Crosmando: But were their any truly "great" games on Atari consoles or was it all just primitive stuff like Tetris or Pong?
That depends on where you put the line on what is and what isn't primitive stuff. Atari games had big limitations, but this also called for lots of creativity. There are several fun games, some are considered classics and were influential, so yes, it has
great games, but you can't expect anything too complex.
Many arcade games were also ported to this system, some were better than others (Pac-Man is an infamous example of a port gone terribly wrong), so if you like Arcade games from the 70's and early 80's you would most likely enjoy Atari games.