I will never forget, when I first played Adventure. I was astonished by the complexity of the concept and the simple, but very clever designed maps. It was by far the best game I had ever seen on the Atari VCS 2600... and I played it for the first time in 2002 (!!!). I am not kidding: Playing since 1983, I grew up primarily with the commodore 64 and later the commodore amiga, before I got into consoles. I knew some VCS 2600 games and bought the system with some games around 1989 (and was laughed at from school friends for it, who thought I am insane to pay 20 Deutsche Mark (!) for an VCS plus 20 game cartridges, but that's another story ;). But I never saw Adventure, till I got the very first Atari-built-in-Joystick from 2002. As an avid game collector and an historian about gaming in general, I was simply baffled and knew immediatly: This is the best Atari VCS 2600 game, by far.
Andy Awardian I won't go so far as to say Adventure is the best ever Atari game, because you have to like adventure type games (which I don't) but it certainly was innovative.
The main flaw is that the gold key is sometimes locked inside the gold castle, which could have been fixed with the way he distributed objects by making the inside gold castle room no.1 (or no.29) so it would fish for a random number between 2 and 29. It could still have keys mutually-locked like gold in black and black in gold castle. But I don't consider that a flaw as it's good for kids to figure out the game is unwinnable sometimes. Unfortunately, he set it up so the black key is never in the white castle for game 3. I imagine it would only take a line of code for it to pick another room if the black key were in the black castle. Too much blinking is a defect on the Atari. I also read he could have had maybe 2-3 more dragons or creatures. So there could have been a game number 4 or 5 that were a little harder, even. The story is that a wizard stole the chalice, so I used to imagine an evil wizard in a secret room inside the white castle, where it looks like another room should go. There have been several attempts over the years to make a home-brew Adventure 2. Superman is said to be based on the same "engine" used to make Adventure. They say that Adventure is based on converting a text adventure game to graphics, so you don't have to type "get" or "use". I played several text games on the VIC-20 cartridges after this so am imagining if they made those in Adventure-format.
Obsoletes original Pitfall big time. Even as a kid once I got Pitfall II my original Pitfall was gathering dust. Controversial opinion but I'm stickin' to it. I play through Pitfall II on an emulator every now and then, still holds up.
Once you win, there's not much replayability. I like Enduro better, and finally got to the end a couple years ago, the last time I played Atari. My favorite at the arcade at that time was Turbo. They released that just for ColecoVision with a steering controller.
I love the way the car handles in Pole Position, it really felt like it was going fast. I think it actually feels better than the cars in Pole Position II for the 7800.
Warlords (1-4 player with paddles) was hands down the most fun game with friends.. used to play with my brother and the kid next door and 1 cpu player... man we had a blast playing that. Im shocked no one mentioned this. Playing alone probably wasn't nowhere near as fun.
Google JOHNNY VINCENTO get HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN TABLETOP ARCADE for Atari 2600 5200 7800 COLECOVISION and INTELLIVISION SYSTEMS....Shows how to make a 4 person player WARLORDS using Atari 2600
Great list. Here’s mine: 30) Combat. So many great memories with my friend. Air-Sea battle an honorable mention here. 29) Secret Quest. The precursor to Zelda. 28) E.T. For nostalgia only. My friend had this and I played it all the time, much to his frustration as he thought it sucked and that my time would have better spent doing anything besides. Honorable mention to Indiana Jones. 27) Klax. Tengen puzzle gem. 26) Joust. Decent port. 26) Kaboom. Great paddle game. 25) Enduro. Favor this over Pole Position, though I had Pole Position II on the 7800, and it was great. 24) Keystone Kapers 23) Asteroids. I know this would be higher on many people’s list. But not mine. Hey at least I have it over Sinistar and Defender. 22) Jr PAC Man 21) Rescue Princess. This is a homebrew from animator Chris Spry that is *heavily* inspired by Super Mario Bros. Crazy that he got a decent looking (and sounding) version on the 2600. Worth checking out 20) Qbert. Decent port. 19) Atari Climber. 18) Millipede. Honorable mention is Centipede. Both are massively better with the arcade trackball. Sorry to those that hold these two in higher esteem. 17) Commando. Great shooter game, late in the Atari 2600 life. Ikari Warriors is an honorable mention. 16) Donkey Kong. This wasn’t bad but was missing a couple level designs. Sorry DK Jr didn’t cut it at 2600, but was a great 7800 game. 15) Yars Return/Yars Revenge (yup, lumping both together) 14) River Raid. Vertical Shooter fun. 13) Seaquest. Honorable mention to another Activision horizontal shooting gem, Command Chopper. 12) Dig Dug. Honorable mention to Mr Do. 11) Toyshop Trouble. Another great homebrew. 10) Space Invaders. 9) HERO 8) Berserk 7) Ms Pac-Man. Big boost when it went to 7800. 6) Missile Command 5) Galaxian. Honorable mention to Phoenix, Worm War, Demon Attack and Spider Fighter. 4) Frogger 3) Wizard of Wor. Huge fan of this game. Probably spent more time playing this with my friend in the early 80s than any other game 2) Pitfall/Pitfall 2 . I realize these are completely different games, but I wanted both on here... 1) Mario Bros.
Gran lista de juegos están muchos de mis favoritos como fast food, mario bros, joust, kangaroo, dig dug, ms pacman, donkey kong jr, phoenix, atlantis, berzerk, realsport football, kool aid man, river raid, chopper command, spider fighter, pole position, pitfall, asteroids, cosmic ark and lock’n chase Pero té faltaron más y mis otros favoritos del atari 2600 Hero, snoopy and the red baron, infiltrate, jawbreak, moon patrol, frogger, starmaster, kaboom, jungle hunt, maze craze, crystal castle, solaris, galaga, enduro, tennis,(activision) ice hockey, skiing, súper breakout, stampede, presure cooker, space invaders, laser blast, combat and heman and the master of the universo
The No Swear Gamer Yes! For the amount of time the programmer was given to produce it, it was a solid effort with more depth than your typical 2600 game. It just was massively overproduced to sell to an audience already pissed off at all the crappy bloatware Atari had been putting out
I cant understand you ranked Defender as 88 but Star Gate (a clone) as 19, and the mediocre ET Game as 50. BTW, missing some classics as Enduro, Frostbite, Robot Tank, Yar's Revenge, Space Invaders, Jungle Hunt...
I completely agree with number one! ADVENTURE has always been my favorite, as far as the original, old school Atari 2600 games go! It's funny, but as I watched your video, it took me back in time. I didn't remember this until watching it, but I once sat playing ASTEROIDS, for 10 hours straight, one Saturday when I was about 11-12 yrs. old. I was so NOT a loser.
Brian's Man Cave how about solar Fox ? Solaris ,quick step , no escape ...missile command ? I DO love your list ..how about adding 5 more hahaha..a 105 favorites list 😏 great list..
@@darrinwinne6523 So, you like Quick Step? It's one that gets panned, but I haven't played it yet. Are you considering 2 player simultaneous or even just 1 player?
I'm glad to see that Keystone Kapers was rated pretty high in the list. It's one of the few 2600 games I still enjoy, but it usually gets overshadowed by the other things Activision made.
Air Sea battle, Combat, kaboom, demon attack, space invaders, missle command, empire strikes back (snow speeder vs. walkers) Indy 500, dragster, surround, frogger?? , video olympics, decathalon, skydivers, BREAKOUT! super breakout, warlords, yars revenge, blackjack, pitfall2, hangman some of my favorites...adventure is my #1 still got my original 1977 heavy sixer!
I don't see Space Invaders on the list; they say it made the 2600 take off. I played that a lot, and especially loved the 2-shot cheat. Unfortunately, too many arcade adaptions and bad games would ruin the industry.
agreed.. that was one of the better games.. I believe space invaders, combat, and asteroids were among some of the top games that made the Atari really take it...
@@ericdraven7185 Combat was one that needed to be updated or dropped. I got Armor Ambush in 1982-3. I saw a review for Time Pilot that looked like the second half of combat. Those two together would be like an update, though I'd include a 1-player tank version too.
I got my Atari second hand with a load of games around 1986. I was so lucky as literally every game that came with it was an absolute classic. The only bad game it had was Pacman, the other 50 was everything from Joust to Keystone capers. I even remember the older kid who was selling it saying to my parents "these are literally the best games you can get on Atari".
Pac-Man fever swept the nation in 1981-2 and kids would play any game with a maze and dots. It may have sold 2 million Atari consoles for people who wanted the game at home, too. It was a really bad port and we don't know how many carts were returned, and how many were over-produced. I think plenty, which is why they didn't release new catalogs for Fall 1982 onward, as they probably just reused ones that were made to go with Pac-Man! They patted themselves on the back for saving money in not releasing it on an 8K ROM cartridge (as did Coleco with the must-have game Donkey Kong, which was also bad port). Then they pissed off investors by saying their profit would "only" increase 15% from the previous year instead of 50%. Even though they came out with some good games in 1982-3, the bad games ruined their reputation.
Great list. I would say that three of my favorites that come to mind that I didn't see on your list are Empire Strikes Back, Demon Attack, and Robot Tank
I borrowed Empire Strikes Back from a friend... back in the day I considered it to be one of the better games.. I thought it looked good, played good, it was fast and response... and got difficult very quickly.
That''s only because I had not reviewed those games yet when this video came out. Since then, I have reviewed Frogger, Q-bert and Popeye and plan to review Jungle Hunt soon.
I was quite pleased that you have 'Adventure' as #1. It was definitely my favorite Atari game. Its the only one I actually went back and played (on an emulator) again not too long ago.
My brother had that joystick controller with batteries you hook to the TV with games in. I asked if Adventure's flaws had been fixed or still sometimes the gold key is in the gold castle, so you can't win. He couldn't answer because it broke. I did look up the programming online. In game 3, the black key is NEVER in the white castle. After the Random Number Generator puts items in rooms, there's no check to prevent the gold and black keys being in opposite castles; so you can't win then.
Actually, I think having the keys sometimes mutually locked made for a better game since you had to figure out it was unwinnable. But gold key in gold castle is a flaw.
Unsurprising top 5. Surprised you ranked Home Run much higher than Realsports Baseball! Didn't see Enduro or Kaboom! on there so maybe you could review those sometime.
It was fun watching the games start out as just about as objectively close to bad as possible, but then get more and more towards being just a matter of taste by the time it hits 70 or so, then turning into absolute classics near the end.
Still reeling at Galaxians and Chopper Command being so low on your list!! If I had to compile a top 20, probably be something like this... 1. River Raid 2. Pitfall II 3. Phoenix 4. Keystone Capers 5. Decathlon 6. HERO 7. Pitfall 8. Galaxians 9. Ms Pac Man 10. Chopper Command 11. Adventure 12. Enduro 13. Spiderman 14. Demon Attack 15. Gangster Alley 16. Space Invaders 17. Asteroids 18. Jungle Hunt 19. Battlezone 20. Cosmic Ark
Not sure about Pac-Man and E.T. being ranked higher than RealSports Tennis? RS Tennis is a very well made tennis game and it's fun to play. Midnight Magic, Commando, Enduro and F-14 Tomcat are very good games, also.
Kids today will never get it... These are the best games.. roughly in this order 1. Adventure 2. Pitfall 3. River Raid 3.1 Warlords (But only with at least 3 player and 1 computer player) 4. Berzerk 5. Keystone Kapers 6. Raiders of the Lost Ark 7. E.T. 8. Defender 9. Donkey Kong 10. Atlantis 11. Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back 12. M.A.S.H 13. Haunted House 14. Video Pinball 15. Pac-Man 16. Combat 17. Asteroids 18. Superman Spent so many hours on Adventure (probably the most) I really enjoyed Pitfall and River Raid.... Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. were my favorite cause they had a story and an actual ending. The others on the list I spent a lot of time with and really enjoyed... Combat and Asteroids were probably the first I really tried and made me want an Atari So bad.. Remember playing Superman on a display at K-mart.. was always fascinated by it, even though I didn't know what i was doing at the time. I grew up on the Atari back when I was in 1st, 2nd grade back in like 79-80
Love Shark Attack. And Vanguard! Chopper Command and Spider Fighter were really good. Donkey Kong is a classic. Megamania, Dodge 'Em, Seaquest, Pole Position, Joust, Centpide, Joust, Keystone Kapers, Dig Dug, Haunted House, Pitfall, Adventure. All great games. But Ms. Pac Man is the best ever.
I disagree about #51. That version of pacman is the worst port ever made anywhere on any machine. Threshold looks better than most games on the 2600. I wish I knew about that game when I had one. Pole Position and Joust. Very good choices. Overall very nice video! Too bad it couldn't run Crysis.
I actually owned a copy of Threshold. Purchased the game at a flea market in the early 80's. It was $12 for the game, sealed in the box and everything - a bargain at the time. The vendor had a special two games for $20. Never heard of Tigervision or any of the other games he was selling at this price, but I wasn't about to pass up two games for twenty bucks. Couldn't wait to play them when I got home. Liked the colorful graphics initially but the game got boring way too soon. Don't even remember the other game. Wish I still had them, they would be quite uncommon and probably worth more today.
You are missing some of the best, for I would rank SPACE INVADERS as #1 and YARS' REVENGE amongst the top 10. This ratings list is an extremely sick joke!!!
I am SO confused about why megamania is in the 30's here, and why it's hardly mentioned elsewhere. like...WHY?? and that river raid one that everyone's so crazy about...i don't get it. and where's frogger?? space invaders?? boo!
Best Games im lovin are Phoenix, Cosmic Ark, Chopper Command, Pyramid war, Mario Bros and the 31 in 1 Cartridge. mmmmmmmhhhhh. So good Times we had togetha.
A game that almost never gets mentioned that needs consideration is subterranea by imagic. Fast smooth shooter game play that's very challenging and that pushes the boundaries of the atari 2600.
Nicely put together. Don't agree with your top ten of the ones you covered...but opinions are free to differ. I hope you plan to do this with all the systems you cover.
Yeah, a bit against the grain, but I am one of those weirdos that like E.T. and find Vanguard too slow and Defender style games not that much fun for the most part.
I liked E.T. too, it was a very advanced game as far the Atari went, It's become a cult anti classic thanks to the AVGN character and the landfill story. I don't think E.T. caused the video game crash it was just the first victim of it.
Nice video, and great list Phil! Of course you've reviewed many Atari VCS/2600 games since. By the way I recently found, and subscribed to the Intellivisionaries UA-cam channel. Though it looks like their last video was approximately a year ago.
Thanks for reminding me of games I had growing up, like Oink, Vanguard, Star Raiders, and Phoenix. I enjoyed your list. Now I need to actually beat Adventure now that I know what you're doing.
Atari Kid Galaxian is HORRIBLE. Even on the arcade, it sucked. It has horrible sound effects, abrupt deaths, loud af, sloooooooow, only 2 lives, slow fire, AND A RIPOFF OF GALAGA. WORST ARCADE GAME IN EXISTENCE! Space invaders is 1 million times better.
Well, it's your list so I would say you did do pretty good at your picks as your reviews give those games the ratings. I think the best atari 2600 game is Enduro, but my WORST Atari 2600 game goes to Merlin's Walls(yes, there's a bad homebrew game out there which goes into the top 20 worst Atari 2600 games playlist. Why not check it out for yourself?)
Only saw a couple games in the 51-100 range that I played a lot as a kid or would want to play (but plenty in the top 50 I wouldn't want to play). I got Omega Race for my VIC-20 which I played as a teen. I also played Vanguard a lot in 1982-3, though I couldn't get to the boss of round 3 as my ship moved too slowly with regard to barriers moving in your path.
I have to say, the smallest but greatest Gaming Station from 1978 with cool grapix. Today I'm playin Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 on my Raspberry Pi with RetroPi. Greatfull.
I think Tax avoiders is worth a bit. I loved REACTOR in the day, I know compared to the arcade, it's shit. Omega Race- not THAT bad. TURMOIL?!?!?!?!?! 1 of my favorites and I discovered MUCH later
Play them through a emulator. Stella is a good Atari 2600 console emulator. I even still play the new Atari 2600 homebrew games through my Stella Emulator. Ladybug is my all time favorite as a homebrew game. I did put up many hours playing Dig-Dug; got real good playing that game. Your never to young to go back. Even back before you was born.
Huh surprised e.t. and pacman made it into the top 55. And even more that e.t. is above pacman. Personally I like the Atari version of pacman even though it is sucky by comparison to any other port. If you have a problem with it than get mrs pacman
I personally just found Vanguard too sluggish and actually kinda enjoyed the board game aspect to Math Gran Prix. Just my personal tastes in that regard.
Turmoil was a great game. It looks pretty easy at the lower levels. But once you get to the higher levels, your palms will sweat all over the joystick. You had to really manage your enemies well or you'd get hit.
I will never forget, when I first played Adventure. I was astonished by the complexity of the concept and the simple, but very clever designed maps. It was by far the best game I had ever seen on the Atari VCS 2600... and I played it for the first time in 2002 (!!!). I am not kidding: Playing since 1983, I grew up primarily with the commodore 64 and later the commodore amiga, before I got into consoles. I knew some VCS 2600 games and bought the system with some games around 1989 (and was laughed at from school friends for it, who thought I am insane to pay 20 Deutsche Mark (!) for an VCS plus 20 game cartridges, but that's another story ;). But I never saw Adventure, till I got the very first Atari-built-in-Joystick from 2002. As an avid game collector and an historian about gaming in general, I was simply baffled and knew immediatly: This is the best Atari VCS 2600 game, by far.
Andy Awardian I won't go so far as to say Adventure is the best ever Atari game, because you have to like adventure type games (which I don't) but it certainly was innovative.
The main flaw is that the gold key is sometimes locked inside the gold castle, which could have been fixed with the way he distributed objects by making the inside gold castle room no.1 (or no.29) so it would fish for a random number between 2 and 29. It could still have keys mutually-locked like gold in black and black in gold castle. But I don't consider that a flaw as it's good for kids to figure out the game is unwinnable sometimes. Unfortunately, he set it up so the black key is never in the white castle for game 3. I imagine it would only take a line of code for it to pick another room if the black key were in the black castle.
Too much blinking is a defect on the Atari. I also read he could have had maybe 2-3 more dragons or creatures. So there could have been a game number 4 or 5 that were a little harder, even. The story is that a wizard stole the chalice, so I used to imagine an evil wizard in a secret room inside the white castle, where it looks like another room should go.
There have been several attempts over the years to make a home-brew Adventure 2. Superman is said to be based on the same "engine" used to make Adventure.
They say that Adventure is based on converting a text adventure game to graphics, so you don't have to type "get" or "use". I played several text games on the VIC-20 cartridges after this so am imagining if they made those in Adventure-format.
I loved that Adventure had three different levels that were really different games, and not just 'harder' versions of each other.
nah! Pitfall II - The Lost Caverns is easily the number 1 for me! 4 chanel sound + the rich grandfather of platformers!
Haven't reviewed it yet, but I do have a copy and plan to review it in the future.
Obsoletes original Pitfall big time. Even as a kid once I got Pitfall II my original Pitfall was gathering dust. Controversial opinion but I'm stickin' to it. I play through Pitfall II on an emulator every now and then, still holds up.
I agree; You got to play Mountain King it was a great game as well. Might need the manual so you know what is going on and what your objectives are.
This list is great, just missing Yar's Revenge.
It will be on the next list!
Just what I was thinking & Moon Patrol too!
Yars' is in my top 5!!
@@thenosweargamer1449 Montezumas Revenge!
*_and custers revenge_*
Considering the limitations of the console I always thought the port of Pole Position was very good😃
Once you win, there's not much replayability. I like Enduro better, and finally got to the end a couple years ago, the last time I played Atari. My favorite at the arcade at that time was Turbo. They released that just for ColecoVision with a steering controller.
I love the way the car handles in Pole Position, it really felt like it was going fast. I think it actually feels better than the cars in Pole Position II for the 7800.
Warlords (1-4 player with paddles) was hands down the most fun game with friends.. used to play with my brother and the kid next door and 1 cpu player... man we had a blast playing that. Im shocked no one mentioned this. Playing alone probably wasn't nowhere near as fun.
I agree. Funnest game with others. It is a travesty to have to use joysticks for it rather than intended paddles.
@@randycunningham7318warlords on atari DID use paddles
Google JOHNNY VINCENTO get HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN TABLETOP ARCADE for Atari 2600 5200 7800 COLECOVISION and INTELLIVISION SYSTEMS....Shows how to make a 4 person player WARLORDS using Atari 2600
Great list.
Here’s mine:
30) Combat. So many great memories with my friend. Air-Sea battle an honorable mention here.
29) Secret Quest. The precursor to Zelda.
28) E.T. For nostalgia only. My friend had this and I played it all the time, much to his frustration as he thought it sucked and that my time would have better spent doing anything besides. Honorable mention to Indiana Jones.
27) Klax. Tengen puzzle gem.
26) Joust. Decent port.
26) Kaboom. Great paddle game.
25) Enduro. Favor this over Pole Position, though I had Pole Position II on the 7800, and it was great.
24) Keystone Kapers
23) Asteroids. I know this would be higher on many people’s list. But not mine. Hey at least I have it over Sinistar and Defender.
22) Jr PAC Man
21) Rescue Princess. This is a homebrew from animator Chris Spry that is *heavily* inspired by Super Mario Bros. Crazy that he got a decent looking (and sounding) version on the 2600. Worth checking out
20) Qbert. Decent port.
19) Atari Climber.
18) Millipede. Honorable mention is Centipede. Both are massively better with the arcade trackball. Sorry to those that hold these two in higher esteem.
17) Commando. Great shooter game, late in the Atari 2600 life. Ikari Warriors is an honorable mention.
16) Donkey Kong. This wasn’t bad but was missing a couple level designs. Sorry DK Jr didn’t cut it at 2600, but was a great 7800 game.
15) Yars Return/Yars Revenge (yup, lumping both together)
14) River Raid. Vertical Shooter fun.
13) Seaquest. Honorable mention to another Activision horizontal shooting gem, Command Chopper.
12) Dig Dug. Honorable mention to Mr Do.
11) Toyshop Trouble. Another great homebrew.
10) Space Invaders.
9) HERO
8) Berserk
7) Ms Pac-Man. Big boost when it went to 7800.
6) Missile Command
5) Galaxian. Honorable mention to Phoenix, Worm War, Demon Attack and Spider Fighter.
4) Frogger
3) Wizard of Wor. Huge fan of this game. Probably spent more time playing this with my friend in the early 80s than any other game
2) Pitfall/Pitfall 2 . I realize these are completely different games, but I wanted both on here...
1) Mario Bros.
I recommend Frostbite and Keystone Kapers
Super Breakout, Yars Revenge, Kaboom, Bowling, Moon Patrol, Enduro, Decathlon, Jungle Hunt, Qbert, H.E.R.O.
Gran lista de juegos están muchos de mis favoritos como fast food, mario bros, joust, kangaroo, dig dug, ms pacman, donkey kong jr, phoenix, atlantis, berzerk, realsport football, kool aid man, river raid, chopper command, spider fighter, pole position, pitfall, asteroids, cosmic ark and lock’n chase
Pero té faltaron más y mis otros favoritos del atari 2600 Hero, snoopy and the red baron, infiltrate, jawbreak, moon patrol, frogger, starmaster, kaboom, jungle hunt, maze craze, crystal castle, solaris, galaga, enduro, tennis,(activision) ice hockey, skiing, súper breakout, stampede, presure cooker, space invaders, laser blast, combat and heman and the master of the universo
Honestly would have ranked Berzerk a bit higher
A Smurf dies because he touched a fence. Seems legit
Welcome to 2600 world. And simple water also kills most early video game characters.
The No Swear Gamer just like in gta 3. The water doesn't like humans in that game lol
Aego384 in the ColecoVision version the Smurf can be killed by touching a blade of grass. Smurfs are apparently rather fragile.
Glad to see E.T at number 50. It's NOT the worst game ever, especially if you played Strawberry shortcakes
I'm glad that there are others out there who don'e buy into the whole "ET is the worse game ever made" spiel.
Firefly is worse than ET
There is this guy who did a series on 2600 games worse than ET, it's worth checking out
The No Swear Gamer Yes! For the amount of time the programmer was given to produce it, it was a solid effort with more depth than your typical 2600 game. It just was massively overproduced to sell to an audience already pissed off at all the crappy bloatware Atari had been putting out
It’s not the creators fault.It was the CEO of Atari only giving him 5 weeks to make et
Any education game is easily worse than ET. Who the hell wants to do math on an Atari?
Where the Hell is Space Invaders?! Plus Yar's Revenge, Demon Attack, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi.
I liked Yars Revenge and Demon Attack. Simple shooters but fun.
I cant understand you ranked Defender as 88 but Star Gate (a clone) as 19, and the mediocre ET Game as 50. BTW, missing some classics as Enduro, Frostbite, Robot Tank, Yar's Revenge, Space Invaders, Jungle Hunt...
Stargate is actually the follow up to Defender and at the time of posting this video he had not reviewed some games.
I completely agree with number one!
ADVENTURE has always been my favorite, as far as the original, old school Atari 2600 games go!
It's funny, but as I watched your video, it took me back in time. I didn't remember this until watching it, but I once sat playing ASTEROIDS, for 10 hours straight, one Saturday when I was about 11-12 yrs. old.
I was so NOT a loser.
Oh wow! 10 hours on Asteroids!
How can I forget about Adventure. I spent so much time on that as a kid trying to beat it.
Also honorably worth mentioning is that Adventure was the first game to feature an Easter egg!
I agree with most... although I think I would rank River Raid better than Haunted House! :)
Brian's Man Cave how about solar Fox ? Solaris ,quick step , no escape ...missile command ?
I DO love your list ..how about adding 5 more hahaha..a 105 favorites list 😏
great list..
@@darrinwinne6523 So, you like Quick Step? It's one that gets panned, but I haven't played it yet. Are you considering 2 player simultaneous or even just 1 player?
Very surprised to see Defender so low on the list, fantastic game.
arcade version, yes, the 2600 version, not so much
Defennder 2 is great.
I loved the arcade game... the atari version was a very rough choppy version of the arcade... but I still really liked it.
Solaris is the best 2600 game ever made.
I'm glad to see that Keystone Kapers was rated pretty high in the list. It's one of the few 2600 games I still enjoy, but it usually gets overshadowed by the other things Activision made.
Air Sea battle, Combat, kaboom, demon attack, space invaders, missle command, empire strikes back (snow speeder vs. walkers) Indy 500, dragster, surround, frogger?? , video olympics, decathalon, skydivers, BREAKOUT! super breakout, warlords, yars revenge, blackjack, pitfall2, hangman some of my favorites...adventure is my #1 still got my original 1977 heavy sixer!
I don't see Space Invaders on the list; they say it made the 2600 take off. I played that a lot, and especially loved the 2-shot cheat. Unfortunately, too many arcade adaptions and bad games would ruin the industry.
Oops. Missed that it was only the ones he'd reviewed so far and not the best 100.
agreed.. that was one of the better games.. I believe space invaders, combat, and asteroids were among some of the top games that made the Atari really take it...
@@ericdraven7185 Combat was one that needed to be updated or dropped. I got Armor Ambush in 1982-3. I saw a review for Time Pilot that looked like the second half of combat. Those two together would be like an update, though I'd include a 1-player tank version too.
AGAIN! #99 0:55 TAX AVOIDERS... now I know where TRUMP got his strategies from! lol!
I got my Atari second hand with a load of games around 1986. I was so lucky as literally every game that came with it was an absolute classic. The only bad game it had was Pacman, the other 50 was everything from Joust to Keystone capers. I even remember the older kid who was selling it saying to my parents "these are literally the best games you can get on Atari".
Pac-Man fever swept the nation in 1981-2 and kids would play any game with a maze and dots. It may have sold 2 million Atari consoles for people who wanted the game at home, too. It was a really bad port and we don't know how many carts were returned, and how many were over-produced. I think plenty, which is why they didn't release new catalogs for Fall 1982 onward, as they probably just reused ones that were made to go with Pac-Man! They patted themselves on the back for saving money in not releasing it on an 8K ROM cartridge (as did Coleco with the must-have game Donkey Kong, which was also bad port). Then they pissed off investors by saying their profit would "only" increase 15% from the previous year instead of 50%. Even though they came out with some good games in 1982-3, the bad games ruined their reputation.
Highly recommend reviewing "Kaboom!" As it's my favorite Atari 2600 game! :D
Your right on the money with Adventure. Greatest game ever for the 2600. I played it and Haunted House on difficult non-stop.
Great list. I would say that three of my favorites that come to mind that I didn't see on your list are Empire Strikes Back, Demon Attack, and Robot Tank
I borrowed Empire Strikes Back from a friend... back in the day I considered it to be one of the better games.. I thought it looked good, played good, it was fast and response... and got difficult very quickly.
How could you not like Fire Fighter? I always used to just let the building burn down! LOL
Vanguard is top 20. I was surprised how low you had that . Megamania is top 10. Where is pitfall 2 and Enduro?
Adventure number one really? Raider's of the Lost Ark was such better. And ET is way too high. It was officially shovelware
For me, absolutely. I still enjoy Adventure. But that's what makes list like this so fun. You never know what to expect when someone else does one.
Raiders was good. That's about as much RPG as the 2600 could do without additional cartridge hardware
number 1 game is correct but seriously... no superman, frogger, qbert, Jungle Hunt, or Popeye??
That''s only because I had not reviewed those games yet when this video came out. Since then, I have reviewed Frogger, Q-bert and Popeye and plan to review Jungle Hunt soon.
The No Swear Gamer common Man lets get on the stick then... I'm just kidding I reapply enjoy your work thank you for all you do
You're very welcome! Thanks for watching!
Jungle Hunt was awesome. Top 25 stuff
I was quite pleased that you have 'Adventure' as #1. It was definitely my favorite Atari game. Its the only one I actually went back and played (on an emulator) again not too long ago.
My brother had that joystick controller with batteries you hook to the TV with games in. I asked if Adventure's flaws had been fixed or still sometimes the gold key is in the gold castle, so you can't win. He couldn't answer because it broke. I did look up the programming online. In game 3, the black key is NEVER in the white castle. After the Random Number Generator puts items in rooms, there's no check to prevent the gold and black keys being in opposite castles; so you can't win then.
Actually, I think having the keys sometimes mutually locked made for a better game since you had to figure out it was unwinnable. But gold key in gold castle is a flaw.
@@sandal_thong8631 Interesting. I didn't know about that. Thanx sandal!
You ranked Home Run that far above Realsports Baseball??
Dan Wolak Sure did. I enjoy Home Run, but did not care for the gameplay of RS Baseball.
13:55 my life...
I must be one of the few who like playing stampede
Unsurprising top 5. Surprised you ranked Home Run much higher than Realsports Baseball! Didn't see Enduro or Kaboom! on there so maybe you could review those sometime.
Yes I plan to review both of those. And yes, I just happen to like the simple but fun (to me at least) Homerun more.
Games like Home Run were why we played Intellivision or Odyssey 2 for competitive sports games.
But I remember M-Network's Baseball was really good.
This list got the #1 best game right!
Some surprises there! And a lot of good games you haven't got to yet.
My Top 100 List :
1. Pac-Man & Ms. Pac-Man
2. Pitfall & Pitfall 2
3. Frogger & Frogger 2
4. Qbert
5. H.E.R.O.
6. Enduro
7. Grand Prix
8. Xenophobe
9. Berzerk
10. Tutankham
11. Dark Cavern
12. Dark Chambers
14. Adventure
15. Jungle Hunt
16. Thunderground
17. Mr. Do
18. Dig Dug
19. Wizard of War
20. Amidor
21. Lock 'N' Chase
22. Smurf
23. Robin Hood
24. Crossbow
25. Skiing
26. Double Dragon
27. Kungfu master
28. Crazy Climber
29. Towering Inferno
30. Fire Fighter
31. Haunted House
32. Escape from the Mindmaster
33. Tunnel Runner
34. Crypts of Chaosl
35. Combat
36. Battlezone
37. Robot Tank
38. Space Shuttle
39. Star Trek
40. Barnstroming
41. Jungle Fever
42. Chopper Command
43. Super Cobra
44. Sea Hawk
45. Seaquest
46. Name This Game
47. Polaris
48. Fathom
49. Atlantis
50. Ghostbusters
51. Journey Escape
52. Beamrider
53. Air Riders
54. River Raid
55. Time Pilot
56. Sky Jinks
57. Vanguard
58. Pole Position
59. Sprint Master
60. Night Driver
61. Moon Patrol
62. Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back
63. Star Fox
64. Stargate
65. Star Raiders
66. Asteroids
67. Gyruss
68. Defender
69. Laser Gates
70. Galaxian
71. Space Invaders
72. Reactor
73. Threshold
74. MegaMania
75. Spider Fighter
76. Phoenix
77. Turmoil
78. Demon Attack
79. Centipede
80. Missile Command
81. Alien
82. Laser Blast
83. Plaque Attack
84. Superman
85. Rampage!
86. Freeway
87. Kaboom
88. Lost Luggage
89. Sky Diver
90. Joust
91. Fire Fly
92. Frog Pond
93. Pressure Cooker
94. Oink!
95. Shark Attack
96. Adventures of Tron
97. Keystone Kapers
98. Frankenstein
99. Kangaroo
100. Surround
#10 battlezone , i got a patch for scoring 156,000. :) , #1 adventure i still play to this date.
I used to joke around with Donkey Kong on the 2600, and how the barrels looked like chocolate chip cookies lol
It was fun watching the games start out as just about as objectively close to bad as possible, but then get more and more towards being just a matter of taste by the time it hits 70 or so, then turning into absolute classics near the end.
Still reeling at Galaxians and Chopper Command being so low on your list!! If I had to compile a top 20, probably be something like this...
1. River Raid
2. Pitfall II
3. Phoenix
4. Keystone Capers
5. Decathlon
6. HERO
7. Pitfall
8. Galaxians
9. Ms Pac Man
10. Chopper Command
11. Adventure
12. Enduro
13. Spiderman
14. Demon Attack
15. Gangster Alley
16. Space Invaders
17. Asteroids
18. Jungle Hunt
19. Battlezone
20. Cosmic Ark
Not sure about Pac-Man and E.T. being ranked higher than RealSports Tennis? RS Tennis is a very well made tennis game and it's fun to play. Midnight Magic, Commando, Enduro and F-14 Tomcat are very good games, also.
Kids today will never get it...
These are the best games.. roughly in this order
1. Adventure
2. Pitfall
3. River Raid
3.1 Warlords (But only with at least 3 player and 1 computer player)
4. Berzerk
5. Keystone Kapers
6. Raiders of the Lost Ark
7. E.T.
8. Defender
9. Donkey Kong
10. Atlantis
11. Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back
12. M.A.S.H
13. Haunted House
14. Video Pinball
15. Pac-Man
16. Combat
17. Asteroids
18. Superman
Spent so many hours on Adventure (probably the most) I really enjoyed Pitfall and River Raid.... Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. were my favorite cause they had a story and an actual ending. The others on the list I spent a lot of time with and really enjoyed... Combat and Asteroids were probably the first I really tried and made me want an Atari So bad.. Remember playing Superman on a display at K-mart.. was always fascinated by it, even though I didn't know what i was doing at the time. I grew up on the Atari back when I was in 1st, 2nd grade back in like 79-80
Lol @ ET. Looks funny.
Enduro racer and winter olympics for me.
Love Shark Attack. And Vanguard! Chopper Command and Spider Fighter were really good. Donkey Kong is a classic. Megamania, Dodge 'Em, Seaquest, Pole Position, Joust, Centpide, Joust, Keystone Kapers, Dig Dug, Haunted House, Pitfall, Adventure. All great games. But Ms. Pac Man is the best ever.
I disagree about #51. That version of pacman is the worst port ever made anywhere on any machine. Threshold looks better than most games on the 2600. I wish I knew about that game when I had one. Pole Position and Joust. Very good choices. Overall very nice video! Too bad it couldn't run Crysis.
I actually owned a copy of Threshold. Purchased the game at a flea market in the early 80's. It was $12 for the game, sealed in the box and everything - a bargain at the time. The vendor had a special two games for $20. Never heard of Tigervision or any of the other games he was selling at this price, but I wasn't about to pass up two games for twenty bucks. Couldn't wait to play them when I got home. Liked the colorful graphics initially but the game got boring way too soon. Don't even remember the other game. Wish I still had them, they would be quite uncommon and probably worth more today.
You are missing some of the best, for I would rank SPACE INVADERS as #1 and YARS' REVENGE amongst the top 10. This ratings list is an extremely sick joke!!!
I am SO confused about why megamania is in the 30's here, and why it's hardly mentioned elsewhere. like...WHY?? and that river raid one that everyone's so crazy about...i don't get it. and where's frogger?? space invaders?? boo!
No pitfall 2? Ha ha what a joke
this is missing space invaders "1 of the best games of all time,"
Best Games im lovin are Phoenix, Cosmic Ark, Chopper Command, Pyramid war, Mario Bros and the 31 in 1 Cartridge. mmmmmmmhhhhh. So good Times we had togetha.
ET made it to #50! Good for him!
Well done, I played about 30 of these games alot , it was different then the graphics didnt matter so much if the game was fun.
Nice video! Brings back fun memories. Love your selection.
Good job putting dig dug in the top 10, fully deserved. There was another video that missed it somehow.
This list is horsecrap
Dude, Adventure is such an overrated game. You only control a square. I am pretty sure you put it on top, cuz of Ready player one movie XD XD XD
7:36
thanks i was looking 58)Turmoil-Ep 212
A game that almost never gets mentioned that needs consideration is subterranea by imagic. Fast smooth shooter game play that's very challenging and that pushes the boundaries of the atari 2600.
If I get a chance, I will review it and rank it on the list.
Great video, some of these I'd never seen before.
Thank You!
Not agree with a lot of them. Et 50th and defender and vanguard almost in the last positions??? No way dude. Sorry
Nicely put together. Don't agree with your top ten of the ones you covered...but opinions are free to differ. I hope you plan to do this with all the systems you cover.
Yes I do once I review enough games on the other systems. I may also update this list if I hit 150 or 200 2600 games.
E.T. above Chopper Command and Vanguard?!?
Yeah, a bit against the grain, but I am one of those weirdos that like E.T. and find Vanguard too slow and Defender style games not that much fun for the most part.
I...Also enjoy E.T...I'm...not alone?
I liked E.T. too, it was a very advanced game as far the Atari went, It's become a cult anti classic thanks to the AVGN character and the landfill story. I don't think E.T. caused the video game crash it was just the first victim of it.
Count me in for the kids who played E.T. and found it fun. The game's objectives were clear and more complex than most games of it's time.
Purrbox advanced my butt. It's a piece of crap.
Nice video, and great list Phil! Of course you've reviewed many Atari VCS/2600 games since. By the way I recently found, and subscribed to the Intellivisionaries UA-cam channel. Though it looks like their last video was approximately a year ago.
Ok spider fighter was an AMAZING game should be in the top 15 at least
Thanks for reminding me of games I had growing up, like Oink, Vanguard, Star Raiders, and Phoenix. I enjoyed your list. Now I need to actually beat Adventure now that I know what you're doing.
You're Welcome!
Hi! Try H.E.R.O.
No H.E.R.O? Fail.
The list only contains games I've reviewed. Once I review H.E.R.O., it will be added to the list.
Respect the opinion, but I'd personally put Turmoil in the top 20 if not in the top 10.
I'm surprised Galaxian is low on your list. It's a great game, and this is a really good port.
Yeah, it's well made for what it is, but for some reason the gameplay just bores me. I know I'm in the minority on that one.
Atari Kid Galaxian is HORRIBLE. Even on the arcade, it sucked. It has horrible sound effects, abrupt deaths, loud af, sloooooooow, only 2 lives, slow fire, AND A RIPOFF OF GALAGA. WORST ARCADE GAME IN EXISTENCE! Space invaders is 1 million times better.
As Galaxian precedes Galaga and was published by the same company (Namco), how can it possibly be a rip-off?
EY better than Chopper Command and Turmoil? 🥴😷
5:21 that's Galaxian on the 7800, I just played it yesterday.
That's actually the 2600 version. Galaxian never came to the 7800, but it's sequel, Galaga did. However, I was playing it on a 7800 ;)
The No Swear Gamer yea I since realised my mistake! My galaxian looked so good I assumed it was a 7800 game.
Wow no Wizard of War, Frostbite or Enduro.
raiders of the lost ark and all activision games should rank higher
Good list, but I woulda ranked Joust higher than Kangaroo! :P
the programming of joust was not as close to the arcade than kangaroo
Well, it's your list so I would say you did do pretty good at your picks as your reviews give those games the ratings. I think the best atari 2600 game is Enduro, but my WORST Atari 2600 game goes to Merlin's Walls(yes, there's a bad homebrew game out there which goes into the top 20 worst Atari 2600 games playlist. Why not check it out for yourself?)
Did the 2600 suck or we just didn’t know any better??
Only saw a couple games in the 51-100 range that I played a lot as a kid or would want to play (but plenty in the top 50 I wouldn't want to play). I got Omega Race for my VIC-20 which I played as a teen. I also played Vanguard a lot in 1982-3, though I couldn't get to the boss of round 3 as my ship moved too slowly with regard to barriers moving in your path.
Plaque Attack and Qbert aren't too bad.
I have to say, the smallest but greatest Gaming Station from 1978 with cool grapix. Today I'm playin Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 on my Raspberry Pi with RetroPi. Greatfull.
Hi No Swear gamer. It's brento from the retro league forums. Have a good one!
Hey brento! Good to hear from you!
I think Tax avoiders is worth a bit. I loved REACTOR in the day, I know compared to the arcade, it's shit. Omega Race- not THAT bad. TURMOIL?!?!?!?!?! 1 of my favorites and I discovered MUCH later
Oh dear...I missed out on all of these games :S (mid 80s child here). Nevertheless, awesome video ;)
Thanks!
The No Swear Gamer Np ;)
Play them through a emulator. Stella is a good Atari 2600 console emulator. I even still play the new Atari 2600 homebrew games through my Stella Emulator. Ladybug is my all time favorite as a homebrew game. I did put up many hours playing Dig-Dug; got real good playing that game. Your never to young to go back. Even back before you was born.
I have been playing games since I was 4(1977). Anything Froggo and Scuba Diver would be at the top of my list. 2600-wise anyhow.
Anyone else notice that ET, regarded by some as the wirst video game ever made, was around the middle of the list?
I always thought it was one of the best games ever made for the system.
I just wish there was a way to get every Atari game again. Star Wars, Pitfall 1 and 2, Dig Dug, Ms. Pac Man, and more.
Stella emulator.
Great list. However, now i have a few more must haves on my list lol
Technology has really advanced, but has the human race?
Great list I have played some of these on my channel 👍👍👍
Huh surprised e.t. and pacman made it into the top 55. And even more that e.t. is above pacman. Personally I like the Atari version of pacman even though it is sucky by comparison to any other port. If you have a problem with it than get mrs pacman
Math Gran Prix over Vanguard? Weird.
I personally just found Vanguard too sluggish and actually kinda enjoyed the board game aspect to Math Gran Prix. Just my personal tastes in that regard.
Vanguard was very difficult to beat after the first level. Don't think I ever won the third level.
Battle zone, Vangaurd, Pol Position, River Raiders, Keystone Kaper
HERO and PITFALL 2 are my best games
Where is my Q-Bert "(- . -)"
Mario Bros deserve the top 10 no doubt, I'm out
Pacman deserves to be lower, if not for simply the false advertising made by Atari promising the game to be similar to the arcade version.
Turmoil was a great game. It looks pretty easy at the lower levels. But once you get to the higher levels, your palms will sweat all over the joystick. You had to really manage your enemies well or you'd get hit.
Crackpots, Triple Action, Stampede, Kaboom... just to name a few I missed in the list