the store.

A handy map at the bottom of the screen shows you his, and your, position in the store at all times.

You’ll have to watch out for things like bouncing balls, rogue shopping trolleys (sorry, US readers: carts) and other obstacles that’ll stun you and deduct seconds from your time limit; you’ll lose a life if the time ticks down to zero, or if you run into one of the many runaway toy planes loose in the store.

Your character, Keystone Kelly, is surprisingly agile, and can even crouch (hey, I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but by 1983 standards this dude had the moves). He can use the speedy escalators to move up through the different floors, or wait for the dreadfully slow moving elevator, which always feels pointless; it’s fiddly to enter/exit and he’s better off just legging it between screens and up the escalators.

Though it might not look like much to the untrained eye, Keystone Kapers is beautifully fluid, incredibly colourful and highly playable. Even more recent games for Atari’s console, such as 2023 release Mr Run and Jump, are lacking in colour and full of flicker once multiple sprites are onscreen.

Given that this problem persists so much in other 2600 titles, even more recent ones, it’s all the more magical that developer Garry Kitchen managed to pull off such a gorgeous and technically proficient game over 40 years ago.

As the levels rapidly ramp up in intensity in Keystone Kapers, it becomes quite the test of reflexes. Though ultimately it shares the style of plenty of games from the time, being a single looping stage that gets more, not to mention speedier, obstacles as you progress, it’s a very good example of an arcade style high score chase, even though it’s not actually based on an arcade original.

If you have original hardware or an Atari 2600+, Keystone Kapers is an absolute must have. It’s a genuinely brilliant game that looks incredibly impressive next to just about any other Atari 2600 game, and really shows what the machine was, and still is, capable of.