I always love playing Demon Attack, Deadly Duck is great and i am new to playing that! I love Seaquest, Ms Pacman, Pacman, Joust, Night Stalker, Frogger, Dig Dug, Laser Blast. I want someone to put Black Widow on a cartridge where it always belonged being. :)
I am floored that Starmaster wasn't included. It was a first-person spaceship action shooter that gave such an impressive 3D world feeling from a 1982 game.
"Cosmic Ark" was one of the most under rated games that unfortunately doesn't get a whole lotta love, but it should. It's a fun amusing game that aged well.
Cosmic ark is my favorite atari game .i agree its so under rated..it must be a hidden gem or somethin .no one talks about..mentions it..i found a copy out in the wild and bought it instantly.
rjday753 a sequel is what we need! I forgot all about that magic dot where you could travel through the force field and see the credits. that was cool too.
Yar's Revenge is one of my all time favs ... I guess MetalJesus just didn't have this one. Monty's Revenge is great too but the Atari 5600 version is much better. Likewise, the Atari 5600 version of Pitfall II is much better because it is twice as long: after you find your friends you then have to escape the caves back to the top.
Damn right, yars revenge had the best cover/booklet art and back story. Berserk and missile command would be next best pick. Joust was rad, especially with a slightly more advanced joystick with a rapid fire switch. And california games too.
It remains one of Atari's most unique games. I remember surpassing the one million point mark. The game becomes progressively challenging and you must utilize the vertical wraparound feature on the screen at all times to survive.
Activision's Atari 2600 games pretty much defined my childhood and still hold up. River Raid, Kaboom!, Keystone Kapers, Pitfall/Pitfall II, Chopper Command, Robot Tank, Enduro, Space Shuttle, etc. Atari had some great first-party games too, of course. Adventure, Yars' Revenge, Star Raiders, Warlords, Berzerk, Jungle Hunt, Kangaroo, Defender, Frogger (their arcade ports were pretty good besides Pac-Man), Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Can't forget Atlantis by iMagic either. Empire Strikes Back!
@Dilly Dally You had to turn the joystick 45° to the right so that the fire button was at the top. The manual mentions it, though many might either not have the manual or have missed it.
@@DavidWonn your so right. I just got the game today and kept dieing. I'm using a genesis pad. Soon as I turned the controller so the pad makes an X instead of a + the game made sense!
A lot of the games I played endlessly were the early, primitive ones that, in hindsight, probably did suck, like Miniature Golf and Casino. But I liked them at the time. Adventure probably belongs on any list of great 2600 games. It maybe doesn't hold up in the way the simple shooters do, because we expect adventure games to be more complex, but it actually manages to have a storyline of sorts in a free-roaming open world.
adventure provides the player with a true sense of adventure in that you never know what to expect. those dragons could be lurking anywhere and once they're after you it might be hard to lose them. those sudden bursts of frenetic action made that all the more worthwhile.
Mark Ganus I was just playing it again under emulation recently--if you play it on the easiest level, it's a little rote adventure made of simple puzzles, but at what the author probably considered regular difficulty it actually has a fair amount of unpredictability and challenge! Particularly in the way the bat can grab anything and maroon it somewhere in the maze, though you do have a couple of options for getting things unstuck.
'Spider Fighter', 'Midnight Magic Pinball', 'Cosmic Ark', 'Frogs and Flies', and 'Lock N Chase' were some of my favorites. Highly recommend them :) Atari 2600 was my very first gaming system when i was 4 years old and I loved it.
Welcome and thanks for quick inclusion! It would be very helpful if you included the starting times (e.g., 01:09) in front of the game titles so it is possible to click on it and jump directly to the beginning of each game... like an index in a PDF eBook.
Dragonfire, Adventure, Oasis, Vanguard, Frogger, Joust, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pole Position, Grand Prix, Crackpot, Bank Heist...man the list can go on and on. Good times.
Pitfall 2 rocks! I started collecting 2600 games in 1994, and found the original to be interesting, but hard to navigate. Years later I found this one and found the challenge to be good, and was surprised when I beat it. I understand why the homebrews were left out, but the rare Snoopy and the Red Baron should be there, too. As the Baron shoots at Snoopy and his doghouse, bullet holes appear on the graphic!
My all time favourite by far was Maze Craze, just so awesome in 2 player. Indy 500 was another great multi player game. Others that I liked were Space Invaders (Asteroids and PacMan didn't seem to work for me on the Atari); Vanguard; Combat; River Raid and a lot of the sports games (mostly from activision bar the beach ball game).
I can't believe there isn't a single mention of Kaboom! That was the best Atari game ever made. Even children today would have fun playing that with the paddle controller.
I actually played that until the bombs didn't drop any faster. I've always wondered how many other people could do that. I still have the game too, but my paddle controllers are shaky now :(
@@danlower7834 hell ya . My brother kick that games butt so bad the bomber changed his face. To the oh my god I can't believe you did that. Good call man .
The best games were H.E.R.O., River Raid, Centipede, Frostbite, Spider Fighter, Super Breakout, Carnival, Pitfall, Dark Cavern, Kool-Aid Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Galaxian/Galaga, Space Invaders, Combat, Warlords, Pole Position, Night Driver, Decathlon, Demon Attack, The Swordquest series, most anything from Activision, and tons of others! I survived my childhood and teen years because of the Atari 2600!!!
Here's a list of my top 10 Atari games (in no certain order) 1 - Taz 2 - Preasure Cooker 3 - Oink! 4 - Spider Fighter 5 - Alien 6 - Gremlins 7 - Spike's Peak / Ghost Manor (2 games... 1 cartridge...both amazing) 8 - Carnival 9 - Kaboom! 10 - Keystone Kapers and more games i wanted to put on so I'll just mention... Secret Quest, Venture, Tutankham, Amidar, Mountain King, Space Cavern, and Lock n Chase...many more great games though
Yar's Revenge, Space Invaders, Adventure, Breakout/Super Breakout, Mrs. Pac Man, NIght Driver, Star Raiders, Video Pinball, Vanguard and Phoenix would certainly be in the top 20
I liked: Centipede, Ms Pacman, River Raid, and pinball. That was about it. lots of waisted dollars. I remember paying like $35 a game. That was in the late 70's, possible early 80's. Bit fuzzy there. I do remember Vanguard, which wasn't too bad.
Yes, Pinball was really underrated. It was really repetitive, but somewhat challenging not to "tilt" and eventually roll the game. Vanguard was a really good right side scroller and deserved to be on the list of honorable mentions.
Oh yeah, I spent a lot of time playing video pinball on the atari 2600. He should have included that instead of berserk, berserk was NOT a good game because it always came down to the fact that I would get extra lives at a much higher rate than I would lose them and eventually turn off the console with it reporting I had 9 lives but internally it would store the real number of extra lives and I'd get it up into the 30s or 40s.
H.E.R.O is my favorite too. I played it again after 30 years or something, to show it my kids, and i still remembered most situations. I remember there was a competition, if you reached at least 100.000 ? points, you did a picture of it and sent it to them. But i cant remember if they sent me something back.
"I think a lot of people were surprised you could do something like this on the Atari." That's because you actually couldn't; the Pitfall II cartridge has some additional hardware called a "DPC" chip designed by David Crane that provides the multi-voice sound/music, a random number generator, and other functions.
I'm willing to bet he knows that, given his level of fandom. You're right though. And maybe you can explain how it worked on a technical level, specifically how the sound chip delivered a compatible signal to whatever sound hardware was waiting on the 2600 unit itself.
No need for me to do it when batari already did a great job of mapping the chip out: atariage.com/forums/topic/144075-how-exactly-does-the-pitfall-2-dpc-work/?p=1750556
I see, but he doesn't explain how the amplitudes retrieved from the sound registers ($1005-$1007) get converted into something the base hardware can understand. How does the 2600 sound hardware work, and how was it flexible enough to be tricked by cartridge hardware into playing a chord?
The Empire Strikes back and Donkey Kong were both a ton of fun as a kid and I still find myself going back to them now and again these days. Great video!
I'll post you a bunch of games that I think you forgot: Phoenix Pole Position Mario Bros Defender Asteroids Centipede Vanguard Joust Kangaroo Jungle Hunt Galaxian Space Invaders Star Raiders Track & Field Crystal Castles Stargate Megamania Starmaster Pitfall Decathlon The Empire Strikes Back Frogger Fathom Laser Gates ...and many more
Excellent list. I'd personally add many other Imagic games to this list, especially ATLANTIS (probably my all-time favourite atari 2600 game) and COSMIK ARK. There are also some modern, homebrew games that are very impressive and very playable IMHO, like the conversions of THRUST+ and JUNO FIRST.
How about tomcat (the f14 fs by absolute) came out in like 1988 or 1991 (i forget which) the console was waaay old already, used the dip switches on the console to add extra controller buttons, had alot of depth, solaris looks better, but man, epic level of entertainment.. Especially considering the console was fairly budget oriented in the first place, and already ancient by the time the game came out
Love the vid, man. I have my Atari still from when I was a kid. A couple of my fave games for it that I still like to play today: Star Master, Ice Hockey, Asteroids, Galaxian, Atlantis...wow, I could go on. Well done, good sir! Keep up the videos.
HERO is such a great game on every system. Even the zx spectrum port has that perfect feel. Another addictive game is Activision Dragster, one of my favourite Atari games
+Jamie Laszlo not on the 2600. It was kind of a terrible port. It was awesome on the 800 though. It even had 4 player support. -- Also Pac-Man and Donkey Kong rocked on the Atari 800.
Good list, many of my favs here too. The Pitfall games were my favorite on the 2600. IMO you gotta have Activision's Seaquest in there which I love! Atlantis, Fast Food, Stampede, Keystone Kapers are some more that should get mentions IMO. When you look at it the 2600 did have some great games. Also the 2600 Stargate was pretty good as well.
Missile command was such a cool game, and those Atari explosion sounds, booooom! Atari really was creative, amazing to think of the games they were able to produce despite the primitive technology on offer.
Most of you probably know this, but the first edition of Demon Attack for the 2600 would crash after the 84th wave. I did it twice back in the day, the screen goes blank and there's a medium-pitched hum. It was released again with infinite play. To my knowledge, the only way to tell the difference is to play it through. If there's screen 85, you have a "newer" version.
my favorite games for the Atari were mostly made by Activision. Robot Tank, Keystone Kapers, Kaboom, and Grand Prix. I also liked the RealSports games such as Football, Baseball, and Volleyball.
Michael D'Angelo I actually consider the C64 version of HERO to be the definitive version. The gameplay is identical, but the graphics are just a little bit better
+Michael D'Angelo HERO by far the best Atari game!! Montezuma's Revenge also had a charming! they both were more like a computer game rather than a console game.
There are a lot of good games for the 2600. It's true that a lot of games just haven't aged well, but most of them were cheesy even then. For example, Coleco could have done a MUCH better job with Donkey Kong and Jr. Games that were fun 30 years ago are usually still fun today. Some of my personal favorties are stargate (or defender II), Millipede, Centipede, super-charger frogger (I play most of my atari games with a cuddle cart, so it's no big hassle to play super-charger games), missile command, pitfall and PFII, dodge em (a really great game), asteroids, ms pacman, pacman jr, burgertime (graphics are terrible, but gameplay is good), omega race,river raid, yars revenge, lock n chase, bump and jump, some of the variants of space invaders are good. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Unfortunately, Atari didn't lock the system and there were a lot of really, really bad 3rd party games and of course Atari really dropped the ball with Pacman and ET. Parents who were buying games for their kids were picking up cheap games by 3rd parties and passing on the $30-$40 first party games. It's really amazing what they were able to do with a machine that was designed in 1977 with 128 bytes of ram, a crippled CPU running under 1mhz and the TIA chip and a 4KB limit for roms. They eventually started adding ram to the cartridges and used bankswitching to release games as large as 16K (some of which also had the extra superchip doubling the ram to 256 bytes) and was in production until about 1988 or so.
Where's Megamania,spider fighter,Seaquest,Keystone kapers,frostbite,Donkey kong,Kangaroo, And I forgot the name but there was one with dragons ,that was really cool.
It was good enough for me to spend many hours playing :) It wasn't like the arcade version by any means, in terms of the graphics and colour palete, but still a lot of fun.
Moon Patrol was deceivingly difficult. You start out thinking, what could be harder than jumping over rocks and pits? Oh wait, they're SHOOTING at me? AHHHHH!
cool video - a few games that I loved back in the early 80s.... Activision's SEAQUEST gets overlooked quite a lot, but has that same excellent Activision difficulty curve progression that makes River Raid and H.E.R.O. such classics. Imagic's ATLANTIS was an awesome game with loads of multicolour sprites, top sound effects, and frantic gameplay.
thanks for the reply! I am a new subscriber and I think your videos are awesome. I started an NES and Genesis collection a few months back. looks like I will start an Atari next. thanks!
great video! I've finally just bought my first 2600, pickup tomorrow morning, I'm now thinking the games may not all suck! I started on the next Gen with a ZX Spectrum, back then I just never knew any kids in my New Zealand neighbourhood who had an Atari.
H.E.R.O ....my favorite all time game! You have good taste man..good taste! Just ran across your channel today as you had a video on the Portland Gaming Expo from last year or the year before. Will you be there this year?
7 years later and the Metal Jesus is still at it! Watching this old vid since I just got into Atari games and still great, useful information here. Keep it up!
People say it is the worst because the game can not be beat. There is a stage where you fall into a pit an there is no way out. The game was not programmed properly.
E.T was bad, but far from being the worst game of all time, Pac-Man was certainly a bad port and could have been a lot better, but game play is still intact and it plays quite well.
Personally, and I know I'll probably get trolled for this, I thought Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of the worst games. It required two controllers and unless you has someone to help you, getting the timing right with the second controller finding the correct mesa made you fall to your doom, unless you had a parachute (to waste). It has only for one player on the back but clearly this was a 2 player coordinated game.
Can't tell if you are serious-E.T. was waaay ahead of it's time,first game with a real "finish",that I remember. Not fair,how it is remembered. They made it in like two months.
I came here from TV Tropes. Normally I close the tab immediately when I see Video Game videos, but i love your long hair, and Jesus and metal so here I am! Great video!
I'm so glad I came across you. I just recently acquired an Atari 2600 system, but no games with it, so I've been trying to rack my brain to remember games. You really helped me to remember. Thanks so much!
This is still a great bunch of games! Thanks for this review! I still play my Sears Arcade almost everyday! I also am a huge fan of H.E.R.O, and find it to be the best game on the console. Happy Halloween!
Nice job on the list, there's some games I need to get and try. I definitely agree with Berzerk, River Raid and Missile Command. I also enjoyed Atlantis, Chopper Command, Frogger, Haunted House, Joust, Laser Blast, and Empire Strikes Back.
Great start to the video with Warlords. To me the best multiplayer game up until Halo came out. As opposed to Demon attack I favor MegaMania and Phoenix. For 2-player fun Ice Hockey is great. If you don't have one you need to get a Starpath Supercharger to play the official Sega Frogger port and Party MIx another great 4 player game. Thanks for the post!
I liked Starmaster by Activision. There was a preipheral called the Supercharger that you used a tape deck with that had some very good games as well, like Dragonslayer and Escape From The Mind Master.
I was Addicted to Maze Craze when I was a Kid! Couldn't get enough of it. Another was Video Pinball even tho by todays Video pinball games its quite Cheesy!! LOL
I know I am way behind in seeing this video for the first time. Not sure you will even see my comment. My mom and I always played Kool-aid man. We actually fried the cartridge. I have gotten back into my 2600 collection and raided my moms stash. Journey was always my fav this and superman. I do also enjoy, ET, Ghost Manor, and Indiana Jones I think. I don't quite remember.
How many atari games have you got? I got an atari 2600 junior console a few weeks ago and started collecting games for it, I have over 40 games so far and I'm still looking for more :)
Great video! I would HIGHLY recommend the game Lost Luggage. The plot (picking up luggage at an airport) sounds boring but the game is an absolute blast, Kool-Aid Man is pretty cool too. Glad you mentioned Berserk as it's superb
Frogger was my favorite game back in the day! I also had Missle Command. Combat came with the system, which was a good thing. It really was a great two-player game!
Very nice ... as a retro gamer, I'm not so much for the multilevel/adventure thing, but you sold me on H.E.R.O.! Your honorable mentions are good, too ... I would have mentioned either Centipede or Millipede, and maybe even two forgotten gems: Fast Eddie and Frankenstein's Monster!r
A couple years ago, I came across a prototype version of H.E.R.O for the Atari 400. Sold it to a collector on AtariAge. I wonder if it was ever dumped? I didn't have the means to do so and I don't know if the collector I sold it to did either.
Great list! You listed one of my two favorites which is Warlords. That never got old in four player mode! My other favorite is called Laser Gates. A Defender style side scroller. I still have my Atari and break it out every couple of years just to remind myself how far we've come!
Incredible memories there! I'll never forget the day my dearly departed Father bought the family an Atari 2600 one Christmas, in the Late 1970s. Seeing Space Invaders for the first time on a home TV, blew my tiny pubescent mind.
The Flashback is convenient, but there is nothing like collecting the actual 2600 cartridges and using the real joystick.
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I always love playing Demon Attack, Deadly Duck is great and i am new to playing that! I love Seaquest, Ms Pacman, Pacman, Joust, Night Stalker, Frogger, Dig Dug, Laser Blast. I want someone to put Black Widow on a cartridge where it always belonged being. :)
I am floored that Starmaster wasn't included. It was a first-person spaceship action shooter that gave such an impressive 3D world feeling from a 1982 game.
Kryxish X2
"Cosmic Ark" was one of the most under rated games that unfortunately doesn't get a whole lotta love, but it should. It's a fun amusing game that aged well.
Cosmic ark is my favorite atari game .i agree its so under rated..it must be a hidden gem or somethin .no one talks about..mentions it..i found a copy out in the wild and bought it instantly.
I played it for the first time when I was testing some Atari stuff that my boss bought the other day. Had the exact same opinion.
i wouls say most of imagic's games were awesome i loved cosmic ark too
@@potatothorn FATHOM TOO!
how could you not include Adventure!? it's awesome!
Yeah I played it today :D Stupid bat :D
rjday753 a sequel is what we need! I forgot all about that magic dot where you could travel through the force field and see the credits. that was cool too.
Adventure is best game of Atari
lennyhipp did the game ever end?? great game
Hero was the first Metroid
YARS REVENGE!!! Love that game.
Yah me too I liked it
Yar's Revenge is one of my all time favs ... I guess MetalJesus just didn't have this one. Monty's Revenge is great too but the Atari 5600 version is much better. Likewise, the Atari 5600 version of Pitfall II is much better because it is twice as long: after you find your friends you then have to escape the caves back to the top.
Damn right, yars revenge had the best cover/booklet art and back story. Berserk and missile command would be next best pick. Joust was rad, especially with a slightly more advanced joystick with a rapid fire switch. And california games too.
It remains one of Atari's most unique games. I remember surpassing the one million point mark. The game becomes progressively challenging and you must utilize the vertical wraparound feature on the screen at all times to survive.
KEYSTONE CAPERS, Fathom, LOCK 'n CHASE, WARLOCK, YAR'S REVENGE MEGAMANIA AND DRAGON FIRE. You nail it with SOLARIS and Pitfall 2
Keystone capers
Activision's Atari 2600 games pretty much defined my childhood and still hold up. River Raid, Kaboom!, Keystone Kapers, Pitfall/Pitfall II, Chopper Command, Robot Tank, Enduro, Space Shuttle, etc. Atari had some great first-party games too, of course. Adventure, Yars' Revenge, Star Raiders, Warlords, Berzerk, Jungle Hunt, Kangaroo, Defender, Frogger (their arcade ports were pretty good besides Pac-Man), Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Can't forget Atlantis by iMagic either. Empire Strikes Back!
No-one seems to have mentioned Q*Bert, I thought it was great way back when
The joystick sucked on it. I always fell off the pyramid and went splat.
@Dilly Dally You had to turn the joystick 45° to the right so that the fire button was at the top. The manual mentions it, though many might either not have the manual or have missed it.
Q-Bert and Frogger were right there in terms of cultural fame with Pac-Man when I was a kid.
@@billgateskilledmyuncle23 I never liked Atari until I found I could use a Genesis controller. Now it's one of my favs.
@@DavidWonn your so right. I just got the game today and kept dieing. I'm using a genesis pad. Soon as I turned the controller so the pad makes an X instead of a + the game made sense!
A lot of the games I played endlessly were the early, primitive ones that, in hindsight, probably did suck, like Miniature Golf and Casino. But I liked them at the time.
Adventure probably belongs on any list of great 2600 games. It maybe doesn't hold up in the way the simple shooters do, because we expect adventure games to be more complex, but it actually manages to have a storyline of sorts in a free-roaming open world.
And it contains the first ever Easter Egg in a video game!
adventure provides the player with a true sense of adventure in that you never know what to expect. those dragons could be lurking anywhere and once they're after you it might be hard to lose them. those sudden bursts of frenetic action made that all the more worthwhile.
Mark Ganus I was just playing it again under emulation recently--if you play it on the easiest level, it's a little rote adventure made of simple puzzles, but at what the author probably considered regular difficulty it actually has a fair amount of unpredictability and challenge! Particularly in the way the bat can grab anything and maroon it somewhere in the maze, though you do have a couple of options for getting things unstuck.
'Spider Fighter', 'Midnight Magic Pinball', 'Cosmic Ark', 'Frogs and Flies', and 'Lock N Chase' were some of my favorites. Highly recommend them :) Atari 2600 was my very first gaming system when i was 4 years old and I loved it.
1:09 Warlords (19xx)
1:46 Solar Fox (19xx)
2:21 Combat (1977)
2:52 Solaris (19xx)
3:37 Berzerk (1982)
4:15 Demon Attack
4:51 Pitfall II (1984)
5:48 River Raid (19xx)
6:44 Missile Command (19xx)
7:33 H.E.R.O. (19xx)
*Honorable mentions:*
09:35 Montezuma's Revenge
09:44 Frogger
09:50 Space Invaders
09:56 Mrs. Pac-Man
10:02 Pitfall!
10:09 Maze Craze
10:15 Demons to Diamonds
10:20 Super Breakout
10:26 Yars' Revenge
Added to the text description! Thanks for doing that :)
Welcome and thanks for quick inclusion!
It would be very helpful if you included the starting times (e.g., 01:09) in front of the game titles so it is possible to click on it and jump directly to the beginning of each game... like an index in a PDF eBook.
Ah, I just made the index for *Atari2600 GTDS* _part #2_
;-)
Solar Fox is really good. Used to play the fuck out of the original arcade. I'd love to see a modern remake (but on a retro system...like the NES
Dragonfire, Adventure, Oasis, Vanguard, Frogger, Joust, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pole Position, Grand Prix, Crackpot, Bank Heist...man the list can go on and on. Good times.
Pitfall 2 rocks! I started collecting 2600 games in 1994, and found the original to be interesting, but hard to navigate. Years later I found this one and found the challenge to be good, and was surprised when I beat it. I understand why the homebrews were left out, but the rare Snoopy and the Red Baron should be there, too. As the Baron shoots at Snoopy and his doghouse, bullet holes appear on the graphic!
My all time favourite by far was Maze Craze, just so awesome in 2 player. Indy 500 was another great multi player game. Others that I liked were Space Invaders (Asteroids and PacMan didn't seem to work for me on the Atari); Vanguard; Combat; River Raid and a lot of the sports games (mostly from activision bar the beach ball game).
Mario Bros was on the Atari 2600, converted from the Arcade machine where it started.
Demon Attack was addictive. I used to play at modes #3 and #7.
I can't believe there isn't a single mention of Kaboom! That was the best Atari game ever made. Even children today would have fun playing that with the paddle controller.
I actually played that until the bombs didn't drop any faster. I've always wondered how many other people could do that. I still have the game too, but my paddle controllers are shaky now :(
I wish i had kaboom.
Did you ever make the bomber do the : -(0) face?
@@danlower7834 hell ya . My brother kick that games butt so bad the bomber changed his face. To the oh my god I can't believe you did that. Good call man .
My love this game It was cool I played my best when talking to someone
old is gold who agrees?
Babe Boo me
legend of my ass 😊😊😊
Yes old is gold
Gold = super mario bros movie 1993
We love old things round these parts.
Gold usually is old.
I'm glad Yars got an honourable mention, I would have never forgiven you if you'd missed that one. Personally, I really liked Maze Craze as well.
The best games were H.E.R.O., River Raid, Centipede, Frostbite, Spider Fighter, Super Breakout, Carnival, Pitfall, Dark Cavern, Kool-Aid Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Galaxian/Galaga, Space Invaders, Combat, Warlords, Pole Position, Night Driver, Decathlon, Demon Attack, The Swordquest series, most anything from Activision, and tons of others! I survived my childhood and teen years because of the Atari 2600!!!
Oh yes, Kaboom was great too!
E.T. gets a bad rap, but if you actually read the instructions, it said everything you had to do and it was actually a decent game.
Aiden Raccoon E.T suffers from the same thing that Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde on NES suffer from. A nigh-impossible difficulty curve.
Oh, the Swordquest series...how it suffered...
Aiden Raccoon But there *are* some errors in the book like the scoring being *mostly* wrong.
Asteroids, Jungle Hunt, Moon Patrol, just off the top of my head are ones that hold up very well and should be fun to play even now.
"I didn't have a friend available" :( I'll come play games with you bro.
2:43 "I didn't have a friend available" - story of my life
I remember not enjoying the Journey or Kool Aid man games but Stampede was fun.
Here's a list of my top 10 Atari games (in no certain order)
1 - Taz
2 - Preasure Cooker
3 - Oink!
4 - Spider Fighter
5 - Alien
6 - Gremlins
7 - Spike's Peak / Ghost Manor (2 games... 1 cartridge...both amazing)
8 - Carnival
9 - Kaboom!
10 - Keystone Kapers
and more games i wanted to put on so I'll just mention... Secret Quest, Venture, Tutankham, Amidar, Mountain King, Space Cavern, and Lock n Chase...many more great games though
H.E.R.O. is an amazing game.
Yar's Revenge, Space Invaders, Adventure, Breakout/Super Breakout, Mrs. Pac Man, NIght Driver, Star Raiders, Video Pinball, Vanguard and Phoenix would certainly be in the top 20
I liked: Centipede, Ms Pacman, River Raid, and pinball. That was about it. lots of waisted dollars. I remember paying like $35 a game. That was in the late 70's, possible early 80's. Bit fuzzy there. I do remember Vanguard, which wasn't too bad.
Yes, Pinball was really underrated. It was really repetitive, but somewhat challenging not to "tilt" and eventually roll the game. Vanguard was a really good right side scroller and deserved to be on the list of honorable mentions.
Oh yeah, I spent a lot of time playing video pinball on the atari 2600. He should have included that instead of berserk, berserk was NOT a good game because it always came down to the fact that I would get extra lives at a much higher rate than I would lose them and eventually turn off the console with it reporting I had 9 lives but internally it would store the real number of extra lives and I'd get it up into the 30s or 40s.
@@paulwalsh2344 Midnight Magic is *the* pinball game on the 2600. Took me almost 40 years to discover this the other day...
H.E.R.O is my favorite too. I played it again after 30 years or something, to show it my kids, and i still remembered most situations.
I remember there was a competition, if you reached at least 100.000 ? points, you did a picture of it and sent it to them. But i cant remember if they sent me something back.
Pole Position!
Adventure was one of my all time favorites.
Sneak n peek, Mines of Minos, Yars revenge, Frogs and flies, Maze Craze those where my favorite 2600 games
"I think a lot of people were surprised you could do something like this on the Atari." That's because you actually couldn't; the Pitfall II cartridge has some additional hardware called a "DPC" chip designed by David Crane that provides the multi-voice sound/music, a random number generator, and other functions.
I'm willing to bet he knows that, given his level of fandom. You're right though. And maybe you can explain how it worked on a technical level, specifically how the sound chip delivered a compatible signal to whatever sound hardware was waiting on the 2600 unit itself.
No need for me to do it when batari already did a great job of mapping the chip out: atariage.com/forums/topic/144075-how-exactly-does-the-pitfall-2-dpc-work/?p=1750556
I see, but he doesn't explain how the amplitudes retrieved from the sound registers ($1005-$1007) get converted into something the base hardware can understand. How does the 2600 sound hardware work, and how was it flexible enough to be tricked by cartridge hardware into playing a chord?
Jeremy Williams Your jedi mind tricks will not work on me this time. Must... resist... urge to nerd out over the 2600....
I wonder if the dynamic duo Mike Mika and Jeremy Mika can answer this one.
I loved Montezuma's Revenge, Ms. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Popeye, Keystone Kapers, Pitfall, Super Breakout, Mountain King, Megamania, Spider Fighter, Phoenix, and Fishing Derby.
Short hand sum-up (Part 1):
-----------------------------------------
*War Lords
*Solarfox
*Combat
*Solaris
*Berserk
*Demon Attack
*Pitfall 2
*River Raid
*Missile Command
*H.E.R.O.
The Empire Strikes back and Donkey Kong were both a ton of fun as a kid and I still find myself going back to them now and again these days. Great video!
I'll post you a bunch of games that I think you forgot:
Phoenix
Pole Position
Mario Bros
Defender
Asteroids
Centipede
Vanguard
Joust
Kangaroo
Jungle Hunt
Galaxian
Space Invaders
Star Raiders
Track & Field
Crystal Castles
Stargate
Megamania
Starmaster
Pitfall
Decathlon
The Empire Strikes Back
Frogger
Fathom
Laser Gates
...and many more
Excellent list. I'd personally add many other Imagic games to this list, especially ATLANTIS (probably my all-time favourite atari 2600 game) and COSMIK ARK. There are also some modern, homebrew games that are very impressive and very playable IMHO, like the conversions of THRUST+ and JUNO FIRST.
Considering the platform, Solaris had my jaw hitting the floor.
Yeh, Solaris and STAR WARS ARCADE are great pieces of programming.
How about tomcat (the f14 fs by absolute) came out in like 1988 or 1991 (i forget which) the console was waaay old already, used the dip switches on the console to add extra controller buttons, had alot of depth, solaris looks better, but man, epic level of entertainment.. Especially considering the console was fairly budget oriented in the first place, and already ancient by the time the game came out
Love the vid, man. I have my Atari still from when I was a kid. A couple of my fave games for it that I still like to play today: Star Master, Ice Hockey, Asteroids, Galaxian, Atlantis...wow, I could go on. Well done, good sir! Keep up the videos.
HERO is such a great game on every system. Even the zx spectrum port has that perfect feel. Another addictive game is Activision Dragster, one of my favourite Atari games
I love HERO.
Decathlon, jungle hunt, keystone keepers, enduro, jawbreaker, seaquest
Asteroids was also pretty good
Jamie Laszlo Have you played Space Rocks (home-brew)? Its an AMAZING conversion of the arcade game on 2600
+Jamie Laszlo not on the 2600. It was kind of a terrible port. It was awesome on the 800 though. It even had 4 player support. -- Also Pac-Man and Donkey Kong rocked on the Atari 800.
Jamie Laszlo loveeeeeeeeeeee and dragon fire
Asteroids was the first game I ever rolled.
Paul Walsh
You PLAY video games, you don't roll them. They're not joints
Good list, many of my favs here too. The Pitfall games were my favorite on the 2600. IMO you gotta have Activision's Seaquest in there which I love! Atlantis, Fast Food, Stampede, Keystone Kapers are some more that should get mentions IMO. When you look at it the 2600 did have some great games. Also the 2600 Stargate was pretty good as well.
H.E.R.O. the best Atari 2600 game ever !!!
i remember when we got our atari,.. combat came with it, ..thanks for the flashback, i cant remember how many hours i played that game..
KABOOM! To this day one of my favorite video games
Missile command was such a cool game, and those Atari explosion sounds, booooom! Atari really was creative, amazing to think of the games they were able to produce despite the primitive technology on offer.
Most of you probably know this, but the first edition of Demon Attack for the 2600 would crash after the 84th wave. I did it twice back in the day, the screen goes blank and there's a medium-pitched hum. It was released again with infinite play. To my knowledge, the only way to tell the difference is to play it through. If there's screen 85, you have a "newer" version.
Now that's dedication!
I never got that far ! One of my favorite games
I could play that game forever. Don't remember if I ever came to a blank screen or not. I do still have the game. hmmm....
my favorite games for the Atari were mostly made by Activision. Robot Tank, Keystone Kapers, Kaboom, and Grand Prix. I also liked the RealSports games such as Football, Baseball, and Volleyball.
Awesome video -- agree with most of these. Always loved H.E.R.O. but I think by then I was playing it on the C-64.
Michael D'Angelo I actually consider the C64 version of HERO to be the definitive version. The gameplay is identical, but the graphics are just a little bit better
I never had this for the 2600, but I play it now on the Activision Anthology app and it is still such a fun and challenging game.
MetalJesusRocks how do you play warlords 4 people? u gotta use some adapter adding controllers?
***** The 2600 paddles had 2 paddles per plug, so plug in 2 sets and you had4 paddles, no adapter needed.
+Michael D'Angelo HERO by far the best Atari game!! Montezuma's Revenge also had a charming! they both were more like a computer game rather than a console game.
There are a lot of good games for the 2600. It's true that a lot of games just haven't aged well, but most of them were cheesy even then. For example, Coleco could have done a MUCH better job with Donkey Kong and Jr. Games that were fun 30 years ago are usually still fun today. Some of my personal favorties are stargate (or defender II), Millipede, Centipede, super-charger frogger (I play most of my atari games with a cuddle cart, so it's no big hassle to play super-charger games), missile command, pitfall and PFII, dodge em (a really great game), asteroids, ms pacman, pacman jr, burgertime (graphics are terrible, but gameplay is good), omega race,river raid, yars revenge, lock n chase, bump and jump, some of the variants of space invaders are good. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Unfortunately, Atari didn't lock the system and there were a lot of really, really bad 3rd party games and of course Atari really dropped the ball with Pacman and ET. Parents who were buying games for their kids were picking up cheap games by 3rd parties and passing on the $30-$40 first party games. It's really amazing what they were able to do with a machine that was designed in 1977 with 128 bytes of ram, a crippled CPU running under 1mhz and the TIA chip and a 4KB limit for roms. They eventually started adding ram to the cartridges and used bankswitching to release games as large as 16K (some of which also had the extra superchip doubling the ram to 256 bytes) and was in production until about 1988 or so.
"Demon attack" looks similar to "Phoenix".
Where's Megamania,spider fighter,Seaquest,Keystone kapers,frostbite,Donkey kong,Kangaroo,
And I forgot the name but there was one with dragons ,that was really cool.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Moon Patrol. It was one of my favourites
Husein Bristina The Atari 2600 version is so weird looking, but I'm sure it's because of the hardware limitations. Does it play well?
It was good enough for me to spend many hours playing :)
It wasn't like the arcade version by any means, in terms of the graphics and colour palete, but still a lot of fun.
palette*
Yeah agree Moon Patrol was a classic
Moon Patrol was deceivingly difficult. You start out thinking, what could be harder than jumping over rocks and pits? Oh wait, they're SHOOTING at me? AHHHHH!
cool video - a few games that I loved back in the early 80s.... Activision's SEAQUEST gets overlooked quite a lot, but has that same excellent Activision difficulty curve progression that makes River Raid and H.E.R.O. such classics. Imagic's ATLANTIS was an awesome game with loads of multicolour sprites, top sound effects, and frantic gameplay.
this video alone make me wanna buy an Atari 2600
I consider this as a WIN :)
thanks for the reply! I am a new subscriber and I think your videos are awesome. I started an NES and Genesis collection a few months back. looks like I will start an Atari next. thanks!
great video! I've finally just bought my first 2600, pickup tomorrow morning, I'm now thinking the games may not all suck!
I started on the next Gen with a ZX Spectrum, back then I just never knew any kids in my New Zealand neighbourhood who had an Atari.
he didnt even mention Joust.. how can you not mention joust!!, and than their is bruce lee and montezuma's revenge.. all these games are great!
Bruce Lee was Awesome. Joust rocked. I still play Gravitar, Moon Patrol, and Missile Command. But yeah, Bruce Lee. I totally forgot about that game.
@@golcese Bruce Lee on Atari 2600?
Wasn't Bruce Lee only on the Atari 8-bit COMPUTERS?
H.E.R.O ....my favorite all time game! You have good taste man..good taste! Just ran across your channel today as you had a video on the Portland Gaming Expo from last year or the year before. Will you be there this year?
That's THE game :D
Jesus christ a old comment with 300k subs with no likes and a dead channel
@@sanmarino8605 his channel isnt dead wtf u talkin about
7 years later and the Metal Jesus is still at it! Watching this old vid since I just got into Atari games and still great, useful information here. Keep it up!
Holy crap looking at Solaris is a trip
+fagg Yars Revenge made me say out loud, "WTF is that?!" lol
Lol, when he said Solar Fox doesn't look to good I was thinking to myself "But man, this looks awesome!"
Bowling
Should have added Starmaster dude. Cracking game
Q*bert doesn't suck (Atari 2600)
Awesome list bro! You nailed it. I would also mention Q-Bert, Centipede, Asteroids, Dark Caverns, and Tutankhamen.
How about you review E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial on the Atari 2600?Everyone says That's the WORST video game ever made!
People say it is the worst because the game can not be beat. There is a stage where you fall into a pit an there is no way out. The game was not programmed properly.
well that is what I thought but actually theres a way to finish that game.
Pac-man was worse than E.T. Everyone wanted to play Pac-man, but the 2600 cart was bad. E.T. has the pits, and no bicycles.
E.T was bad, but far from being the worst game of all time, Pac-Man was certainly a bad port and could have been a lot better, but game play is still intact and it plays quite well.
Personally, and I know I'll probably get trolled for this, I thought Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of the worst games. It required two controllers and unless you has someone to help you, getting the timing right with the second controller finding the correct mesa made you fall to your doom, unless you had a parachute (to waste). It has only for one player on the back but clearly this was a 2 player coordinated game.
Frostbite, Circus Atari, Dodge 'em and Kaboom were awesome!!!
atari games that dont suck? jesus! every single atari 2600 games were cool and ahead for its time. dont compare it with nintendo
*cough cough* E.T.
*cough cough* sonic labyrinth
Can't tell if you are serious-E.T. was waaay ahead of it's time,first game with a real "finish",that I remember. Not fair,how it is remembered. They made it in like two months.
I came here from TV Tropes. Normally I close the tab immediately when I see Video Game videos, but i love your long hair, and Jesus and metal so here I am! Great video!
You forgot to add Custer's revenge
Eww Man grow up
...or any other game by Mystique.
@@evilinsecticon3813 You know that at least one kid probably asked for an "X-Men" game at some point and ended up with "X Man"...
I'm so glad I came across you. I just recently acquired an Atari 2600 system, but no games with it, so I've been trying to rack my brain to remember games. You really helped me to remember. Thanks so much!
My faves on the Atari 2600 were Atlantis, Adventure and Star Master.
This is still a great bunch of games! Thanks for this review! I still play my Sears Arcade almost everyday! I also am a huge fan of H.E.R.O, and find it to be the best game on the console. Happy Halloween!
Nice job on the list, there's some games I need to get and try. I definitely agree with Berzerk, River Raid and Missile Command. I also enjoyed Atlantis, Chopper Command, Frogger, Haunted House, Joust, Laser Blast, and Empire Strikes Back.
Great start to the video with Warlords. To me the best multiplayer game up until Halo came out. As opposed to Demon attack I favor MegaMania and Phoenix. For 2-player fun Ice Hockey is great. If you don't have one you need to get a Starpath Supercharger to play the official Sega Frogger port and Party MIx another great 4 player game. Thanks for the post!
Snoopy and the Red Baron is my all time favorite 2600 game.
HERO was (is) definitely the best! Wow...I had forgotten all about that game! Loved it.
Excellent selection, i'm guessing you don't have moon patrol in your collection yeah?
Everyone always leaves out Moon Patrol.. which is my personal favorite.
I liked Starmaster by Activision. There was a preipheral called the Supercharger that you used a tape deck with that had some very good games as well, like Dragonslayer and Escape From The Mind Master.
I was Addicted to Maze Craze when I was a Kid! Couldn't get enough of it. Another was Video Pinball even tho by todays Video pinball games its quite Cheesy!! LOL
H.E.R.O Is one of my faves. Total learning curve and so fun,
That Pitfall 2 song has been in my head since that game came out - I am not kidding!
Good vid!
I know I am way behind in seeing this video for the first time. Not sure you will even see my comment. My mom and I always played Kool-aid man. We actually fried the cartridge. I have gotten back into my 2600 collection and raided my moms stash. Journey was always my fav this and superman. I do also enjoy, ET, Ghost Manor, and Indiana Jones I think. I don't quite remember.
HERO FOR THE WINNNNNNNNNNN. DID YOU EVER PLAY COSMIC ARK? I LIKED THAT ONE
Moon Patrol, Keystone Kapers, The Empire Strikes Back, Enduro, Kaboom and Spider Fighter should've made the list.
How many atari games have you got? I got an atari 2600 junior console a few weeks ago and started collecting games for it, I have over 40 games so far and I'm still looking for more :)
Great video!
I would HIGHLY recommend the game Lost Luggage. The plot (picking up luggage at an airport) sounds boring but the game is an absolute blast, Kool-Aid Man is pretty cool too. Glad you mentioned Berserk as it's superb
Frogger was my favorite game back in the day! I also had Missle Command. Combat came with the system, which was a good thing. It really was a great two-player game!
Very nice ... as a retro gamer, I'm not so much for the multilevel/adventure thing, but you sold me on H.E.R.O.! Your honorable mentions are good, too ... I would have mentioned either Centipede or Millipede, and maybe even two forgotten gems: Fast Eddie and Frankenstein's Monster!r
H.E.R.O. Forever! Loved it as a 5 year old, still love it as a 35 year old!
A couple years ago, I came across a prototype version of H.E.R.O for the Atari 400. Sold it to a collector on AtariAge. I wonder if it was ever dumped? I didn't have the means to do so and I don't know if the collector I sold it to did either.
Amidar! maybe Seaquest is awesome too. Atlantis? Tunnel Runner is also great.
Great list! You listed one of my two favorites which is Warlords. That never got old in four player mode! My other favorite is called Laser Gates. A Defender style side scroller. I still have my Atari and break it out every couple of years just to remind myself how far we've come!
Incredible memories there! I'll never forget the day my dearly departed Father bought the family an Atari 2600 one Christmas, in the Late 1970s. Seeing Space Invaders for the first time on a home TV, blew my tiny pubescent mind.
Moon Patrol, Kangaroo, and Desert Falcon were pretty fun as well