Don't be unfair. There was much more to like in the 2600 than Asteroids and Space Invaders. My favorites included:

  - Galaxian
  - Enduro
  - Megamania
  - The Empire Strikes Back
  - Defender
  - Ms. Pac Man
  - Berserk
  - Battlezone and Robot Tank
  - Q*Bert

River Raid was already mentined elsewhere. It also forced you to stop at 1 million points.

Of course, the NES was a much better machine than the 2600. That, however, doesn't doom all 2600 games.

Also:

  - Pitfall
  - Adventure
  - Missile Command

I would add River Raid to that short list -- it's one of the few pre-NES games that still holds up.

Donkey Kong and Space Invaders had pre-NES cartridge incarnations as well, I remember them being enjoyable though I honestly don't remember what system I played them on. I know it wasn't Colecovision, either one of the Ataris or Intellivision.

Though I'll agree about the controllers -- though personally I preferred the infamous disk on the Intellivision to even the Atari 2600 joystick so I'm probably biased towards that paradigm anyway. I also enjoyed Treasure of Tarmin far, far more than I had any right to.

[edit] though not as much as Misty Mountain.

(Stupid snakes.)

I actually was thinking of Space Invaders. True DK was enjoyable but it was still a game with basically one screen with a few different variations.

One can find at least a dozen games one would like to play on almost every generation but when it gets to pre NES there are but a few.

I remember Burger Time being fun. As well as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and a game called Utopia, but I was a kid at the time. I may have to try and play them now to re-evaluate.

  | the infamous disk on the Intellivision 

There was an add-on where you could snap a joystick onto the controller (which looked more like a remote) and it would ride above the disk.

Huh.

Given how loose the disks were, I don't know if that would have been much of an improvement or not. Probably would've been, but not by much.

Regarding depth: I believe that in the future (with the advent of consumer VR) your comment (with slight changes) will still be applicable