Apologies, I had to re-upload this video due to blurting out the wrong year at the start of the previous version. Sometimes, a typo can make it to voice and be completely overlooked in the thick of editing, so I appreciate those who commented to point it out. ONWARDS. In other news, I'm planning to play some of these games on a certain streaming site that rhymes with Snitch, in the very near future.
Well. You are young, then. One of evacuees became my classmate. And my first cousin once removed was one of the firemen that got no avail cancer therapy. Kiev, Ukraine, USSR - 1982-1986 were his service years. He died in 1989 in Krasnogorsk Army hospital near Moscow where he was governed to.
I have the Stalker series, very good series. This was interesting. Loved the bit of dramatization without being cheesy. Scott Manley is great, nice to see a collaboration!
One of my favourite game series' ever. I was halfway through my upmteenth play through of Lost Alpha when my gaming rig took a dump last month. Just waiting for Ryzen 3 to release (tomorrow) so I can build my new one........
Ohh, that was an unexpected crossover. "This is for the likes of Scott Manley to explain" Me: "It makes sense" "Here is Scott Manley to explain it" Me :o
I kinda dislike the serious tone. Chernobyl doesn't represent all nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants are generally very safe, so the video should have the typical tone.
Nah. SuperCritical Reactor Axe Man. (And for historical reference, at the first nuclear reactor, there was actually a guy with an axe to cut the control rod rope if it went wrong.)
i remember the rod was made of boron to stop the reaction or slow it. Running nuclear reactors in electric plant would be a fascinating, yet very scary career.
The explanations I've heard about what SCRAM means include: Single Control Rod Axe Man Safety Control Rod Axe Man Safely Cut the Rope (hanging the control rods) Axe Man Supercritical Control Rod Axe Man Safety Control Rod Activation Mechanism ...
I remember about Chernobyl that I wasn't allowed to play outside for a while. I was like 2 years old back then. So it's only from telling actually. (Northern Germany btw)
I spent countless hours playing "Three Mile Island" on my Apple ][+ back in the day. After causing many a disaster by closing random valves, neglecting maintenance on key components, and overriding safety features , I discovered that wreaking havoc in a reactor was relatively easy. Actually running the reactor and keeping up with power demands, maintenance schedules and profits was much more enjoyable. I got quite proficient at it. I played it recently on an emulator and while it was pleasantly nostalgic, I could never achieve the zen like mindset that I had back in the early 80's. It just wasn't the same as being in my upstairs bedroom in my parents house and secluded from all the distractions of today's social media and adult responsibilities. Thank you for the time trip. :)
SCRAM is a bit of a backronym; no-one can pinpoint exactly when it was allegedly invented or by whom, and some claim that it means "Standby Control Rod Axe Man"...
I'd heard from a nuclear engineering submariner that it stood for "Safety Cut Rope Axe Man", referring to the cables that suspended the control rods in the first nuclear piles.
Super Critical Rod Ax Man. This is what the NAVSEA T-7 manual says. Army's SL-1 used a manually moved rod used to insert negative reactivity when reactor power needed to be lowered or reaction stopped. If the reactor were to go super-critical, or something happened that needed the Rx shut down, the Ax Man would cut the lines holding the rods up. Take a look at what happened to SL-1. We have not had these problems in the Navy since we learned from their mistakes.
Dude, fantastic video and unique idea for a topic. I had never even heard of any of these games. I really enjoyed the colored lighting and angles you choose too, really good stuff!
Then, the 90's came and The Simpsons portraited what had brought such sense of both excitement, as well as danger and doom, in the most carefree way imaginable.
Love how you finetune the tv's frequency to get a good picture. The TV connected to my C64 was a little faulty and would off-tune when getting warm so I had to do this often.
you know, huge props to scott for his video. When I watched the mini series I'm sure I thought exactly what tons of other people did afterwards which is "why would you tip a rod with graphite it seems expensive vs a random not moderator. Scott explained the full design of the rods and why graphite was necessary, but also the drawbacks and the eventual fix they implemented as well. went into the perfectly amount of detail for someone to be able to understand the situation.
I found a heavily discounted copy of SCRAM at a book shop in the early 80s, and begged my mom to buy it since it was so rare to find Atari computer games in the wild. My 8 year old mind could not wrap itself around the complexities of that game, but I remember that weighty manual as well as the long tape load time. And I'm certain that's where I learned, "Start Cutting Right Away, Man."
1:18 small nitpick - Chernobyl was an RBMK (moderated by graphite and cooled by water), not a light water reactor (which is moderated and cooled by water)
@@KaoVamp The term LWGR is sometimes used. LWR refers to the role of light water as both coolant and moderator. Heavy water is very expensive and would only be used for its moderating properties (it doesn't absorb as many neutrons as light water allowing natural Uranium to be used instead) - a graphite reactor could be gas cooled though
For anyone interested, this difference played a major role in the disaster. In a water moderated reactor if the core gets too hot and the water starts to evaporate, the chain reaction dies down because the moderator is gone. Because an RBMK reactor is graphite moderated, the reaction only gets more intense when the water starts to boil.
I just had to pause the video at 2:36 and stop to say, great job. I appreciate how you were able to collaborate and make it relevent to your normal style of doing things. Well done, sir. Keep up the good work.
I've always had a fascination with radiation. This invisible force that can just kill you by literally knocking the subatomic particles that make up your being out of whack, just after a microsecond of exposure. There's something both intensely interesting and horridly morbid about that.
I used to 'play' a lot of the Oakflat simulation for MS-DOS -- which was actually more of a training simulation than it was a video game. Very comprehensive simulation of a pressurized water reactor.
Interesting choice of a category to look into, and I was surprised to see a couple of large omissions since you were covering the era these games were released. #1, Countdown to Shutdown on the Commodore 64, which may not have gotten a release over the pond in Great Britain, but it was a hugely popular game similar to the isometric one you mentioned. #2 is Raid over Moscow. While not purely a reactor simulator, it's a cold war-themed masterpiece. The goal of the game is to induce a nuclear meltdown in a secret reactor in Moscow, after destroying a number of flights of nuclear missiles from your secret military space station you fly your space/atmosphere capable fighter jet to Moscow itself, use a bazooka to blow open doors to the reactor inside the Kremlin, and the final level is a pretty cool and hard sequence where you have to destroy the robot that is stabilizing the reactions allowing power to be generated safely. Okay its not realistic, but it's a cold war nuclear themed game ending in a reactor, and it was DAMN fun. I might suggest a part 2?
My siblings, cousins and I were incredibly that our grandfather bought stock from FirstEnergy, aka the 3 mile island nuclear power plant, when it crashed. The profits produced have all gone towards our college and graduate school tuitions // textbooks.
Oh wow. When I was 12 years old many years ago, I played the Oakflat simulator on the C64 ( www.mobygames.com/game/c64/oakflat-nuclear-power-plant-simulator ). This brought back some memories of me accidentally doing many meltdowns before I actually got kind of good at working the settings until the fuel rods were spent. Thanks for posting this.
As an FYI, the Chernobyl tv series is *fiction*. It is *not* a historical source, and gets nearly everything wrong other than the basic fact that Chernobyl happened.
I remember Chernobyl on the C64 so well, that game was the first thing I ever "hacked" into as a kid. I didn't have any manuals, so using a disk hex editor, found the code BNL401 to bring the reactor online. Believe it or not, I did manage to get the reactor to melt down.
An interesting extra one you may not be aware of is "React Attack" on the Palmtex SuperMicro, it's pretty hard to play as most copies and consoles are so heavily degraded but it's actually a good game. The player is tasked with navigating a nuclear facility to find and confront a terrorist and prevent nuclear meltdown within 15 minutes. It makes really good use of the very basic tech the console uses and is definitely worth a try
SCRAM is also thought to stand for Safety Control Rod Axe Man, for the same reasons. But no one is actually sure where the acronym came from or what it's meant to mean. But it generally is accepted as an emergency reactor shutdown, and that's what it's used for.
I played S.C.R.A.M. on our Atari 800 numerous times and it was fun, interesting and frustrating all at once. I guess it counts as a strategy game, so would make it one of my most played strategy games. I was actually just thinking about it a few weeks ago and suddenly this video appeared. Thanks! Also, I think some of the 'apathy' towards Chernobyl's disaster from outside might have more part to do with mocking Russia/U.S.S.R.'s down-playing/cover-up of how bad it was and not belittling those affected by the disaster. I'd even say the US was probably more open about Three Mile Island than Japan has been about Fukoshima (at least during the first few months). Some of the Fukoshima features/documentaries are almost as harrowing/disturbing as the Chernobyl ones, though not as...um...'apathetic' about the lives of those affected.
No, it's what he said - Soviet lives didn't matter. Not the Soviet lives lost in WW2, not at Chernobyl. It's why the Chernobyl tv series was made as well - it's perfectly OK to abuse Soviet tragedies for profit.
Does anyone here remember the game "The Armageddon Man?" I had it for my Spectrum back in the day, it would be wonderful to see a review of it on this channel but unfortunately, it is somewhat of a pretty obscure little game. I think I must have invested a good 18 months into it back in the 80s. ♥
I clicked this video expecting controversy about the new C64 plug & play system, only to find out it's a history lesson of a nuclear power plant meltdown that led to games and even a TV series. Still, a pretty good video for what it is. Also, I'm glad I live in a place with hydro energy, even if power shortages can happen occasionally.
I played this game back in the 90s! Loved it, and still have a copy of it. As a operator, I think that this is fairly realistic. Even cooler that this is on a 8 bit machine.
Well, great... now I have to worry about the ghosts of Sir Clive past, present, and future visiting me tonight to irradiate the memory of the game failing out of my head.
I remember Chernobyl. It was frightening yeah. But not as frightening as the prospect of MAD ala Threads / The War Game which I remember being shown on the BBC. These games look cool. I'll check them out..
I don't know why people get so mad at thermodynamics.. I found university level thermodynamics classes to be far easier than say algebra/trig/calculus in high school... Maybe I'm just a weird exception, maybe it's because I find one interesting and the others not... But to me it's nowhere near as bad, same with physics... Far far better/easier to understand than those others. Differently wired brains perhaps?
Great video Peter, loved all the nods to the show. If you're looking for some more nuclear power station TV action, the I can highly recommend Dark on Netflix.
I remember my friend had a C64 and his Dad would bring home all these pirate copies of things. There it was on 5 inch floppy... Chernobyl! We wondered at the 1st screen passcode and tried for hours to guess our way in. Sadly we failed to hack our way in and never played it...and I clicked this video to satisfy the curiosity my 14 year old self never got to see. Thank you!
"Hes gonna take you back to the past 🎶♩To play the s###y games that suck ass...🎶♩he'd rather have a buffalo - take a diarrhea and dump in his ear...🎶♩"
4:38 If destroying rods slows down the reaction, they must be moderator rods. Moderator increases the reaction rate (by slowing the neutrons and increasing fission probability on collision).
I analyzed the show on my channel but I didn't focus on the show per se, instead I talk about how well it illustrates the Soviet world, in terms of both detailed world-building as well as character behavior.
Nice video - but a glaring omision is 'Countdown To Meltdown' for the C64 - it's not a simulator, but more of a puzzle game where you have to send robots into a reactor to shut it down before it goes critical. Still, pretty good stuff - came out a couple of years before the accident in the Ukraine.
That Parker Brothers Reactor game is a port of Gottlieb's arcade game. I don't remember the port to Atari, but I do remember playing the arcade game, at least attempting to, back in the day. Unfortunately not one of my favorite arcade games by a longshot.
i bet you could make a really good nuclear reactor simulator, in the same vein as "keep talking and nobody explodes", with someone else having the manual
Not sure if you see these comments anymore, or if someone has said it already, with Chernobyl on the C64, you can use the joystick to move around the annunciator panel, the blueprints, etc.
Yeah, the early RBMK reactors were somewhat dangerous, having a positive scram effect and all where they get hotter before they start cooling off. Nowadays the reactors are far more foolproof unless another country targets a reactor for some ominous reasons, and Russia will have replaced one of theirs, Smolensk, with a newer and safer one, decommissioning the second generation RBMK (with extra safety features tacked on to counter the flaws that allowed Chernobyl to undergo a steam and hydrogen explosion destroying all the safety mechanisms it did have) with newer VVER reactor units that also happen to have a higher gross power capacity. I like nuclear reactors, in fact I live in the projected fallout region of the current world's largest nuclear power plant, at least in terms of actual power generation, so of course I'd like to know what I'm talking about with reactors XD
Surprised no mention of the arcade/Mega Drive Chelnov/Atomic Runner. Not a nuclear simulation at all but it was still related to the point that, supposedly even with it was created two years after Chernobyl, people in Japan had noticed its inspiration and Data East had to distance it from the disaster, for bad PR.
The scariest thing about Chernobyl is that I'm old enough to remember the news coverage of the time. I was 23 back then, and Chernobyl was one of those iconic events in history where you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. The media at the time were torn between scaremongering on the one hand and trying to play down the significance on the other. Of course this was not surprising as this was pre-Glasnost so the stream of information coming in from the soviet bloc was thin on the ground and not always accurate (though this wouldn't become clear until years later)
I remember all things nuclear being somewhat scary as a kid/early teen starting from when S.C.R.A.M. came out! I had gone from a 400 to a 600XL and it was one of the earlier games I saved up pocket money for... At the time there was quite a lot of protest action around anti-nuke, although at the time the Springbok Rugby tour (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_South_Africa_rugby_union_tour_of_New_Zealand_and_the_United_States) was more prominent in some ways... From that start in the early 80's life seemed forever threatened by nuclear war... There was that VERY scary (to a kid barely in teens) British docu-drama called "Threads" which scared the pants off an entire generation of kids who were made to watch it at school... then the ANZUS treaty kinda fell apart mid 80's with New Zealand wanting to be nuclear free and not allowing US warships in port unless they declared the type of propulsion (which they didn't want to do) leading to NZ becoming officially nuclear free in about 1987 (and still is to this day...) and Chernobyl happening... Yep, my 1980's memories are peppered with both computer/video games about nuclear reactors and life in general being shaped by nuclear related things! Like most kids who grew up with 8-bit I moved onto PC... and did play S.T.A.L.K.E.R - primarily for the setting. This was an amazing bit of content and is so nostalgic for me personally!
the guys that made stalker should do a prequel game where your one of the few lads who unfortunate job of being part of the initial clean up crew , who then become the first stalker of exclusion zone with a bunch of other service lads
I thought S.C.R.A.M stood for "Safety Control Rod Axe Man" due to on the first nuclear reactor ever, when Enrico Fermi was still testing out the theory, he literally had a guy with an axe to cut the thing holding the control rods to drop them.
I used to play 3 Mile Island as a kid! As a side note, my father was travelling through PA right by 3 Mile Island during the emergency before I was conceived and my mother was worried my dad's DNA might have gotten scrambled. Not sure she was wrong to be, considering how I've turned out...
Seems like these games had an anti-nuclear feel to them with their artwork. Reactor on the ZX Spectrum seems very much like that, with having to place the reactor in a sarcophagus because you failed to keep the ambient radiation under control.
The irony is the guy who invented the water cooled pressure reactor. Said he felt it was to dangerous and so in the 1960's developed the melt down proof and more efficient molten sodium reactor. Problem was major companies and governments were already invested in water cooled pressure reactors and ignored his work.
This makes me want this game or making a modern simulator game... but I have a working knowledge of fluid and thermo dynamics from systems engineering and design experience
Apologies, I had to re-upload this video due to blurting out the wrong year at the start of the previous version. Sometimes, a typo can make it to voice and be completely overlooked in the thick of editing, so I appreciate those who commented to point it out.
ONWARDS.
In other news, I'm planning to play some of these games on a certain streaming site that rhymes with Snitch, in the very near future.
@David Nunez Sanchez The only blocking going on here, is the truth by the Soviet government.
Yeah, that bit left me scratching my head for a couple of seconds. :D Still was a great video.
I'll be looking forward to the stream.
Well. You are young, then.
One of evacuees became my classmate. And my first cousin once removed was one of the firemen that got no avail cancer therapy. Kiev, Ukraine, USSR - 1982-1986 were his service years. He died in 1989 in Krasnogorsk Army hospital near Moscow where he was governed to.
I have the Stalker series, very good series. This was interesting. Loved the bit of dramatization without being cheesy. Scott Manley is great, nice to see a collaboration!
The STALKERs are awesome and easily worth playing.
@@WurlyBurger Get the Lost Alpha mod, it's a standalone game
One of my favourite game series' ever. I was halfway through my upmteenth play through of Lost Alpha when my gaming rig took a dump last month. Just waiting for Ryzen 3 to release (tomorrow) so I can build my new one........
@@WurlyBurger what mods and why?
Yep, I remember stalkers.
GET LOST STALKER
Really dug the whole vibe of this video, had a fittingly creepy yet relaxing feel. Nice 👍
Ohh, that was an unexpected crossover.
"This is for the likes of Scott Manley to explain"
Me: "It makes sense"
"Here is Scott Manley to explain it"
Me :o
And the end: "I'm Scott Manley... nuke safe" 😮
I didn’t expect it because scot Manley is mainly a space youtuber who plays Kerbal space program and talks about space
@@EduardoEscarez ye lol he normally ends with “I’m Scott Manley, fly safe”
I like how this video is a bit more serious and reverential in tone, when dealing with such a tragic incident.
I kinda dislike the serious tone. Chernobyl doesn't represent all nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants are generally very safe, so the video should have the typical tone.
I loved SCRAM. My 8th grade teacher had an Atari 400 in the back of the room, I spent many hours learning thermodynamics from that game.
I'm going to be boring and tell you what SCRAM actually means. It stands for Safety Control Rod Activation Mechanism.
Nah. SuperCritical Reactor Axe Man. (And for historical reference, at the first nuclear reactor, there was actually a guy with an axe to cut the control rod rope if it went wrong.)
SCRAM has half a dozen different supposed meanings. My favourite is safety control rod axe man
i remember the rod was made of boron to stop the reaction or slow it. Running nuclear reactors in electric plant would be a fascinating, yet very scary career.
If you're not an idiot, it's not really scary.
The explanations I've heard about what SCRAM means include:
Single Control Rod Axe Man
Safety Control Rod Axe Man
Safely Cut the Rope (hanging the control rods) Axe Man
Supercritical Control Rod Axe Man
Safety Control Rod Activation Mechanism
...
Re-upload just means another chance to click the like button. Do love your content Peter and this is another great vid 👍
I remember about Chernobyl that I wasn't allowed to play outside for a while. I was like 2 years old back then. So it's only from telling actually.
(Northern Germany btw)
ich kann mich noch dran erinnern wie sie auf den spielplätzen den sand ausgehoben haben
I spent countless hours playing "Three Mile Island" on my Apple ][+ back in the day. After causing many a disaster by closing random valves, neglecting maintenance on key components, and overriding safety features , I discovered that wreaking havoc in a reactor was relatively easy. Actually running the reactor and keeping up with power demands, maintenance schedules and profits was much more enjoyable. I got quite proficient at it. I played it recently on an emulator and while it was pleasantly nostalgic, I could never achieve the zen like mindset that I had back in the early 80's. It just wasn't the same as being in my upstairs bedroom in my parents house and secluded from all the distractions of today's social media and adult responsibilities. Thank you for the time trip. :)
the Legasov tape trick (or reference) was actually very original, good job!
SCRAM is a bit of a backronym; no-one can pinpoint exactly when it was allegedly invented or by whom, and some claim that it means "Standby Control Rod Axe Man"...
Situation Critical: Run A Mile is another one...
Yup - I've always thought it was 'Safety Control Rod Axe Man'
I'd heard from a nuclear engineering submariner that it stood for "Safety Cut Rope Axe Man", referring to the cables that suspended the control rods in the first nuclear piles.
Although I knew it was kind of a backronym, I always knew it as "Secondary Control Rod Axe Man"
Super Critical Rod Ax Man. This is what the NAVSEA T-7 manual says. Army's SL-1 used a manually moved rod used to insert negative reactivity when reactor power needed to be lowered or reaction stopped. If the reactor were to go super-critical, or something happened that needed the Rx shut down, the Ax Man would cut the lines holding the rods up. Take a look at what happened to SL-1. We have not had these problems in the Navy since we learned from their mistakes.
Thank you for not interrupting the video with a sponsor ad. Cheers mate.
Dude, fantastic video and unique idea for a topic. I had never even heard of any of these games. I really enjoyed the colored lighting and angles you choose too, really good stuff!
Wait, Scott and NN? All we need now is LGR and I'll have a nerdgasm of unprecedented levels...
Ayyy, its INFRA, by the way the main developer (Oskutin) saw your video :-).
Infra looks like a good simulator, except how people act. It's like a relatively realistic simulator in a world of idiots.
Then, the 90's came and The Simpsons portraited what had brought such sense of both excitement, as well as danger and doom, in the most carefree way imaginable.
Love how you finetune the tv's frequency to get a good picture. The TV connected to my C64 was a little faulty and would off-tune when getting warm so I had to do this often.
This is an amazing video and I love it, especially all the references to the HBO dramatisation.
you know, huge props to scott for his video. When I watched the mini series I'm sure I thought exactly what tons of other people did afterwards which is "why would you tip a rod with graphite it seems expensive vs a random not moderator. Scott explained the full design of the rods and why graphite was necessary, but also the drawbacks and the eventual fix they implemented as well. went into the perfectly amount of detail for someone to be able to understand the situation.
I found a heavily discounted copy of SCRAM at a book shop in the early 80s, and begged my mom to buy it since it was so rare to find Atari computer games in the wild. My 8 year old mind could not wrap itself around the complexities of that game, but I remember that weighty manual as well as the long tape load time. And I'm certain that's where I learned, "Start Cutting Right Away, Man."
1:18 small nitpick - Chernobyl was an RBMK (moderated by graphite and cooled by water), not a light water reactor (which is moderated and cooled by water)
Question, would it not be an LWR type by virtue of not using Heavy Water for coolant?
@@KaoVamp The term LWGR is sometimes used. LWR refers to the role of light water as both coolant and moderator. Heavy water is very expensive and would only be used for its moderating properties (it doesn't absorb as many neutrons as light water allowing natural Uranium to be used instead) - a graphite reactor could be gas cooled though
@@Phredreeke Thank you for the reply, I appreciate learning something new.
For anyone interested, this difference played a major role in the disaster. In a water moderated reactor if the core gets too hot and the water starts to evaporate, the chain reaction dies down because the moderator is gone. Because an RBMK reactor is graphite moderated, the reaction only gets more intense when the water starts to boil.
@@adenowirus the reaction gets more intense because water absorbs neutrons (which is why LWRs need enriched uranium)
Good stuff, loved the staging and style throughout this video, really set the scene.
I just had to pause the video at 2:36 and stop to say, great job. I appreciate how you were able to collaborate and make it relevent to your normal style of doing things. Well done, sir. Keep up the good work.
I've always had a fascination with radiation. This invisible force that can just kill you by literally knocking the subatomic particles that make up your being out of whack, just after a microsecond of exposure. There's something both intensely interesting and horridly morbid about that.
I used to 'play' a lot of the Oakflat simulation for MS-DOS -- which was actually more of a training simulation than it was a video game. Very comprehensive simulation of a pressurized water reactor.
INFRA, the only game I have a strong love-hate relationship with.
Same. I haven't played it in a while , might go back and give it another go.
Interesting choice of a category to look into, and I was surprised to see a couple of large omissions since you were covering the era these games were released. #1, Countdown to Shutdown on the Commodore 64, which may not have gotten a release over the pond in Great Britain, but it was a hugely popular game similar to the isometric one you mentioned.
#2 is Raid over Moscow. While not purely a reactor simulator, it's a cold war-themed masterpiece. The goal of the game is to induce a nuclear meltdown in a secret reactor in Moscow, after destroying a number of flights of nuclear missiles from your secret military space station you fly your space/atmosphere capable fighter jet to Moscow itself, use a bazooka to blow open doors to the reactor inside the Kremlin, and the final level is a pretty cool and hard sequence where you have to destroy the robot that is stabilizing the reactions allowing power to be generated safely. Okay its not realistic, but it's a cold war nuclear themed game ending in a reactor, and it was DAMN fun. I might suggest a part 2?
My siblings, cousins and I were incredibly that our grandfather bought stock from FirstEnergy, aka the 3 mile island nuclear power plant, when it crashed. The profits produced have all gone towards our college and graduate school tuitions // textbooks.
LOL at that green dramatic lighting, great video
This channel is criminally underviewed!
You didn’t see the graphite... because it was not there!
3.6 not great not terrible
But I found the meme I was looking for
YOU DIDDDDANT!
I just finished watching "Chernobyl" a few days ago, very impactful, highly recommended.
Oh wow. When I was 12 years old many years ago, I played the Oakflat simulator on the C64 ( www.mobygames.com/game/c64/oakflat-nuclear-power-plant-simulator ). This brought back some memories of me accidentally doing many meltdowns before I actually got kind of good at working the settings until the fuel rods were spent. Thanks for posting this.
I loved Paul Norman's DefCon 5, but I didn't know anything about his Chernobyl game. Might have to check that out later.
As an FYI, the Chernobyl tv series is *fiction*. It is *not* a historical source, and gets nearly everything wrong other than the basic fact that Chernobyl happened.
Wow! I used to play Beehive Bedlam a lot I had forgotten all about it.
I remember Chernobyl on the C64 so well, that game was the first thing I ever "hacked" into as a kid. I didn't have any manuals, so using a disk hex editor, found the code BNL401 to bring the reactor online. Believe it or not, I did manage to get the reactor to melt down.
An interesting extra one you may not be aware of is "React Attack" on the Palmtex SuperMicro, it's pretty hard to play as most copies and consoles are so heavily degraded but it's actually a good game. The player is tasked with navigating a nuclear facility to find and confront a terrorist and prevent nuclear meltdown within 15 minutes. It makes really good use of the very basic tech the console uses and is definitely worth a try
SCRAM is also thought to stand for Safety Control Rod Axe Man, for the same reasons. But no one is actually sure where the acronym came from or what it's meant to mean. But it generally is accepted as an emergency reactor shutdown, and that's what it's used for.
the first Reactor had an actual Man with an Axe to drop Cadmium Rods into the Core
Nice The Thing reference with talking into the tape recorder.
I love that INFRA game
I spent many hours playing the Cosmi Chernobyl game. I remember it came on the Top 10 Cosmi Hits and was one of my favorites on there.
OakFlat seems to be pretty solid too, and more intuitive to play.
I played S.C.R.A.M. on our Atari 800 numerous times and it was fun, interesting and frustrating all at once. I guess it counts as a strategy game, so would make it one of my most played strategy games. I was actually just thinking about it a few weeks ago and suddenly this video appeared. Thanks!
Also, I think some of the 'apathy' towards Chernobyl's disaster from outside might have more part to do with mocking Russia/U.S.S.R.'s down-playing/cover-up of how bad it was and not belittling those affected by the disaster. I'd even say the US was probably more open about Three Mile Island than Japan has been about Fukoshima (at least during the first few months). Some of the Fukoshima features/documentaries are almost as harrowing/disturbing as the Chernobyl ones, though not as...um...'apathetic' about the lives of those affected.
No, it's what he said - Soviet lives didn't matter. Not the Soviet lives lost in WW2, not at Chernobyl. It's why the Chernobyl tv series was made as well - it's perfectly OK to abuse Soviet tragedies for profit.
Does anyone here remember the game "The Armageddon Man?" I had it for my Spectrum back in the day, it would be wonderful to see a review of it on this channel but unfortunately, it is somewhat of a pretty obscure little game. I think I must have invested a good 18 months into it back in the 80s. ♥
I clicked this video expecting controversy about the new C64 plug & play system, only to find out it's a history lesson of a nuclear power plant meltdown that led to games and even a TV series. Still, a pretty good video for what it is.
Also, I'm glad I live in a place with hydro energy, even if power shortages can happen occasionally.
This video is brilliant.
I played this game back in the 90s! Loved it, and still have a copy of it. As a operator, I think that this is fairly realistic. Even cooler that this is on a 8 bit machine.
Well, great... now I have to worry about the ghosts of Sir Clive past, present, and future visiting me tonight to irradiate the memory of the game failing out of my head.
I remember Chernobyl. It was frightening yeah. But not as frightening as the prospect of MAD ala Threads / The War Game which I remember being shown on the BBC. These games look cool. I'll check them out..
I don't know why people get so mad at thermodynamics.. I found university level thermodynamics classes to be far easier than say algebra/trig/calculus in high school... Maybe I'm just a weird exception, maybe it's because I find one interesting and the others not... But to me it's nowhere near as bad, same with physics... Far far better/easier to understand than those others. Differently wired brains perhaps?
Damn, this was some next level awesomeness. Thank you, mate!
Scott Manley! The spiderweb leaf returns!
had to come back to this banger
Interesting topic, more interesting mood lighting.
Great video Peter, loved all the nods to the show. If you're looking for some more nuclear power station TV action, the I can highly recommend Dark on Netflix.
Excellent video. That Chernobyl game looks like my kind of thing.
I remember my friend had a C64 and his Dad would bring home all these pirate copies of things. There it was on 5 inch floppy... Chernobyl! We wondered at the 1st screen passcode and tried for hours to guess our way in. Sadly we failed to hack our way in and never played it...and I clicked this video to satisfy the curiosity my 14 year old self never got to see. Thank you!
Great stuff, as always.
Much appreciated!
Where's that Nostalgia Nerd theme song? The one that plays every video?
"Hes gonna take you back to the past 🎶♩To play the s###y games that suck ass...🎶♩he'd rather have a buffalo - take a diarrhea and dump in his ear...🎶♩"
"Countdown to Meltdown" was also a good game.
Trying to code MUTHR from Alien in BASIC is how I taught myself programming, too.
Ooh please do lunar landing or whatnot next and get certified as an astronaut. That VCS cart manual was also thick!
4:38 If destroying rods slows down the reaction, they must be moderator rods. Moderator increases the reaction rate (by slowing the neutrons and increasing fission probability on collision).
I analyzed the show on my channel but I didn't focus on the show per se, instead I talk about how well it illustrates the Soviet world, in terms of both detailed world-building as well as character behavior.
Nice video - but a glaring omision is 'Countdown To Meltdown' for the C64 - it's not a simulator, but more of a puzzle game where you have to send robots into a reactor to shut it down before it goes critical. Still, pretty good stuff - came out a couple of years before the accident in the Ukraine.
Accident in the Ukraine?
@@shelby3822 Chernobyl is in the Ukraine (and was in '86 when Ukraine was in the USSR)
The speccy failed because you weren't playing it at a high enough volume, it couldn't 'catch' so just flashed the border.
Really enjoyed this one, got a taste for running my own reactor now...
That Parker Brothers Reactor game is a port of Gottlieb's arcade game. I don't remember the port to Atari, but I do remember playing the arcade game, at least attempting to, back in the day. Unfortunately not one of my favorite arcade games by a longshot.
Side note- according to Wikipedia, the Atari version can be played with a trackball ala the original game.
Arcade Museum link: www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9274
Man...Chernobyl this chernobyl that Chernobyl Ball busting of all my favourite UA-cam channels
Same
Oh stop crying FFS. He is a retro games channel and he reviewed retro nuclear disaster games. What's the issue?
i bet you could make a really good nuclear reactor simulator, in the same vein as "keep talking and nobody explodes", with someone else having the manual
Or something like Star Trek Bridge Crew where one player is Dyatlov and yells abuse at everyone whilst they get ARS.
Not sure if you see these comments anymore, or if someone has said it already, with Chernobyl on the C64, you can use the joystick to move around the annunciator panel, the blueprints, etc.
Yeah, the early RBMK reactors were somewhat dangerous, having a positive scram effect and all where they get hotter before they start cooling off. Nowadays the reactors are far more foolproof unless another country targets a reactor for some ominous reasons, and Russia will have replaced one of theirs, Smolensk, with a newer and safer one, decommissioning the second generation RBMK (with extra safety features tacked on to counter the flaws that allowed Chernobyl to undergo a steam and hydrogen explosion destroying all the safety mechanisms it did have) with newer VVER reactor units that also happen to have a higher gross power capacity. I like nuclear reactors, in fact I live in the projected fallout region of the current world's largest nuclear power plant, at least in terms of actual power generation, so of course I'd like to know what I'm talking about with reactors XD
Surprised no mention of the arcade/Mega Drive Chelnov/Atomic Runner. Not a nuclear simulation at all but it was still related to the point that, supposedly even with it was created two years after Chernobyl, people in Japan had noticed its inspiration and Data East had to distance it from the disaster, for bad PR.
The scariest thing about Chernobyl is that I'm old enough to remember the news coverage of the time. I was 23 back then, and Chernobyl was one of those iconic events in history where you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. The media at the time were torn between scaremongering on the one hand and trying to play down the significance on the other. Of course this was not surprising as this was pre-Glasnost so the stream of information coming in from the soviet bloc was thin on the ground and not always accurate (though this wouldn't become clear until years later)
so good, thanks for making the vid
The Oakflat Nuclear Power Plant Simulator was the one i played. Can be downloaded from abandoware sites, give it a try.
You can play the old one here: archive.org/details/msdos_Oakflat_Nuclear_Power_Plant_Simulator_The_1992
They are still updating it today and you can find the newest version here: gamtech.com/oakflat.aspx
Cashing in on that Chernobyl death and misery. Classy.
I remember all things nuclear being somewhat scary as a kid/early teen starting from when S.C.R.A.M. came out! I had gone from a 400 to a 600XL and it was one of the earlier games I saved up pocket money for... At the time there was quite a lot of protest action around anti-nuke, although at the time the Springbok Rugby tour (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_South_Africa_rugby_union_tour_of_New_Zealand_and_the_United_States) was more prominent in some ways... From that start in the early 80's life seemed forever threatened by nuclear war... There was that VERY scary (to a kid barely in teens) British docu-drama called "Threads" which scared the pants off an entire generation of kids who were made to watch it at school... then the ANZUS treaty kinda fell apart mid 80's with New Zealand wanting to be nuclear free and not allowing US warships in port unless they declared the type of propulsion (which they didn't want to do) leading to NZ becoming officially nuclear free in about 1987 (and still is to this day...) and Chernobyl happening... Yep, my 1980's memories are peppered with both computer/video games about nuclear reactors and life in general being shaped by nuclear related things! Like most kids who grew up with 8-bit I moved onto PC... and did play S.T.A.L.K.E.R - primarily for the setting.
This was an amazing bit of content and is so nostalgic for me personally!
Yet more quality content Peter.
Many thanks
Three Mile Island: *Happens*
Chernobyl: We're doing a sequel!
Fukushima: Hold my sake!
Glad i'm not the only one who remembers beehive bedlam
Plainlydifficult , if I spelled that correctly, has some great disaster pieces including alot of historic nuclear disaster incidences
the guys that made stalker should do a prequel game where your one of the few lads who unfortunate job of being part of the initial clean up crew , who then become the first stalker of exclusion zone with a bunch of other service lads
Im old enough to remember that accident, we had to stay indoors in school for a whole week for fear of radiation LOL
Stalkers the only cynoble game we need
I thought S.C.R.A.M stood for "Safety Control Rod Axe Man" due to on the first nuclear reactor ever, when Enrico Fermi was still testing out the theory, he literally had a guy with an axe to cut the thing holding the control rods to drop them.
Bloody ell I'm a tough guy but I wouldn't mess with Scott Manley!
Don't forget the 3 Mile Island game for the Apple II: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_(video_game)
Hmm, ad for Chernobyl tours on this video they matched that one well lol.
Earthquakes huh. That was prophetic.
Great video!
I used to play 3 Mile Island as a kid!
As a side note, my father was travelling through PA right by 3 Mile Island during the emergency before I was conceived and my mother was worried my dad's DNA might have gotten scrambled.
Not sure she was wrong to be, considering how I've turned out...
Seems like these games had an anti-nuclear feel to them with their artwork. Reactor on the ZX Spectrum seems very much like that, with having to place the reactor in a sarcophagus because you failed to keep the ambient radiation under control.
Chelnov - Atomic Runner in arcades. Pretty good.
Great great video. Thank you so much
"Look at this place. 50000 people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town. never seen anything like it."
To this day, those words still haunt me
They are really haunting.
Every time I re-play COD MW, those words scare me.
@@povilasstaniulis9484 why would words scare you?
Makes me wonder if Hideo Kojima has played any of these kind of games before starting the Metal Gear series. Heck of a series of simulators.
The irony is the guy who invented the water cooled pressure reactor. Said he felt it was to dangerous and so in the 1960's developed the melt down proof and more efficient molten sodium reactor. Problem was major companies and governments were already invested in water cooled pressure reactors and ignored his work.
This makes me want this game or making a modern simulator game... but I have a working knowledge of fluid and thermo dynamics from systems engineering and design experience