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The final March 1981 release, Tennis, is another sports game from the folks at Activision, which drew attention with titles like Boxing, Skiing and Dragster in its first year.

In addition to titles published by Atari and Sears, Activision had two releases in March 1981 as well.

At first glance, Stellar Track seems like a minor VCS release, and it is – as a Sears exclusive that requires the instruction manual to learn to play, it’s hardly the first game people talk about when bringing up the all-time classics on the platform.

March 1981 introduced a pair of novelties to the VCS library, in that they are first-party Atari games that are also retailer-exclusives.

At this point in the VCS’s history, the platform has hosted a slew of traditional, real world games.

Atari didn’t take long to open up 1981 with a new release, as Championship Soccer – or Pele’s Championship Soccer, as it was quickly rebranded – started reaching store shelves that February.

Rounding out the blockbuster year of 1980, Bridge is perhaps the most niche release to come out of Activision on the VCS.

While Atari itself may have wrapped up its 1980 wares in September, Activision had two final games for the year.

September 1980 saw a surprising amount of maze-related content published on the VCS.

At the same time Alan Miller was working on Activision’s Checkers cartridge in late 1979, at Atari, Carol Shaw had started work on her own translation of the board game, with both designers oblivious to each others’ efforts.