The Atari 2600 Games I Loved | Friday Night Arcade
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2024
- Aaron takes a trip down memory lane with some of his favorite Atari 2600 titles from his youth. Or as we used to call them back in the day... "Atari games." Atari 2600 games were simple given the limitations of the hardware, but when they were done properly it made for a truly memorable and fantastic gaming experience that transcends generations.
From Aaron: "I still have the Atari 2600 that my parents had in the house when I was a kid growing up. Technically that thing is older than me. My parents passed it down to me and somehow this thing still works! They don't make them like they used to. For me as a little kid the simple joystick and single button controller was all you needed for great night of gaming. Before Nintendo, Sega and all the rest... for me there was always the Atari 2600. Or as I like to call it, The Atari."
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[0:42] - Enduro
[2:38] - Chopper Command
[3:56] - River Raid
[5:16] - Space Invaders
[8:17] - Combat
[10:03] - Starmaster
[11:36] - Robot Tank
[12:39] - Cosmic Ark
[14:45] - Asteroids
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#atari2600 #retrogaming #FridayNightArcade - Ігри
If you enjoyed this but didn't see your favorite Atari 2600 game mentioned here, odds are I covered it in one of my other more recent Atari videos. Here's a playlist with all of my Atari 2600 episodes and thanks for watching! ua-cam.com/play/PLdGtTWqCEvuJCOriBVUUtmrYY8mht1Ll5.html
Love to get my hands on a copy of the Astroids lp.
Ended up doing a standalone video on that LP ... it's... it's something lol... ua-cam.com/video/12xpc-zONAg/v-deo.html
The goal of the game is to collect two of every species on each planet you visit. The goal of Noah's ark was to pick up two of every species before The Great Flood. Hence the name, "Cosmic Ark."
Interesting fact regarding Space Invaders... The idea of the aliens speeding up as they were fewer of them was actually not planned. This was actually a byproduct of the computer limitations at the time ... with all the aliens on the screen, the computer ran slower .. As there were less of them, the computer could run faster. Though it was a mistake at first, they quickly realized it was much more fun this way.
Early 80s friday nights was Pizza and Atari, miss those fun innocent days.
it sure was, our parents limited it use during the school week but Friday night It was game on. I used to wake up super early on Saturday morning , turn the sound down and play.
My parents would go out on friday nights , they would give us money for pizza. So my older brother would invite a friend ovet, and so would I . My brother was 3 years older and one of his friends would bring over albums. I was introduced to lots of new wave, punk, and heavy metal. I ended up loving heavy metal. But I sure do miss those long lost nights of having Atari Parties, listening to music, hanging out with friends, and eating greasy pizza
The Atari 2600 is a masterpiece and in my opinion it is forgotten way too often in this day and age.
Defender and Adventure were two more of my favorites.
Enduro is an Activision masterpiece!
I remember as a kid having a Atari 2600 I had all kinds of games & I remember coming home on a Friday from school knowing that all weekend I could play to my hearts content I could play late at night if I kept the volume all the way down & my lights off , I,d take junk food in my room a hour before I,d go to bed so I had something to snack on wile playing , I had a big floor model 32 inch color tv in my bed room that my dad gave to me when he bought a new one man them were the days .
That's awesome - I had a similar hand-me-down woodgrain Zenith TV in my room with the big turn knobs on it for playing Atari and NES.... Doritos and StarTropics was my 1990.
Whoever done the cart artwork was amazing.
My imagination as a 7 year old went into overdrive. The art was what the game was supposed to be. It didn't matter what the graphics looked like because i had the final realisation.
I really wish i kept the boxes, but i still have my console and games.
You'll love The Art Of Atari book if you haven't seen it yet. Amazing!
I kept the packages as long as I could, but didn't use them so tossed them on a move. I lost a few instruction manuals, unfortunately, which I did want to keep.
I do think it was necessary to put the screen shot on the back, which Atari finally did in 1983, but too late. You could see in the ads in comic books how primitive the Atari 2600 ports looked compared to others.
The Atari 2600 was my first system growing up and is still my favorite. Here are some of my favorite games in addition to the ones you listed in your video: Missile Command, Centipede, Megamania, Beamrider, Pitfall, Kaboom, Frogger, Berzerk, Demon Attack, Yars Revenge, Ms. Pacman, Warlords, Dodge "Em, Adventure, Super Breakout, Pong and Outlaw.
I actually made my Atari freak out. It's as close as I can say to beating asteroids. When I was a kid, I played it long enough to over run the score. It took over 4 hrs. Was well worth it though.
I was 9 in '81 and got the VCS for Christmas along with Combat in the box. I have incredibly fond memories of that machine and eventually owned around 40 cartridges. Hearing those dirty, grindy VCS sound effects takes me back to those days instantly. Long live the 2600.
I love to hear stories like this - thank you for taking the time to write in. That's the good stuff.
TheRetroCade commented that Atari 5200 should released in the late 1981, as the latest.
I still have my very first Atari from the 2600 got it for Christmas back in the late 1970s
They're worth a few grand now if it's still in the box. The Japanese love them.
Still have mine in my game room along with my Colecovision. I usually will get into a mood to have an Atari night every now and then. My 12 year old gets bored quick, but will play along. The cool thing for me is grabbing games I did not own or play back in the day.
I asked my cousin's son who was about that age if he wanted to see the games I played (on UA-cam) when I was his age.
"No."
This from a kid _watching_ other people play games.
Few games I enjoyed playing were Demon Attack Kaboom Megamania Hanted House Yar's Revenge Jungle Hunt
Great video. The 2600 doesn't get enough coverage on UA-cam, in my opinion.
Thank you. Yes, I agree - would like to see more 2600 love on the UA-cam. I might have to help remedy that.
I've been streaming it on Twitch, forget UA-cam.
Iv'e done a couple of Atari 2600 videos but nobody seems to want to watch em any how.
At least AVGN, aka James Rolfe (sometimes with Mike Matei) and Mark from Classic Game Room did made Atari 2600 famous on UA-cam.
Atari 2600 was the first system I ever played that my childhood best friend showed me. Once I played it I was hooked. I loved it do much that my very first system I owned was the 7800. The 7800 played both 2600 and 7800 cartridges. Pitfall 2, Jungle Hunt, food fight, were my jam back in the day. Thank you Aaron for this trip down memory lane. You have, once again, done the 2600 justice.
Awesome! I want to get into the 7800 at some point - we never had that one, but I know there are some interesting titles for it.
Enduro looks fantastic for the 2600 holy hell.
Terribly underappreciated game. Hard to believe it's on the 2600.
Groundbreaking game, best driving game on the system
I'm very thankful that I got into gaming early enough to enjoy the Atari era. The annual Portland Retro Gaming Expo last month was full of Atari and early Activision alums like David Crane and Howard Scott Warshaw. Getting to tell these guys in person how their games were part of my fondest childhood memories from 35 years ago was a fantastic experience. And yes, mine is still a permanent part of my entertainment setup. It's got Nolan Bushnell's autograph right on the woodgrain. ;)
I feel so bad that I keep missing this and I've lived here for years...
I come down from Seattle every year. Wouldn't miss it for anything.
Whoa... that's incredible. Thank you for sharing. That would have been so cool to shoot the breeze with those legends, even for a few minutes. That's fantastic.
High five !
Nice selection of games. I think I played every one of these with the exception of Cosmic Ark and possibly Robot Tank
My older cousins had an Atari 2600.
I used to play it all the time as a little kid.
Galaga, Centipede, Space Invaders, Combat, Empire Strikes Back, Ms. Pac-Man, and a couple others were pretty fun and I remember playing those a lot.
Fantastic list for sure. Thanks for sharing.
@@FridayNightArcade
Always happy to add to the discussion on your great videos!
@Aaron Nicewonger - Galaga? You mean Galaxian or Gyruss? As far as I know, Galaga was never on the 2600, although there was a version for the Atari 7800, which was backwards compatible with the 2600. :)
Aaron, was Combat the game with the two tanks in a top/down perspective? If so, my brother and I loved that game.
@Big Huge - Yup. You had tanks in open arenas, arenas with various barriers, straight shots, guided shots, invisible barriers, invisible tanks, jet planes, biplanes, etc.
Combat gets a lot of ridicule for being simplistic and being incredibly common since it was the pack-in game early on, but it was a lot of fun. I wish there was an updated version with some computer AI so you could play it 1-player.
Frogs and Flies is a real gem as well, and one I loved growing up. It even has day-to-night transitions like Enduro!
Randy Miller III Frogs and Flies is great for 2 player
Watching this really makes me feel old. I was 19 in 1979 and bought my girlfriend an Atari 2600, which I wanted more than she did but we did spend many hours playing. Combat was a game that everyone played because it came with the 2600. Activison always made the best games (River Raid, Pifall, Atlantis). Although who didn't love Yars Revenge and Missile Command, and was disappointed by Pac Man. I miss those days.
We were all disappointed by Pac-Man 😭
Yeah at 19 in 1979 u should have been dating not playing Atari that's for sure a little old to be playing I was 10 in 79 so I was the perfect age to be playing Atari I actually one of the only kids that had gotten it at release in 77'and there were only about 5 games at release and my parents bought them all
Berzerk is my all time favorite Atari game.
Nah, i would say mike Tysons punch out was better
I still have my very first atari got for Christmas in the late 1970s
I played that on to death. My friends would always laugh when Evil Otto would get you saying ‘you lust got raped, dude!’ 😂
Love all these! Let's not forget Adventure! The. First console RPG per se! Definitely the first game with an Easter egg!
I played it through all options then made my own ending where I had to get everything in the starting castle including the chalice. What was the Easter egg?
Warren Robinett sneaking his name into the game. Had do do certain things to unlock hidden room. ua-cam.com/video/YS-HYWRdb2g/v-deo.html
I played hours and hours of Bump-N-Jump, Tron, and Empire Strikes Back. First hand cramp I ever got from playing a video game was Empire on the Atari. The music and box art alone was enough magic to keep me locked in for hours.
Yes, there was a time when the word "Activision" made people happy instead of sad.
yeah.............
I just looked at their first 4 releases: Boxing, Fishing Derby, checkers and Dragster. From those, who'd have thought their next games would be really good.
@@sandal_thong8631 I loved Dragster. Blowing the engine was fun
Very surprised not to see Pitfall. Empire Strikes Back was also very very good.
exactly pitfall ruled and empire was one of my favs.fighting the snow walkers was awesome
I mapped Pitfall out, but think I only won it once or twice back in the day, and maybe once or twice when I got it back out a few years ago. It didn't have a winning screen; it just ended like you ran out of time.
In the early 80's, when I was really small, I remember my mom leaving the house and coming back with a big box. It was the 2600, and at 3 years old, I didn't understand what it was, but I clearly remember how happy she was. I quickly learned to navigate the worlds of Defender, Yars Revenge, Wizards of Wor (I THINK that was the title), Space Invaders, and a few others. I consider it a solid foundation for my lifelong love of gaming.
Yes Wizards of Wor was awesome.
That's awesome - I love to hear stories like this, thank you for sharing. It's funny how those early primitive (but special) games would go on to be the building blocks of how we play games today. And the emotional attachment to those sights and sounds will always be there. Plus just the memories of playing those games with family that maybe have sense passed on... that's a thing for me anyway.
I think it was Wizard of WOR, I had it, was great
StormyLaura Oh man I forgot about defender. And Missile Command.
Yes, the choice to get an atari made way more sense than buying diapers
Atari 2600 was my first home entertainment console too. My dad actually had it and what he did was he gave it to me to play. After all that, I visited some different thrift shops that still had the A 2600 cartridges. Even if I don't play it any more, I did download Stella emulator for Atari 2600 games. Very cool classic!
Awesome - thanks for sharing!! Love to hear stories like this.
My 2600 still works too. Great system. Great vid , these picks are gems
It's funny how XBoxes and PS3s are dying off but that old wood grain bastard still works. Thanks for sharing.
something about being allowed to stay up late as a kid in the 80's and playing those games at night in the dark with only the TV on.. Ive been playing through 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision game libraries lately, so much fun
You forgot to include the super satisfying story about WHY the Space Invaders speed up as you pick them off. It wasn't because the developers thought of his as a means to increase difficulty. It's because the speed of the aliens was limited by the hilariously weak processing power of the hardware. As you removed sprites from the screen, the processor was able to animate the fewer remaining sprites faster, and did so automatically. When the developers saw this unintended effect, they decided to leave it in.
I had no idea about this... that's fantastic lol.
I doubt it
Can’t tell you how many hours I spent playing Cosmic Ark back in the 80s. That and the pitfalls were my favorite
Wow!!! Cosmic Ark!!! I completely forgot about that game. Thanks for the memories!!!!!!
I've now played several Imagic games and that's the best one, even though Demon Attack may have sold double and been the 11th best-selling Atari game (it had a good ad campaign and beat the release of Phoenix).
Talk about going down memory lane,ahh fond memories of playing till the sun came up.Kaboom ,circus , skiing,empire strikes back,starmaster were just some of my favs,so many to name.Awesome video thanks.
Starmaster was the very last Atari 2600 game I ever purchased. It still boggles my mind that I spent $30 on it new when it was first released. Very good game for that system, however.
I can't remember what game I last paid full price for, maybe _Moon Patrol?_ They put some games out with b&w instruction manuals, and stopped including an up-to-date catalog. That's good marketing!
But I did get several for $1 each at a thrift store years later, and most of those worked, though some needed cleaning. But other home electronics that were donated to thrift stores didn't work. I guess people thought they'd fix it? Yeah right.
Space Invaders trick... we learned back then that if you held down reset while powering on, it let you fire two shots at a time.
My favorite go to games on the 2600 were always Yar’s Revenge, Kaboom, Pitfall, Combat, Warlords and Star Wars Empire Strikes Back.
Asteroids is still my favorite. As a kid I sat one day and played until my legs were numb for a lOOooong time. I flipped the score about 9 times and got bored. I cant believe you liked Starmaster but didn't mention Star Raiders.
I don't think I ever got good enough to beat the Logbook challenge, which was not game #1, but perhaps one that didn't give you extra lives.
Thank you for taking us on this trip down memory lane.
Some of my favorites were:
1) Ms. Pac-Man
2)River Raid
3)E.T. Although it always enfuriated me
4)Enduro (the lights at night on the cars),
5)Bowling
6)Berzerker
7)Yar’s Revenge
8)Dig Dug
9)Centipede and Millipede
10) Football
11)Joust !!!
12) Raiders of the lost ark
13) Jungle Hunt
14) Missile Command
15) Asteroids
That's a mighty fine list...
I too liked E.T. I think it got a bad rap. It was hard as hell but I don't think I shouted any louder the first time I made it to the ship and ET went home.
First game out of the gate: ENDURO!! I absolutely adore that game. Easily a Top 5 2600 game.
Awesome! It really is just fantastic. Sounds are perfect.
Missile Command. A video game born from the cold war threat of nuclear ICBM attack.
Holy shit , I so remember that game, and the threat.
Astroids on vinyl? Now THAT is awesome. :-P
I may have to do a video on that record at some point :D
Those Atari 2600 games sure brings back memories of when I began my lifelong love of gaming.
Adventure, Combat, Berserk, Return of the Jedi, Seaquest, Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Wizards of Wor and Defender were games I kept coming back to in my stepdad's collection, as a 5 year old. 2600 opened the door to video games for me, but it was his console. It wasn't til I turned 6 I got my first console: NES. Nice selections Aaron, a follow up vid would be cool.🤘🕹
Cool. Yeah, it was a similar deal with myself and my cousin. Both of our families had 2600s, but we each had a separate mix of games that we were typically trading back and forth to try.
@@FridayNightArcade Atari 7800 is basically upgraded 2600 in NES Vs. Master System era.
Honestly, I never really got into the Atari, but I love watching these, because you always find such nice things; I don't think I ever realized that the system was capable of such beauty.
The two actors in the commercial, are Chuck McCann and John Lawler. Chuck played in "Far Out Space Nuts" and voiced Sonny the Cukoo, in "Coco Puffs". Lawler was the headmaster, in the first season of "The Facts of Life".
Warlords by Carla Meninsky rocked my family's Atari 2600 throughout the 1980's! All four of us played at the same time, and it was insane how good we all got at destroying each other's kings. We really developed a bloodlust thanks to that game.
That was probably the last (and best) multi-player game Atari released, not counting RealSports, as they were heavily involved with first-person shooters and arcade ports.
Nice selection of favorites I love the activision games especially. I can remember buying River Raid at KB toys in the mall one of my fav game purchases to this day!
I think the 3D visual effect in Enduro was done by compressing a top-down view to make it look like it was leading into the screen, with the top of the road being pinched off to make it look like it was leading into the background, and the space above the compressed image being decorated as a background that the road is leading into. To simulate the effect of the other cars getting closer, they get more detailed as they get closer to the bottom of the screen and to your car. After looking at the footage, it appears there are certain designated strips or layers where the cars become more detailed, with said layers becoming closer together and more frequent near the bottom of the screen. The faster you go, the faster the other cars go from layer to layer.
I'm not an expert though, I'm only guessing based on what it looks like is happening to me, so I could be completely wrong.
Interesting, I think that may be it. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you William!
I remember getting my 2600 as a Christmas gift from my aunt! It started a love affair with vid games that endures to this day. Pitfall was a favorite then, with Days Gone and Last of Us being my favorites now! How time flies!
That's the good stuff, John!
Yes mine still works. 1 controller sticks a little. There's so many games I loved. Then there's games you must be smoking some weed to get the whole experience lol. Some of the best were tanks and space ship games.
Star master was for me one of the top ten games for the system. Seemed to have something in common with games made for things like BBCb
Cosmic Ark offers beautiful box art and is a fantastic game. Also, when my dad bought me an Atari in 1982, it came with asteroids and combat...these were the only titles I had to play for literally 5 months...I got really good at asteroids.
I went through 5 Xboxes and only 1 Atari 2600 that probably still works today if I had it.
We had to get mine repaired a few months after the console read all the fire buttons as being pressed. I think I have 3 in the closet now, getting another one or two from grandparents who played some themselves.
Robot Tank , Enduro, River Raid.....All brilliant happy memories ,
Enduro was amazing.
Just watching it here put a smile on my face.
And believe me - I once reached level 24. Yeah, I was that into it back in the day.
Same thing with River Raid - even my dad liked it.
My brother was rabid Hero fan.
And what about Frost Bite? Man, oh, man.
H. E. R. O is the best atari 2600 game of all time and its still very playable today.
Yeah, got my Atari after a Summer of mowing lawns at 11 years old back in '78. Space Invaders was definitely one of my favorites... But I also played a lot of BreakOut, Super BreakOut, Asteroids, and Missile Command. 2nd tier on my list of games was Adventure, Night Driver, Dodge 'Em, and Circus Atari.
Getting one in 78, in the first year of its life, wow, that must have been special. Got mine in 83 after 2 years of being desperate for one while playing on friends/relations systems
n136h Especially when you consider that I worked my butt off to buy it... Yeah, I definitely appreciated it and got my money’s worth out of it. It’s also nostalgic to think about at 11 years old, how amazing I thought it was each and every time I played it.
I was surprised to see Night Driver had 1.99 Million sales and was the only racing game in the top 25 of sales. I didn't have it (I had Dodge 'em and Indy 500); but I did play it once in a museum that had old coin-operated arcade games.
Oh man, I can remember my original lineup for the 2600. I had Mario Bros, Combat, Space Invaders, E.T., Superman, The Empire Strikes Back, Donkey Kong (which was the death of a joystick or two), Breakout, Asteroids, Smurf. At lest those are the ones I can distinctly remember and either have fond memories of, or cause me to curl into the fetal position and shudder uncontrollably. Anyway, as always, I love your channel and content, keep up the great work!
My top five favorite Atari 2600 games: Demon Attack, Gorf, Warlords, Haunted House, and Missile Command. I'll give honorable mention to Adventure as well.
FF2Guy Haunted House and Adventure have learning curves.....
@@patsfan4life Adventure's is not that bad as you could play game number 1 to figure it out. I thought I wanted more adventure-style games and did play Raiders and E.T. a lot in 1983 (but I didn't buy them). I ended up playing text adventure games on my Vic-20 that were pretty enjoyable, and I'm told that type of game is what Adventure was based on.
This post was awesome!!!! Brought back tons of great memories, TY!!!!!!
Great channel. Really nice and chilled. Thanks
Nice video. Spent many hours playing combat, space invaders and defender with my cousin in the late 70's.
7:57 Oh I have always loved that death fart. I also remember comedian Hal Sparks mentioned that 2600 Space Invaders has a metal soundtrack. If you listen carefully, the sound of the aliens moving at beginning sounds like the first few notes from AC/DC's Back in Black. By the end when there's one alien left its thrash metal.
They now call Space Invaders the "killer app" for the Atari. Its license really made the Atari VCS/2600 by selling lots of consoles to play it when it came out in 1980, allowing Atari to dominate the market. One wonders what would have happened had Intellivision licensed that game?
I'm pretty sure that it was one of the initial games I got along with my console.
With most of the Atari games, everything just keeps getting faster until you lose.
That's how the coin-op arcade games were set up. I beat level one of Sinistar on Playstation and level two was impossible for me to beat. However some of the simple variants of Atari arcade ports allow you to play indefinitely as it doesn't get faster and you keep getting new lives. Still, that was a flaw in the business model for home games. On the other hand Atari made 3 adventure games in 1982: Earthworld, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. which allowed you to play for a long time, but they weren't that good.
Thanks for reminding me of Robot Tank, played it a ton as a kid on an Activision plug n play from the early 2000s. I collected when I was young and for Christmas one year I got a 2600 with a ton of games and played it all the time. As I look back at games like these I'm reminded of why it was a great system honestly. Today it's nice to have such barebones yet enjoyable games with graphics and audio that just engage your imagination.
Enduro, it made me feel good seeing that.
I like how old game covers/artwork stimulated imagination. A game could be simple but in your mind you had a story that kept you playing.
River Raid and Pitfall 2
Many a rainy gloomy fall afternoon in the 80's I spent playing Asteroids.
Asteroids, Missile Command and Space Invaders are why Atari earned the market share over the Intellivision. They had better sports games (as did Odyssey 2) but couldn't get the licenses, I guess.
That's what Friday nights were all about! Playing Atari all night long and playing records. I loved playing Atari so much that it interfed with my homework so I could only play on Friday and of course the Weekend.
The Atari 2600 was my first video game console and is still one of my favorites. Some of my favorite 2600 titles include Demon Attack, Ms. Pac-Man, Vanguard, Solar Fox, Tron Deadly Discs, Lock n Chase, Bump n Jump, Video Olympics, Jungle Hunt, & Kaboom.
That's awesome - thanks for sharing. Some great titles on that list. I played a lot of Lock n Chase back in the day as well - forgot about that one!
@@FridayNightArcade Even though Pac-Man 2600 was bad, Pac-Man fever was so strong everybody wanted to play it or a knock-off like Lock n Chase, or Dark Cavern (the latter didn't have dots). A documentary I saw claimed Spielberg asked if they could just do the E.T. game like Pac-Man. Unfortunately, they made one or two million more Pac-Man carts than there were 2600s already sold! Thinking they were going to sell more on the strength of Pac-Man.
Wow, that was cool! Everything you said applied to my life too, but I was a little older (18 in 1982), and you were much more eloquent in your description than I coulda been. Great vid, thanks!
I grew up in a very poor family. My Mother somehow managed to buy us a 2600 using her tax return and money she saved for us to "get ahead" and I will always appreciate what she did. My Father (mom and dad weren't together) worked for NCR in Ithaca NY and was an electronic engineer in a relatively high position. He made this little doodad that I could put the ROM chips in and it had like 4 different toggle switches on it for a,b,c,d and combos of them and I was lucky enough to have every single 2600 game...most before they even came out commercially in the stores (sears lol). I was the envy of every kid in my area.
I love and miss you O.K.Johnson...Dad
If you have your space invaders cartridge plugged in you can turn the on switch (up) while at the same time turn the reset button (down)-it will give you rapid fire. 😝
Mike S nice
Oh crap! That's right! Great historical point!
If you reached certain scores / levels on Activision games , you could send in a pic of the screen and get iron-on patches. I still have several . Loved Megamania !
I can't remember if I sent one in or not. If I got a patch, it didn't go on a jacket, but in the bottom of a box.
I didn't remember playing Enduro till I realized it had a different name in the Middle East market. I did remember that acceleration sound so I knew I had played that game. Just had a different name.
I remember trying to figure out Starmaster without using the instructions...just sat there shooting until the power ran out.
When all else fails, read the instructions.
Starmaster is in my top 5 2600 game list.
“With your Christmas tree..” I laughed so hard because me and my bro called it that too.
Dude, your "moving Christmas tree" description had me rolling!!! Thanks for your Atari videos. Keep up the good work!!!!
Enduro reminded me of Digital derby which in itself was super fun for a hand held.
Just about every kid I knew growing up had an Atari 2600... I grew up with the Intellivision including the voice module and synthesizer... Many great memories. The Atari 2600 was pretty cool for it's time though.
If Intellivision had licensed Space Invaders first, that would have been the console to sell two million that year and Atari wouldn't have dominated the console market.
I love the video. Great memories. My all time favorite.... E.T.
A Flashback to my childhood! Thank you!
Yes, many great memories playing these 2600 titles. I always sucked at chopper command so I gave it to a friend who somehow got so good at it. He could play it continuously for hours until the score was beyond what I believed was possible. Then the game would just freeze up and we thought that was the greatest achievement ever. Man, life was much simpler then.
Wizard of Wor Best 2600 game Check it out....
WOW I thought I was the only Enduro fan in the whole world.
I was born well after the time of Atari 2600. By the time I was 6 or 7, everyone I knew had a Wii, the Nintendo DS was the cool new thing every kid wanted, and the N64 and Gamecube were considered old-school. I had a PS2 at one point, but I only had a few games for it, and since I didn't have a memory card I wasn't able to experience as much of those games. Now I'm 20, we're up to the PS4 and the video games look more real than some films, the Wii died and was resurrected as the Wii U only to die again a year later, we have a home console that's also a mobile one, Virtual Reality is actually a REAL THING, and the current gen Xbox... is cool and high-end but besides that doesn't really seem all that appealing... not much different from when I was growing up to be honest. It's amazing how far we've come, and looking back it might seem almost silly how comparably simplistic games used to be. But these simple pixels were the roots of everything we have today, and it's amazing how much they were able to accomplish despite the limitations of the time. These games' developers did the best with what they had to work with, and that's why these classics not only held the test of time, but also led to everything we have today.
You got it right. To me, it's just impressive to see how they did so much with so little. Sure, you can fire up your PS4 now and have ultrarealistic graphics, but it's to the point for me at least where we're just kinda desensitized to it. A lot of these games today don't even feel like games, it just feels like a guided movie with some occasional interaction. And now I sound like a cranky old man lol.
Although this was before my time I have a deep respect and appreciation for the Atari 2600. I even own a Flashback Portable with 85 games. Love it. Great video
Brah, Yar’s Revenge, Adventure, Missle Command. And a little known game called “The Earth Dies Screaming “!
Starmaster, been trying to remember that game forever. I just remember being super addicted to the little details plotting course, it was so cool back then and yes a really big deal.
The late 70's and early 80's were a great time for that console......I''m glad you included at least one Imagic title.....I was always partial to the Activision and Imagic games (loved Demon Attack and Atlantis). Missile Command was another good Atari title.....You've got me all jazzed to go unbox my old one and hook it up to my last remaining CRT set and play some memories :-) Thumbs up!
Yars Revenge was my deal. I loved that game well through my NES days and beyond.
Tomcat or f14 flight simulator was the game I always go to first when i break out the 2600. Having said that river raid 1 and 2, pitfall, chopper command, commando, fishing derby, robot tank, battlezone, enduro and bump and jump are ones that always get into my console
Atari my first console. ..I agreed with all the games that you showed.
I've never played Robot Tank though I played Enduro and Battlezone years after they came out. I can't remember how many hours I put into Combat since I didn't have other kids over much. I felt that game should have been retired.
Fun fact: on Atari Space Invaders, you could hold down one of the switches (maybe select?) when you power-on and it would give you 2 shots at a time instead of 1.
Atari was way before my time but my father gave me his old one. Picked up Space Invaders for like $1 at a local game store and man, did I get my money's worth. Still an awesome game.
Still haven't beat the logbook challenge with invisible aliens.
I enjoyed this list. The vast majority of the games that you displayed were my favorites as well although there were 1 or 2 games that I don't remember playing.
I still play my 2600 I got in 1980 every day and have never had trouble with it, I really play it daily
On 2 player games me and my brother used to cheat against each other and pull each others joysticks out turn the power off. Good times