"Space-skeeters"... Hee-hee... That was me reading Robotech Art Volume 1 for about 20 years. Then, I suddenly realized that it was "Space-ka-teers", like musketeers.
I had Frogs and Flies. It was one of the dozens of Atari games I picked up on the super-cheap during the crash. In fact I seem to recall that the M-Network titles were all a flat $1, even when most of the rest were $3 or more (and the copy of Swordquest Waterworld I randomly found was a hefty $13 itself). But there's a bit of an anecdote there. A number of years before seeing Frogs and Flies, I had visited a small arcade while on vacation, and there I found one of the most primitive arcade games I've ever laid eyes on: Frogs. It used black and white graphics, and the gameplay was more or less what you see in Frogs and Flies, so it's easy to guess that this earlier game (ca. 1978) was the direct inspiration for the Atari/Intellivision games that came later. The only arcade games I've seen in the flesh that were older than Frogs are: Boot Hill and Pong. Both at an airport, evidently lingering specimens from an arcade era that predated my earliest memories. Footnote: Even though we call it "the crash" today, if you were a child in those years, really the only thing that clicked at the time was there were a ton of games to be had for next to nothing. I mostly assumed they'd finally gotten the cost of manufacture so low that they could afford to sell for peanuts. And I had Cosmic Creeps as well. It was one of those I picked up *after* the video game crash, when I was on a bit of a tear looking for unusual Atari games to add to my collection. This is one I found at a local grocery store of all places. Ironically, it may have been this game which caused me to become distinctly aware of the 2600's inherent limitations as a gaming platform and the reason why the majority of its library shares so many unusual similarities. Those limitations dictated a certain design philosophy, and caused engineers to favor certain gameplay layouts, so a game like Cosmic Creeps ends up reminding me of Kaboom! and tons of others.
Escape from the mind master was fantastic back in the 80’s.. I believe that was the first game I ever beat and saw an ending!! I think there were 5 levels..The last one was pitch black and very difficult! But there actually is an ending screen when you go through the final door! It was really strange pushing play on an old school cassette recorder to start an Atari game!! I must have been 8 or 9 years old at the time!! Good times!
I was 2 when it was released in 1983... I figure by the time I would have been old enough to be watching movies, it had probably kinda fallen off the radar and I was too busy watching Goonies, Gremlins, Flight of the Navigator, Explorers, Masters of the Universe, Enemy Mine (not really a kids movie lol, but we watched it a lot) etc. ... if Krull had been released like 2 years later, I'm sure I would have caught it. And I haven't gotten around to going back and watching it yet, but after so many people writing in I'm going to check it out.
It's funny, sometimes the game you didn't want turns out to be one of your favorites and the one you wanted turns out to be rubbish.... Raiders of the lost Ark was the one I wanted hahaha
Regarding Krull, and not being able to ultimately stop the enemies from taking the princess, that's just what Atari games do. Barring a few examples, you don't "win" or "beat" Atari games. Atari games are like Call of Cthulhu. You'll never win. The best you can hope to do is delay the inevitable as long as possible. Ahhhh, the days when points and high scores were so tasty. I love it. :)
This may have been one of the last Atari games I bought new in the box. I usually like games that have multiple screens like Phoenix, Gorf, Tron (arcade), Jungle Hunt (arcade), Vanguard, etc. Not sure how many levels I could win.
@@sandal_thong8631 GORF makes me jealous of people who own a Colecovision. I have the 2600 port, but it's just missing something with the game feel, and it feels too freaking fast. I recently got a chance to play the actual arcade machine, along with Tron and the original Star Wars Arcade. So much fun. :) I've heard a rumor of someone at AtariAge working on an enhanced remake of GORF for the 2600. Here's hoping.
Played Krull yesterday; took a long time to beat the boss. Don't know if I ever beat the 2nd boss. Probably should have had a label Age 10+, along with E.T. Website with hints says to use a joystick with pulse button to get glaive and extra life.
I've known about Beamrider since I was a kid but just discovered Friday Night Arcade. I've been enjoying the reviews and the length of each episode is just about perfect. Beamrider is my favorite game for any system. Love how it continues to introduce new enemies deep into the game. It gets furious at later sectors but is loads of fun. Maximize your score by making sure you hit the sentinel at the end of each Sector with as many extra ships as possible since the bonus is based on how many you have remaining. Also, don't be afraid to use a missile, rather than lose a life, if you find yourself in a hopeless situation. A missile not only travels further but will destroy many things a laser will not. Lastly, if you time your movements perfectly, you can switch between beams even when it doesn't look like there's enough room to squeeze through. I've made it to Sector 38 with scores over 100,000 and I'm sure there are people better at this game than me.
Nice. Thanks for sharing - yeah I hadn't quite got the timing patterns down for jumping in between beams but still didn't do too bad. I was always too scared to use a missile though on anything but the boss though lol - but you're right. Since it's not necessary to beat the boss, you may as well use it if it will save your life.
Frogs and Flies was (and is) so much fun! Not sure if you've ever covered these ones before, but I'd also nominate Reactor. I haven't played it in years but remember it being very unique with cool music. :)
Great video! Can’t believe you haven’t seen Krull! It’s a must for any child of the 80s. Chances are, the game will make a little more sense once you’ve taken it in. Here’s an idea for an upcoming video. How about “Tax Avoiders” for the 2600 by American Videogame? It’d be timely with tax day coming up and all.
I'll have to take your word for it. At some point other kids didn't want to play 2-player games (except Warlords); perhaps because the guy who owned the game was so much better. I do know that Armor Ambush was so much better than Combat.
@@patsfan4life Yeah, I remember in '79-'80 we played some 2-player games. One kid had Atari Strike Out and Fumble (I mean Home Run and Football) and they were so bad we didn't play them. Instead we went to the kid's house who had Odyssey 2. All his sports game were better, except Basketball; Atari's 1-on-1 had a court. RealSports Baseball and Super Challenge Baseball are copyright 1982, but by then we'd moved on to single-player games. I got the latter, but no one else wanted to learn the controls, and it didn't have a single-player option.
The original pre-Space Invaders Atari had some two-player games that wouldn't look good in a video but may have been fun. Besides Combat, there were Air-Sea Battle and Video Olympics (up to 4 players), which I played elsewhere. I had Surround, Canyon Bomber, and Space War. Years later I got for my collection Street Racer (up to 4), Outlaw and Flag Capture (but don't have Slot Racers) which look pretty cheesy. Indy 500 says (c) 1977, and that was OK, though probably expensive since it included Steering Controllers. (I got it in either '81 or '82.)
Frogs and Flies is a really fun game. If I remember correctly it's a home release of an arcade game called just "Frog." Though I could be wrong, but the gameplay is exactly the same. As for Krull, it's probably the first game I played that actually followed its movie sequence for sequence. If you ever saw the movie back in the day then played the game, it was a huge part of the experience in seeing a movie accurately reflected in a video game.
Frogs and Flies are one of those games I mention when someone asks me if there's any 2600 games still worth playing today. I got a game for you guys: Solaris. It's probably the most advanced 2600 game ever made. Seriously. Thinking back, it's actually still impressive now.
@@FridayNightArcade I highly 2nd the recommendation for KRULL. It's a great sci-fi Fantasy movie. And if you ignore the 30 seconds of "science fiction" in the intro you can look at as an even better strictly fantasy movie. Just think of the "lasers" as magic energy blasts or something akin to D&Ds "magic missle" or "lightning bolt" or "fireball" or something equally generic-sounding.
Got to love the Atari 2600...great memories, when you said you and your cousin would play on rainy days that right there brought me back as well....good job Aaron always enjoy, like I said before always telling people about your episodes
That Atari supercharger is really impressive. It really ups the frame rate and the graphics that's really amazing for the time. It's on par with the maze level in too secret episode
I have Armor Ambush ( @0:54 ) and Ram It ( @3:28 ). Armor Ambush was a really good tank game. It was like the tank level in Combat, but with rivers, roads, and forest. Ramm It was fun too. It is like Space Tapper... sort of. You are in the middle as a...ship? and you move up and down shooting rows that encroach closer and closer to you. They make it to the center and they block you in and crush you. It's interesting to see them in the video in ads. I don't know if they were common VCS games, but they were fun.
I am so glad I never had Escape From the Mind Master when I was a kid.... That beeping would've driven me absolutely crazy!!! And going up the stairs isn't all that pleasant of a sound either....
The Starpath games are really fun. Don't tell anybody, but you can search around AtariAge and find "the files that you can put on an SD card and put into something like an Atari Flashback 9." It's best to read the instructions too, to figure out what's going on.
Frogs n Flies was just a port of Frog Bog from the Intellivision. You just showed the M Network cartridge, which is just like an Intellivision cartridge with an Atari adapter. M stood for Mattel and they made several games adapted for the 2600.
Man, those M-Network games were very very good for the time, especially given the 2600's limitations. And from a direct competitor, no less! I did not play Frogs & Flies, but that's the only one in this list I even remember. :D I'm sure that Telesys ad would be banned nowadays ("Get Fat!"). I would love to see a Krull remake, I think I'll have to re-watch the movie at some point. Great video, as always. Cheers, Aaron!
7:22 Shouldn't that have been "Web of the Widow"? 9:21 The bottom 2 bars are VERY reminiscent of Smurf I had honestly never heard of the Super Charger add-on. Perhaps an inspiration for Sega's 32X?
Damn good video Aaron. Frogs and Flys is the only game I played. Very interesting. I just love how ahead of it's time 2600 was. Thanks for the video good sir, happy Friday and have a great weekend!
I had the Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger and I loved it! But I only had two games...Phaser Patrol, the pack-in game, and Dragonstomper. Both were incredibly fun on such a "primitive" game system.
Great video as always! I'd like to see you cover Basic Programming. I had it back in the day (along with the keypad controllers) and would like to hear your take on it since you always have these additional facts/information that I had not known previously. Also, what's that outro music playing at the end? Is that from Gotta Protectors? Awesome game if it is, otherwise, nevermind. Oh, and another game that would be cool to cover is Warlords (especially if you're playing w/4 players.. or maybe cool 2600 party games w/4 players, etc)
Great suggestions - thanks Tsunami Rider! Hmm... the music during the Twitch mention was Blaster Master and the music at the very end was Doom II Stage 1.
I fricken LOVE Krull the movie!!! I saw it SOOOO many times when I was a kid!!! I haven't seen it in like, forever though.... I might have to see if I can find it so I can watch it again and see if it has the same impression on me as an older adult....
Telesys also made a game called 'stargunner" wich is the best game ever! I only fell in love with the atari 2600 a few months ago by accident. But this machine is better then really anything....it,s fast in responding and the games are ,obviously, more about the gameplay instead of graphics. After having had a NES, a pc, an Amiga...this actually stands out!
Steve Fulkerson This is because Mattel created 2600 versions of their Intellivision games under the M Network brand. My dad worked for Mattel and we used to get free “test” games before they were released.
Frogs and Flies was just plain fun, especially for kids baffled by any title that required subtle game play (uh, not me though). And I have to admit, I couldn't stand Krull. Never played the others. For my money, the 2600's strength was in the straightforward fun titles you could play with someone else. Really enjoyable revisiting these, and learning about the ones I'd never seen.
I would really like to see you review the NES game Pirates!. I had no idea this game existed until two weeks ago, and I’ll be 40 years old this year. So I totally missed this game as a kid. I’ve been playing it almost every day for the last two weeks.
I’m sitting here trying to wrap my brain around mind master. How is this even possible on the 2600? The reason I am absolutely astonished is that it’s not running at one frame for second and you can’t really even see any redraw. It truly looks like this is running at a bare minimum of 15 frames per second, if it’s not 20 or 30... It’s incredibly smooth for what it is. It is basically Portal without the physics.Regardless of the supercharger, this should not be possible on the 2600. Looking at this, makes me want to design my own homebrew Atari 2600 games. Knowing that this level of development is possible… I would love to know what I could come up with. I actually think I’m going to look into it and learn how to program to the metal for the 2600 with and without the supercharger.
The 2600 is so primitive it follows the CRT display when making the display so all games run at 60 FPS. To display more objects, programmers can display different things every other frame which is where ‘flickering’ objects comes in. You would say those objects are 30 fields per second, but still in the 60FPS. Mindmaster’s high res look graphics are just tricks using the 2600’s seven graphical “objects” to mask the Playfield and Background with the Players, the Ball, and the Missile objects.
I'm curious about the tapedeck. Could this have been used for piracy back in the day ?. I'm doing a paper on piracy and we now know that dumping of cartridges for nes and snes was a thing back in the mid 80s so if we had more money then sense back in the day or knew of equipment that could dump roms via a business that had this technology could it have been used ? Very curious
Please do an episode on "Outlander" it's the best genesis game they ever made. It reminded me of a mad max-esque game. But it's the first game I remember where you could first person drive car that you could find parts to upgrade its performance and looks. But then you could pull over and get out of the car and fight 3rd person villains with your sawed off double barreled shotgun. It was so unique for the times. Please check it out. It should make for a great episode.
This game is great. I've never seen it for sale in a store or on online though, otherwise I would have snatched it up. I'd love to play it on original hardware.
You're a little long in the tooth to not have seen Krull, waiting for 4K release? I assume you don't refer to practical effects as "graphics"? ^_^ The game actually captures a lot of moments from the film well. These days it's actually not too hard to play Supercharger games on real hardware anymore as long as you have the Harmony Encore cart, just like emulation no cassette or long cassette loading needed heh.
I was born in 85 and a little too young to be with the Atari so i don't really like Atari games even as a kid in the early 90s when my cousin pulled out the Atari 2600 I'm thinking man this thing sucks give me my mega man and batman over this crap
Part 1 - ua-cam.com/video/CyPJbT1bStY/v-deo.html
All Atari 2600 Episodes - ua-cam.com/play/PLdGtTWqCEvuJCOriBVUUtmrYY8mht1Ll5.html
Friday Night Arcade did you ever review or play Riddle of the Sphinx for 2600?
I have seen the movie Krull, and that game is pretty true to the movie.
Thats awesome. I had never heard of it until I learned about the game adaptation in this channel. Must have been an... thought provoking film!
Watch Krull NOW! Classic 80's sci-fi-fantasy!
God, games like Krull are why I love the storytelling in this era of games, it’s ridiculous!
"Space-skeeters"... Hee-hee... That was me reading Robotech Art Volume 1 for about 20 years. Then, I suddenly realized that it was "Space-ka-teers", like musketeers.
I had Frogs and Flies. It was one of the dozens of Atari games I picked up on the super-cheap during the crash. In fact I seem to recall that the M-Network titles were all a flat $1, even when most of the rest were $3 or more (and the copy of Swordquest Waterworld I randomly found was a hefty $13 itself). But there's a bit of an anecdote there. A number of years before seeing Frogs and Flies, I had visited a small arcade while on vacation, and there I found one of the most primitive arcade games I've ever laid eyes on: Frogs. It used black and white graphics, and the gameplay was more or less what you see in Frogs and Flies, so it's easy to guess that this earlier game (ca. 1978) was the direct inspiration for the Atari/Intellivision games that came later. The only arcade games I've seen in the flesh that were older than Frogs are: Boot Hill and Pong. Both at an airport, evidently lingering specimens from an arcade era that predated my earliest memories. Footnote: Even though we call it "the crash" today, if you were a child in those years, really the only thing that clicked at the time was there were a ton of games to be had for next to nothing. I mostly assumed they'd finally gotten the cost of manufacture so low that they could afford to sell for peanuts.
And I had Cosmic Creeps as well. It was one of those I picked up *after* the video game crash, when I was on a bit of a tear looking for unusual Atari games to add to my collection. This is one I found at a local grocery store of all places. Ironically, it may have been this game which caused me to become distinctly aware of the 2600's inherent limitations as a gaming platform and the reason why the majority of its library shares so many unusual similarities. Those limitations dictated a certain design philosophy, and caused engineers to favor certain gameplay layouts, so a game like Cosmic Creeps ends up reminding me of Kaboom! and tons of others.
Escape from the mind master was fantastic back in the 80’s.. I believe that was the first game I ever beat and saw an ending!! I think there were 5 levels..The last one was pitch black and very difficult! But there actually is an ending screen when you go through the final door! It was really strange pushing play on an old school cassette recorder to start an Atari game!! I must have been 8 or 9 years old at the time!! Good times!
I got a Vic-20 at about that time, so had to save and load almost everything on cassette tape.
The heavier realization about Frogs & Flies is that I’m now considered the “adult” in those instructions 😵
When did that happen..?!
I feel ya:( hehe
Time for difficulty A then.
I’m shocked at how many reviewers never saw Krull. I thought it was standard viewing for kids in the 80s
I was 2 when it was released in 1983... I figure by the time I would have been old enough to be watching movies, it had probably kinda fallen off the radar and I was too busy watching Goonies, Gremlins, Flight of the Navigator, Explorers, Masters of the Universe, Enemy Mine (not really a kids movie lol, but we watched it a lot) etc. ... if Krull had been released like 2 years later, I'm sure I would have caught it. And I haven't gotten around to going back and watching it yet, but after so many people writing in I'm going to check it out.
In Krull, if you set it to the easy mode the spider webs remain stationary, which makes it a thousand times less frustrating.
This channel rocks ! Great video as always
I remember getting Frogs and Flies for 99 cents back in the day. Thanks mom! Still a fun little game
It's funny, sometimes the game you didn't want turns out to be one of your favorites and the one you wanted turns out to be rubbish.... Raiders of the lost Ark was the one I wanted hahaha
Regarding Krull, and not being able to ultimately stop the enemies from taking the princess, that's just what Atari games do.
Barring a few examples, you don't "win" or "beat" Atari games. Atari games are like Call of Cthulhu. You'll never win. The best you can hope to do is delay the inevitable as long as possible. Ahhhh, the days when points and high scores were so tasty. I love it. :)
This may have been one of the last Atari games I bought new in the box. I usually like games that have multiple screens like Phoenix, Gorf, Tron (arcade), Jungle Hunt (arcade), Vanguard, etc. Not sure how many levels I could win.
@@sandal_thong8631 GORF makes me jealous of people who own a Colecovision. I have the 2600 port, but it's just missing something with the game feel, and it feels too freaking fast. I recently got a chance to play the actual arcade machine, along with Tron and the original Star Wars Arcade. So much fun. :)
I've heard a rumor of someone at AtariAge working on an enhanced remake of GORF for the 2600. Here's hoping.
Played Krull yesterday; took a long time to beat the boss. Don't know if I ever beat the 2nd boss. Probably should have had a label Age 10+, along with E.T. Website with hints says to use a joystick with pulse button to get glaive and extra life.
Escape from the Mind Master is legitimately impressive.
I love frogs and flies and Krull. I’ve never seen Cosmic Creeps but it looks cool!
Frogs and Flies just broke a nostalgia dam in my head.
I've known about Beamrider since I was a kid but just discovered Friday Night Arcade. I've been enjoying the reviews and the length of each episode is just about perfect. Beamrider is my favorite game for any system. Love how it continues to introduce new enemies deep into the game. It gets furious at later sectors but is loads of fun. Maximize your score by making sure you hit the sentinel at the end of each Sector with as many extra ships as possible since the bonus is based on how many you have remaining. Also, don't be afraid to use a missile, rather than lose a life, if you find yourself in a hopeless situation. A missile not only travels further but will destroy many things a laser will not. Lastly, if you time your movements perfectly, you can switch between beams even when it doesn't look like there's enough room to squeeze through. I've made it to Sector 38 with scores over 100,000 and I'm sure there are people better at this game than me.
Nice. Thanks for sharing - yeah I hadn't quite got the timing patterns down for jumping in between beams but still didn't do too bad. I was always too scared to use a missile though on anything but the boss though lol - but you're right. Since it's not necessary to beat the boss, you may as well use it if it will save your life.
Frogs and Flies was (and is) so much fun! Not sure if you've ever covered these ones before, but I'd also nominate Reactor. I haven't played it in years but remember it being very unique with cool music. :)
Great video! Can’t believe you haven’t seen Krull! It’s a must for any child of the 80s. Chances are, the game will make a little more sense once you’ve taken it in.
Here’s an idea for an upcoming video. How about “Tax Avoiders” for the 2600 by American Videogame? It’d be timely with tax day coming up and all.
Frogs & Flies is great head-to-head two player action
I'll have to take your word for it. At some point other kids didn't want to play 2-player games (except Warlords); perhaps because the guy who owned the game was so much better. I do know that Armor Ambush was so much better than Combat.
Sandal_Thong that’s an interesting take on how things were back in the day...
@@patsfan4life Yeah, I remember in '79-'80 we played some 2-player games. One kid had Atari Strike Out and Fumble (I mean Home Run and Football) and they were so bad we didn't play them. Instead we went to the kid's house who had Odyssey 2. All his sports game were better, except Basketball; Atari's 1-on-1 had a court. RealSports Baseball and Super Challenge Baseball are copyright 1982, but by then we'd moved on to single-player games. I got the latter, but no one else wanted to learn the controls, and it didn't have a single-player option.
The original pre-Space Invaders Atari had some two-player games that wouldn't look good in a video but may have been fun. Besides Combat, there were Air-Sea Battle and Video Olympics (up to 4 players), which I played elsewhere. I had Surround, Canyon Bomber, and Space War. Years later I got for my collection Street Racer (up to 4), Outlaw and Flag Capture (but don't have Slot Racers) which look pretty cheesy. Indy 500 says (c) 1977, and that was OK, though probably expensive since it included Steering Controllers. (I got it in either '81 or '82.)
Frogs and Flies is a really fun game. If I remember correctly it's a home release of an arcade game called just "Frog." Though I could be wrong, but the gameplay is exactly the same.
As for Krull, it's probably the first game I played that actually followed its movie sequence for sequence. If you ever saw the movie back in the day then played the game, it was a huge part of the experience in seeing a movie accurately reflected in a video game.
KRULL was one of my favorite 80s movies. I played this game endlessly !! I loved it !!
Frogs and Flies are one of those games I mention when someone asks me if there's any 2600 games still worth playing today. I got a game for you guys: Solaris. It's probably the most advanced 2600 game ever made. Seriously. Thinking back, it's actually still impressive now.
Aaron, do yourself a favor and watch Krull.
With the way things are headed I'm gonna have plenty of time to catch up on my movie backlog.... stay safe out there.
Must watch! It's like Flash Gordon meets Conan the Barbarian!
@@FridayNightArcade
I highly 2nd the recommendation for KRULL.
It's a great sci-fi Fantasy movie.
And if you ignore the 30 seconds of "science fiction" in the intro you can look at as an even better strictly fantasy movie.
Just think of the "lasers" as magic energy blasts or something akin to D&Ds "magic missle" or "lightning bolt" or "fireball" or something equally generic-sounding.
I vaguely remember Krull from back in the day. I think I was underwhelmed.
@@toddnolastname4485 Not me. I loved the move as a kid, I have it on DVD now. As a bonus, spot Liam Neeson,
Got to love the Atari 2600...great memories, when you said you and your cousin would play on rainy days that right there brought me back as well....good job Aaron always enjoy, like I said before always telling people about your episodes
Amazing games you presented today! Fantastic! Please keep on it!
A couple of those games have near-NES level graphics. Pretty incredible. Also, Fast Food was a ton of weird, crazy fun back in the day.
That Atari supercharger is really impressive. It really ups the frame rate and the graphics that's really amazing for the time. It's on par with the maze level in too secret episode
I have Armor Ambush ( @0:54 ) and Ram It ( @3:28 ).
Armor Ambush was a really good tank game. It was like the tank level in Combat, but with rivers, roads, and forest.
Ramm It was fun too. It is like Space Tapper... sort of. You are in the middle as a...ship? and you move up and down shooting rows that encroach closer and closer to you. They make it to the center and they block you in and crush you.
It's interesting to see them in the video in ads. I don't know if they were common VCS games, but they were fun.
I am so glad I never had Escape From the Mind Master when I was a kid.... That beeping would've driven me absolutely crazy!!! And going up the stairs isn't all that pleasant of a sound either....
The Starpath games are really fun. Don't tell anybody, but you can search around AtariAge and find "the files that you can put on an SD card and put into something like an Atari Flashback 9." It's best to read the instructions too, to figure out what's going on.
Krull was awesome. Played that game for ever!! We need a remastered edition now!!
Frogs n Flies was just a port of Frog Bog from the Intellivision. You just showed the M Network cartridge, which is just like an Intellivision cartridge with an Atari adapter. M stood for Mattel and they made several games adapted for the 2600.
Kun-Fu Masters and HERO Two of the best ever :)
I remember buying Krull, at Toys R Us...for $2.00. Yes...a mere $2.00. The end of the 2600 was near, so some games were dirt cheap!
not sure why, but we always called frogs and flys "frogger 2"
Man, those M-Network games were very very good for the time, especially given the 2600's limitations. And from a direct competitor, no less! I did not play Frogs & Flies, but that's the only one in this list I even remember. :D
I'm sure that Telesys ad would be banned nowadays ("Get Fat!"). I would love to see a Krull remake, I think I'll have to re-watch the movie at some point. Great video, as always. Cheers, Aaron!
7:22 Shouldn't that have been "Web of the Widow"?
9:21 The bottom 2 bars are VERY reminiscent of Smurf
I had honestly never heard of the Super Charger add-on. Perhaps an inspiration for Sega's 32X?
Damn good video Aaron. Frogs and Flys is the only game I played. Very interesting. I just love how ahead of it's time 2600 was. Thanks for the video good sir, happy Friday and have a great weekend!
I can't believe you've NEVER seen/heard of Krull?!!?!? WOW!
I prefer the 2600 port of centipede over any other version
I had the Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger and I loved it! But I only had two games...Phaser Patrol, the pack-in game, and Dragonstomper. Both were incredibly fun on such a "primitive" game system.
Did you have any idea back then that Frogger for star path would be the best arcade port on the entire system?
Cool vid fna. This is what im talkin about. Keep em coming man.
Journey Escape, Atlantis and Kaboom were the three games i always played
Great video as always! I'd like to see you cover Basic Programming. I had it back in the day (along with the keypad controllers) and would like to hear your take on it since you always have these additional facts/information that I had not known previously. Also, what's that outro music playing at the end? Is that from Gotta Protectors? Awesome game if it is, otherwise, nevermind. Oh, and another game that would be cool to cover is Warlords (especially if you're playing w/4 players.. or maybe cool 2600 party games w/4 players, etc)
Great suggestions - thanks Tsunami Rider! Hmm... the music during the Twitch mention was Blaster Master and the music at the very end was Doom II Stage 1.
How about an Intellivision list?
I never knew about the Starpath Supercharger. It must have been a US only release.
I fricken LOVE Krull the movie!!! I saw it SOOOO many times when I was a kid!!! I haven't seen it in like, forever though.... I might have to see if I can find it so I can watch it again and see if it has the same impression on me as an older adult....
I loved arcade Krull, but the 2600 game is much closer to the movie than the arcade game.
Telesys also made a game called 'stargunner" wich is the best game ever! I only fell in love with the atari 2600 a few months ago by accident. But this machine is better then really anything....it,s fast in responding and the games are ,obviously, more about the gameplay instead of graphics. After having had a NES, a pc, an Amiga...this actually stands out!
I had Cosmic Creeps but I forgot all about it till now! I had coconuts too and loved it
I always thought Alfred E. Newman was on the cover of cosmic creeps
Plaque Attack, Dark Cavern, Defender, Vanguard, Seaquest.
Absolutely loved the game Krull!
Love your narration on Kroll, more please
Oops, I meant Krull
Those M Network games look like Intellivision carts mashed to a 2600 adapter. Also, this looks like the Intellivision game Frog Bog. Interesting.
Steve Fulkerson This is because Mattel created 2600 versions of their Intellivision games under the M Network brand. My dad worked for Mattel and we used to get free “test” games before they were released.
Frogs and Flies was just plain fun, especially for kids baffled by any title that required subtle game play (uh, not me though). And I have to admit, I couldn't stand Krull. Never played the others. For my money, the 2600's strength was in the straightforward fun titles you could play with someone else. Really enjoyable revisiting these, and learning about the ones I'd never seen.
No one ever talks about coconuts! I loved that game as a kid
I always liked Night Stalker for the 2600
I would really like to see you review the NES game Pirates!. I had no idea this game existed until two weeks ago, and I’ll be 40 years old this year. So I totally missed this game as a kid. I’ve been playing it almost every day for the last two weeks.
I’m sitting here trying to wrap my brain around mind master. How is this even possible on the 2600? The reason I am absolutely astonished is that it’s not running at one frame for second and you can’t really even see any redraw. It truly looks like this is running at a bare minimum of 15 frames per second, if it’s not 20 or 30... It’s incredibly smooth for what it is. It is basically Portal without the physics.Regardless of the supercharger, this should not be possible on the 2600. Looking at this, makes me want to design my own homebrew Atari 2600 games. Knowing that this level of development is possible… I would love to know what I could come up with. I actually think I’m going to look into it and learn how to program to the metal for the 2600 with and without the supercharger.
The 2600 is so primitive it follows the CRT display when making the display so all games run at 60 FPS. To display more objects, programmers can display different things every other frame which is where ‘flickering’ objects comes in. You would say those objects are 30 fields per second, but still in the 60FPS.
Mindmaster’s high res look graphics are just tricks using the 2600’s seven graphical “objects” to mask the Playfield and Background with the Players, the Ball, and the Missile objects.
@10:10 Yeah, Doom E1M1 playing!
:)
I'm curious about the tapedeck. Could this have been used for piracy back in the day ?. I'm doing a paper on piracy and we now know that dumping of cartridges for nes and snes was a thing back in the mid 80s so if we had more money then sense back in the day or knew of equipment that could dump roms via a business that had this technology could it have been used ? Very curious
That's a good point. I think it could have as it was just data - not sure what sort of copy protection they would have had on it.
Its pouring down rain and lightning like crazy outside and I'm playing the 2600. Lol same thing I was doin 36 years ago
I hope by now you have watched Krull ...... I was luçky enough to see this in the cinema when it came out .
I still play frogs and flies every day on my 2600
Never had any ATARI SYSTEM I miss Ed out on alot of great games
I had both cosmic creeps and coconuts both, I loved coconuts😆
You really should watch Krull because this game really does follow the movie pretty good, (p.s. I LOVE the movie Krull!)
Please do an episode on "Outlander" it's the best genesis game they ever made. It reminded me of a mad max-esque game. But it's the first game I remember where you could first person drive car that you could find parts to upgrade its performance and looks. But then you could pull over and get out of the car and fight 3rd person villains with your sawed off double barreled shotgun. It was so unique for the times. Please check it out. It should make for a great episode.
I still dont get how the spider web level is supposed to work 😁 (The KRUL game)
Has anyone noticed that 2600 carts from M-Network look just like Intellivision carts with an extra casing attached to them?
Adam King both produced by Mattel. Cheaper to keep the same form factor
@ 8:47
If you'd have been motivated by the fantastic film...you'd have been better at it 😌😉
This game is great. I've never seen it for sale in a store or on online though, otherwise I would have snatched it up. I'd love to play it on original hardware.
These days the kid would have to switch to hard mode to give us grown ups a chance.
You're a little long in the tooth to not have seen Krull, waiting for 4K release? I assume you don't refer to practical effects as "graphics"? ^_^ The game actually captures a lot of moments from the film well.
These days it's actually not too hard to play Supercharger games on real hardware anymore as long as you have the Harmony Encore cart, just like emulation no cassette or long cassette loading needed heh.
I really loved playing Amidar and I would like to see you check it out too.
(I LOVE YOUR CHANNEL, MAN 🤘🏾)
Love that movie.
I had Fast Food. Burrrp!
I loved Escape from the Mind Master but I never played it because it scared me. So I would watch my brother play it instead.
Good show
Some great games here :-)
WATCH KRULL!
I loved coconuts
Xonox double enders,,chick Norris and ghost manor
The XonoX games don't get enough love. They're mostly much better than you initially think which you find out as you spend time with them.
I thought Krull was great as a kid. Kinda like dark crystal but not as deep.
I was born in 85 and a little too young to be with the Atari so i don't really like Atari games even as a kid in the early 90s when my cousin pulled out the Atari 2600 I'm thinking man this thing sucks give me my mega man and batman over this crap
i played or owned zero of these