Great video! Thanks for this - it was quite a nostalgia trip! I miss the old days of CHAMProgramming (yes it's pronounced CHAMP not 'shamp' :)) Real life took over for a few years but I eventually got back into game programming for the Atari 2600 about 10 years ago (Lady Bug, Conquest (Caverns) of Mars. I took another 10 years off but I'm back programming for the 2600 (Scramble). Thanks again!
I've always wondered if John's version of Frogger was ever completed, or still exists in any form? It was slated for release, if I remember correctly, when they closed up shop.
I registered several Champ Games. Growing up in the era of the original arcade cabinets, these PC clones were mindblowing at the time. I spoke with John a couple of times via AOL, and he was always super nice too. I remember him being extremely appreciative of the praise his work got all around.
This takes me back, I remember when I was about 10 or so and my dad gave me one of his old Compaq laptops and helped me find games for it since at the time I also had a windows xp computer with a floppy drive and I found Champ Kong while looking for games that would run on this old laptop. Playing Champ Kong was some of the best DOS game memories I had since that era passed me by sadly.
Heh, I got back into these recently, and was gonna make a video review of them myself, but you've put it better than I could have. Kind of funny to see you couldn't get the Sound Blaster audio to work in Asterocks either!
Ah, Champ games .... I actually bought the non shareware version of Champ Kong. All the Champ games were great! And John Champeau has now released them into public domain. Don't have the link handy, but a Google search should turn it up. And that's the full, non time-limited versions that you used to be able to purchase!
These were literally my introduction to the most well-known arcade gems when I just entered elementary. Then, MAME came along, my dad put it on our home computer along with a random bunch of arcade roms, and the rest is gaming childhood history.
Oh how I miss AOL! So simple and high tech at its prime. I really appreciate your channel Lazy Game Reviews because it gives me that warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling when I see a video such as this. :)
I remember playing CHAMPgames a lot when I was a kid. It was pretty cool to take the arcade experience wherever you go, on a laptop or desktop computer.
*THANK YOU* for making an episode of those games! I still use to play those games inside DOSBox from time to time and although it's not exactly the same, I started with Champ Kong as well, back in 1998 or so when my dad bought a floppy disk on some flea market in summer. Since we didn't own the Commodore64 any longer and my mom used to sell my GameBoy games all the time, I used to play the hell out of this clone on my 486 (used to make a copy of it though so I could keep one diskette at my dad's home). Interestingly though, that version didn't had any Champ Mode and the CHAMP logo also used to be a different one. I suppose the guy who sold us the floppy simply got hands on an earlier version or so. Still great stuff.
@@NightSprinter So the version my dad picked up indeed was an older release. It's a reply to an old comment of mine but thanks for sharing that knowledge 👀
You just blew my childhood away once more. I had CHAMP Donkey Kong on my computer when I was a kid. Sadly, it was the Shareware version, but that's expected from Compilation CDs.
Great vid, I never played these ones personally but I played a lot of different arcade classics back in the day on my old 486. And it was by the time that I got my Pentium 2 that I found out about the exciting world of emulation, good times. The classics deserve to live on.
Wow these look really well programmed. I'm recreating Space Invaders right now and have been checking out all the other ports, very few got the wave-motion of the invaders right like this champ one does.
The champ games are definitely some of the best arcade ports/clones out there. I recently found my old champ games disk so I installed them in dosbox on my linux pc and they run as well as I remember them when I played them as a kid back on windows 98. The gameplay is spot on and the new features are great.
Great stuff as always LGR! I think I saw clones of even these when I was a kid, but I never got to play them as I didn't have a PC until 2002 or so...still, this feels nostalgic since I had played most of the originals before! ^_~
Speaking of Microsoft Arcade (which I didn't know about), I loved playing Microsoft's Pinball Arcade. I loved playing those old pinball machines and even the ones that were newer in the game.
Fun Fact: Turns out, CHAMP Games are actually still around! Though instead of making versions of arcade games for DOS, they're instead making them for the Atari 2600.
I always enjoy your vids, but this one has probably hit me the hardest, nostalgia-wise. I totally remember downloading Champ Kong from the AOL Games section, and just that quick mention of playing games on the demo PC at Office Depot has the memories really flooding back. Thanks a lot, man! Great video, as per usual.
Also (now that I'm thinking back on games I downloaded around that time), you wouldn't happen to know the name of a Shareware version of Dr. Mario? I can't remember it, but I remember playing the holy hell out of it back in the day. It's totally something I got through the AOL Games channel, but just can't for the life of me remember what it was called. I wanna say 'Pharmacy' or something...
The sheer number of arcade clones on DOS throughout the 90's is insane. I remember having a unlicensed/bootleg Red Alert map pack CD which in addition had around 800 slapdash arcade games. Yet, they have undeniable charm; one-man dev projects were indispensable to atmosphere of the era and fond reminder of a time now past...
I'm surprised they didn't get sued anyway. Since a lot of these are unmistakable clones of the originals. I guess Copyrights were a bit more lax at that time? I gotta say though, these actually look pretty cool with all things considered. The Champ Mode is a really cool idea that... honestly, I think that the actual game companies should use. The closest thing I can think of to something similar to that, is the Modern mode in the Game and Watch Gallery series.
Its always interesting to see these kind of weird games from the 90s. I kinda wish I knew about these games before. On a side note what is that profile pic supposed to be? Looks kinda familiar...
MultiCool55 "On a side note what is that profile pic supposed to be? Looks kinda familiar..." Zero-Two. The final boss of Kirby 64. It's a mod of him in Brawl.
_Data_Drain_ Thanks. I thought it was from a Kirby game. The final bosses in those games are always hellish compared to everything else in those games. :p
MultiCool55 Yeah, that's something I like about the games. It reflects the dreamy world of the game. It only makes sense for the last bosses to be like something out of a nightmare.
The companies that use copyright repeatedly against other people didn't have that much power back then to throw lawyers at people as they do now. Besides, Mr. Rogers was still around. He didn't quite like the idea that you couldn't record and show the things you like because that would mean people couldn't tape his shows and show them to the kids when they have the time to watch. It was a big thing. Without what Mr. Rogers argued back then, you wouldn't have the whole recording apparatus like tapes, cassettes, DVDs, CDs, diskettes, VCR in your living rooms as freely as they were and actually have a physical copy of what you actually like. And anybody back then that made Mr. Rogers even slightly publicly uncomfortable would probably gain the ire of nearly everybody. Or so that was what I heard.
I just ran into 'Champ Kong' today on the net and I am impressed. Its as good--if not better, than the arcade original. The altered levels are a great feature. I only wish I could use a controller to play instead of my keyboard. I should be happy though since I have a Mac and the game was able to install and is playable on "Boxer.' But Champ Kong is a great game and Champ's other games look great in comparison to the originals as well. Thanks for posting this vid !
Although a bit dated compared to more accurate emulation for the arcade recreations, it's awesome how creative John Champeau was with his own arranged modes!
Breaking News! Champ is back with modern rip-offs for you to enjoy! Coming soon are Champ of Duty, Mortal Champat, Minechamp, Bayonett-em, Grand Champ Auto and many more!
This guy is currently dominating the 2600 scene with games that probably shouldn't work on the 2600, yet somehow still do. He recently did a port of Wizard of Wor that obliterates the CBS version, and he plans to do the same for GORF.
great video! Champ games flew under my radar at the time, so this was interesting. I had gotten into NES and SNES emulation bigtime in the 90s but arcade emulation always seemed a bit beyond me. Really looking forward to video(s) about MAME memories!
When I first got Internet in 1996, one of the first things I started searching for, in Altavista, was information on the old arcade games. Don't know if You remember but one of the very first emulators was Sparcade by Dave Spicer. Eventually everything bar a few survivors got engulfed by the Juggernaut that has become MAME. My Brain also melted then when the unthinkable, playing genuine arcade games on Your PC, became reality. MAME roms now total over 30 Gig. Anyway, would be a great retrospective one day If You feel like it. Thanks for reminding me of Champ games, but there is no doubt that the arrival of emulators helped to quickly kill them off.
As I mentioned on Twitter when you first posed the subject last Saturday, I definitely remember these guys from this arcade knock-off compilation CD we got in the late '90s - _Enter the Arcade_, I believe it was called - can't see any evidence of its existence on Google, but I'm pretty sure I still have the CD either at my place or my parents'. I also recall most of them not working for one reason or another. They'd get up to the menu well enough, but when I tried to run them, some error or another would arise. I think the _Centipede_ one worked, but I'm pretty positive _Champ Kong_ didn't. Might have been just the versions on the disc didn't work, or perhaps it was because I was running the games right off the CD-ROM and it was expecting write capability or something - I wasn't allowed on the Internet for the longest time (basically not until the '00s), so it's not like I could debug it or compare it to versions you could obtain from downloading it. Still, they seem to have done a decent job emulating the originals. I'm honestly curious if they received any legal threats, given how close the not-Champ-Mode variants run to the real deal... Also, those _Microsoft Arcade_ compilations are making me get fairly nostalgic. I never owned a single one of them, but I sure as hell recognize the _Return to the Arcade_ box.
0:30 Maaaaaaan that screenshot takes me back to days of sleepovers at my buddy's house, nagging my tightwad Pops to finally get us internet access, and downloading GIFs of video game characters doing...uhh..."odd things." ;) Thanks for the youtube time machine...as always! :)
Yeah 1997 was a good year, I also downloaded these CHAMP games from AOL and was impressed. In '96 / '97 we also had early versions of emulators thanks to sites like Zophar's Domain.
I just moved to a new area in Virginia, and the mall right down the road from me has a HUGE arcade! I haven't seen an arcade this big since I was in high school. If you're ever up north you should stop by Greenbrier Mall in Chesapeake.
I had an Amusement park some 3-4 miles from where i lived as a kid that didnt close down until around 2010 ( bought my 4 arcade machines there, they here dirt cheap since it was "everything must go NOW or its the scrapyard" kind of a deal, so i bought Virtua Cop 2, Sega Shooting Master, Outrun Deluxe sit-down cab and Sega's Hang-on Deluxe big bike for 100 bucks a piece.) so my arcade needs where satisfied for a long time.
Quite interesting. I also remember getting my first PC (A Gateway) and my parents spending like 2k at the time. I'm not quite sure what they were thinking. I remember having Police Quest...can't recall if I played it. But I remembered loving...still loving...FMV ;) Great vid, as usual ;)
Holy crap, that AOL window brings back memories. Back when I'd search down the Games list and stumble upon some of my all time favorites, one of which is Dare 2 Dream. I just loved the MSPaint style pixel art. I didn't get that adventure game style itch scratched until my cousin introduced me to Last Half of Darkness when I was 12. Scary spoopy. Especially those twin vampire girls. Nopenopenope.
Lazy Game Reviews luckily when I was a child we had this place called nickelcade. Imagine it was like chuck-e-cheese without the animatronics or prizes. It was basically an arcade with a couple of areas designed for partys. I guess nowadays they have prizes, but they used to be all about the arcade cabinets alone when I was a kid.
Man I love these versions. Just last year I played them and posted videos on one of the high score sites. Really a shame the Burgertime and Frogger versions didn't come out as they are two of my favorite arcade games.
Surprisingly I didn't know about these growing up. I would have been stolked! If only I could go back in time and hand myself a shareware floppy with these on it. Great video!
Wow. I didn't even know these existed. And I live a few exits from where this guy was selling these games! I didn't even know of them on bbses in the region!
I remember those quite fondly, very good ports, and I also remember in 97 running a few emulators, mostly NES or Genesis, as those ran fairly well in comparison to everything else, MAME was mostly broken, only extremely old titles ran well on a Pentium/K6 @ 233mhz. Though, console emulation was extremely at it's infancy at that time.
Very good episode. I do remember thos games when I was playing them at my mothers house when I was young, She also has AOL lol man the Internet back then where AOL was King and now we have Google, Firefox, and others lol. -sighs- I'm getting old :(
Reminds me of Deluxe Galaga for Amiga. Was basically a "Champ" version of Galaga for the Amiga, as you could imagine. Same programmer also made a Pacman clone called, you guessed it, Deluxe Pacman.
"Then I got MAME several years later, and my face melted into my keyboard, but that's another story for another day.." I'll eagerly await that day, LGR.
I find it kinda intriguing that Pizza Worm got popular (well, popular enough that Clint has mentioned it a few times and done a review of it) since it's made by a Finnish guy in his bedroom in 94. It's not a bad game for what it is, a copy of Nibbles & Snake and other such game, but it did feature turning at any angle, which made it wonky but interesting.
This is awesome. Thanks for bringing these classics to light. I've been a Champ fan for a long time and they're all completely free now. He did a couple of games on the 2600 including the fantastic clone of Lady Bug. I actually have some early code on one of my computers with a 2600 ice hockey game he was working on but never released. I'm a big NHL fan so he wanted me to try it out :)
Lazy Game Reviews Hi, first: one of your best videos ever. Champ was awesome. Well, at least for its time. You really feel, that he loved the originals and did not simply make primitive clones. Also many thanks for the info on the 2600 Lady Bug version by him. Didn't know until this post (i don't read every atari age thread). Keep up the great work. If you like champ, you might want to have a look at the remakes by Bob DeCrescenzo for the Atari 7800 in another video. You might also wanna take a look at Archon, Elite, Seven Cities of Gold or Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics in one of your reviews (if you are interested in suggestions).
Didn't Champ do a version of the arcade Mario Bros as well? Or maybe I'm thinking of another company that was doing similar ports. I don't recall. Either way, I did play a good bit of Pac-em back in the day. It's nice to see someone talk about the Champ releases.
Funnily enough Champ Pack-Em was the way I played the original Pac-Man as a kid. While I had played home console releases of Ms. Pac-Man, I'd never played the original before playing the Champ version on my brother's friend's computer.
It seemed like every shareware compilation disc had a Champ game or two on it. (usually hidden away somewhere... I learned early on that the menu programs never listed every game on the disc for some reason) Sadly, they never seemed to run for me, so it's great to see what the games actually looked like.
Amazing how the idea of paying for games sounded like such anathema to PC users then. Even though I wasn't a rich kid, I'd never been above renting/buying console titles back then.
I hope you get a chance to review the Hexen series or Marathon. So many great games back then and also that excited feeling playing some of the first 3D shooters. I started with playing California Rasins and still have my copy of Shadow Warrior.
Clearly you didn't have AOL in the mid-90's :) The Internet was the hottest thing in tech and AOL was the king of content and access. It was brilliant, believe it or not!
Lazy Game Reviews My father had BTX/Datex-J, later called T-Online. We mainly used the SLIP mode, aka Internet connection, back then, tough. Was expensive as hell back then in Germany, somewhere around 12 Pfennig (around 6 Eurocent) per minute(!) and that only after 20 o clock. I always envied the US folks with their flatrates, the holy grail called T1 and whatnot back in the 90s. :) And what do i have now? A "T50" line for ~45 Euro per month. 50 MBit down, 10 up. ;)
Lazy Game Reviews Did you use other online services like Compuserve? You could do a video on those some time. I remember getting on MSN a lot. Speaking of Microsoft they also had the Zone game service that let you play IPX games over the internet..
Haha, I used to have that gateway but it came with g-police and redline racer instead of police quest and need for speed. It was an amazing computer. I have an old compilation CD from the early 90s called Fun Pack that has clones of pac man, asteroids, breakout, missile command, and 3 others. My favorite games were Blitzer and missile command(which was called Warhead). None of these had Champ mode though
I've never heard of CHAMP Programming until today when I was watching a video of Donkey Kong Remix for C64. It sucks they don't run in Windows 10. Where do you get a fully working version of MAME for the PC?
![[#2024MAMA] G-DRAGON - 무제(Untitled, 2014)+POWER+HOME SWEET HOME+뱅뱅뱅+FANTASTIC BABY | Mnet 241123 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ox29z5Nf1Uk/mqdefault.jpg)
Great video! Thanks for this - it was quite a nostalgia trip! I miss the old days of CHAMProgramming (yes it's pronounced CHAMP not 'shamp' :)) Real life took over for a few years but I eventually got back into game programming for the Atari 2600 about 10 years ago (Lady Bug, Conquest (Caverns) of Mars. I took another 10 years off but I'm back programming for the 2600 (Scramble). Thanks again!
The programer himself? This is way too cool!
Oh my gosh the actual guy! Yooo thas crazy. The internet be bringing people together that otherwise might've vanished from relevancy.
I am still stunned by your 2600 Galaga.
John Champeau hey my atari 2600 adapter is not working is the warranty still on?
I've always wondered if John's version of Frogger was ever completed, or still exists in any form? It was slated for release, if I remember correctly, when they closed up shop.
I registered several Champ Games. Growing up in the era of the original arcade cabinets, these PC clones were mindblowing at the time. I spoke with John a couple of times via AOL, and he was always super nice too. I remember him being extremely appreciative of the praise his work got all around.
This takes me back, I remember when I was about 10 or so and my dad gave me one of his old Compaq laptops and helped me find games for it since at the time I also had a windows xp computer with a floppy drive and I found Champ Kong while looking for games that would run on this old laptop. Playing Champ Kong was some of the best DOS game memories I had since that era passed me by sadly.
Heh, I got back into these recently, and was gonna make a video review of them myself, but you've put it better than I could have. Kind of funny to see you couldn't get the Sound Blaster audio to work in Asterocks either!
Yeah, I don't know what was up with Asterocks!
Ah, Champ games .... I actually bought the non shareware version of Champ Kong. All the Champ games were great! And John Champeau has now released them into public domain. Don't have the link handy, but a Google search should turn it up. And that's the full, non time-limited versions that you used to be able to purchase!
These were literally my introduction to the most well-known arcade gems when I just entered elementary. Then, MAME came along, my dad put it on our home computer along with a random bunch of arcade roms, and the rest is gaming childhood history.
Oh how I miss AOL! So simple and high tech at its prime. I really appreciate your channel Lazy Game Reviews because it gives me that warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling when I see a video such as this. :)
I remember playing CHAMPgames a lot when I was a kid. It was pretty cool to take the arcade experience wherever you go, on a laptop or desktop computer.
*THANK YOU* for making an episode of those games!
I still use to play those games inside DOSBox from time to time and although it's not exactly the same, I started with Champ Kong as well, back in 1998 or so when my dad bought a floppy disk on some flea market in summer.
Since we didn't own the Commodore64 any longer and my mom used to sell my GameBoy games all the time, I used to play the hell out of this clone on my 486 (used to make a copy of it though so I could keep one diskette at my dad's home).
Interestingly though, that version didn't had any Champ Mode and the CHAMP logo also used to be a different one.
I suppose the guy who sold us the floppy simply got hands on an earlier version or so.
Still great stuff.
The Champ Games logo changed when the eight games John made were released. It was animated, and had a sound reminiscent of the THX logo.
@@NightSprinter So the version my dad picked up indeed was an older release.
It's a reply to an old comment of mine but thanks for sharing that knowledge 👀
I remember playing my fair share of Champ Asteroids back in the day, good times :) Very nostalgic retrospective, LGR. Loved it!
Awesome, hehe. Thanks!
You just blew my childhood away once more. I had CHAMP Donkey Kong on my computer when I was a kid. Sadly, it was the Shareware version, but that's expected from Compilation CDs.
You rock dude. Consistently keeping my sub box stocked with retro PC/gaming videos to watch on my lunch break!
Thanks for bringing me back to the good ol days. Loved all the classic arcade games!
Great vid, I never played these ones personally but I played a lot of different arcade classics back in the day on my old 486. And it was by the time that I got my Pentium 2 that I found out about the exciting world of emulation, good times. The classics deserve to live on.
Wow these look really well programmed. I'm recreating Space Invaders right now and have been checking out all the other ports, very few got the wave-motion of the invaders right like this champ one does.
The champ games are definitely some of the best arcade ports/clones out there. I recently found my old champ games disk so I installed them in dosbox on my linux pc and they run as well as I remember them when I played them as a kid back on windows 98. The gameplay is spot on and the new features are great.
Great stuff as always LGR! I think I saw clones of even these when I was a kid, but I never got to play them as I didn't have a PC until 2002 or so...still, this feels nostalgic since I had played most of the originals before! ^_~
Speaking of Microsoft Arcade (which I didn't know about), I loved playing Microsoft's Pinball Arcade. I loved playing those old pinball machines and even the ones that were newer in the game.
I remember playing in the arcade in my younger days, always going over to play the classics and any Sega game they had. It was great.
Fun Fact: Turns out, CHAMP Games are actually still around! Though instead of making versions of arcade games for DOS, they're instead making them for the Atari 2600.
I had the demo for Champ Kong! Thanks for bringing back the memories.
I always enjoy your vids, but this one has probably hit me the hardest, nostalgia-wise. I totally remember downloading Champ Kong from the AOL Games section, and just that quick mention of playing games on the demo PC at Office Depot has the memories really flooding back. Thanks a lot, man! Great video, as per usual.
Also (now that I'm thinking back on games I downloaded around that time), you wouldn't happen to know the name of a Shareware version of Dr. Mario? I can't remember it, but I remember playing the holy hell out of it back in the day. It's totally something I got through the AOL Games channel, but just can't for the life of me remember what it was called. I wanna say 'Pharmacy' or something...
wucka wucka wucka (not wacka wacka wacka because of legal issues)
*lawsuit filed by Fozzie Bear*
I wish I knew of these back when I was actually using DOS as my daily driver! Still nice to learn about this interesting story in PC gaming.
The sheer number of arcade clones on DOS throughout the 90's is insane. I remember having a unlicensed/bootleg Red Alert map pack CD which in addition had around 800 slapdash arcade games.
Yet, they have undeniable charm; one-man dev projects were indispensable to atmosphere of the era and fond reminder of a time now past...
I'm surprised they didn't get sued anyway. Since a lot of these are unmistakable clones of the originals. I guess Copyrights were a bit more lax at that time?
I gotta say though, these actually look pretty cool with all things considered. The Champ Mode is a really cool idea that... honestly, I think that the actual game companies should use. The closest thing I can think of to something similar to that, is the Modern mode in the Game and Watch Gallery series.
Its always interesting to see these kind of weird games from the 90s. I kinda wish I knew about these games before.
On a side note what is that profile pic supposed to be? Looks kinda familiar...
MultiCool55 "On a side note what is that profile pic supposed to be? Looks kinda familiar..."
Zero-Two. The final boss of Kirby 64. It's a mod of him in Brawl.
_Data_Drain_ Thanks. I thought it was from a Kirby game. The final bosses in those games are always hellish compared to everything else in those games. :p
MultiCool55 Yeah, that's something I like about the games.
It reflects the dreamy world of the game. It only makes sense for the last bosses to be like something out of a nightmare.
The companies that use copyright repeatedly against other people didn't have that much power back then to throw lawyers at people as they do now.
Besides, Mr. Rogers was still around.
He didn't quite like the idea that you couldn't record and show the things you like because that would mean people couldn't tape his shows and show them to the kids when they have the time to watch.
It was a big thing.
Without what Mr. Rogers argued back then, you wouldn't have the whole recording apparatus like tapes, cassettes, DVDs, CDs, diskettes, VCR in your living rooms as freely as they were and actually have a physical copy of what you actually like.
And anybody back then that made Mr. Rogers even slightly publicly uncomfortable would probably gain the ire of nearly everybody.
Or so that was what I heard.
I just ran into 'Champ Kong' today on the net and I am impressed. Its as good--if not better, than the arcade original. The altered levels are a great feature. I only wish I could use a controller to play instead of my keyboard. I should be happy though since I have a Mac and the game was able to install and is playable on "Boxer.' But Champ Kong is a great game and Champ's other games look great in comparison to the originals as well.
Thanks for posting this vid !
Hell yeah. This type of great arcade port in the early 90s had such a good purpose. Thanks for this vid!
Although a bit dated compared to more accurate emulation for the arcade recreations, it's awesome how creative John Champeau was with his own arranged modes!
Breaking News!
Champ is back with modern rip-offs for you to enjoy! Coming soon are Champ of Duty, Mortal Champat, Minechamp, Bayonett-em, Grand Champ Auto and many more!
"Bayonett-em" is genius and you should be proud.
This guy is currently dominating the 2600 scene with games that probably shouldn't work on the 2600, yet somehow still do. He recently did a port of Wizard of Wor that obliterates the CBS version, and he plans to do the same for GORF.
great video! Champ games flew under my radar at the time, so this was interesting. I had gotten into NES and SNES emulation bigtime in the 90s but arcade emulation always seemed a bit beyond me. Really looking forward to video(s) about MAME memories!
When I first got Internet in 1996, one of the first things I started searching for, in Altavista, was information on the old arcade games. Don't know if You remember but one of the very first emulators was Sparcade by Dave Spicer. Eventually everything bar a few survivors got engulfed by the Juggernaut that has become MAME. My Brain also melted then when the unthinkable, playing genuine arcade games on Your PC, became reality. MAME roms now total over 30 Gig. Anyway, would be a great retrospective one day If You feel like it. Thanks for reminding me of Champ games, but there is no doubt that the arrival of emulators helped to quickly kill them off.
As I mentioned on Twitter when you first posed the subject last Saturday, I definitely remember these guys from this arcade knock-off compilation CD we got in the late '90s - _Enter the Arcade_, I believe it was called - can't see any evidence of its existence on Google, but I'm pretty sure I still have the CD either at my place or my parents'.
I also recall most of them not working for one reason or another. They'd get up to the menu well enough, but when I tried to run them, some error or another would arise. I think the _Centipede_ one worked, but I'm pretty positive _Champ Kong_ didn't. Might have been just the versions on the disc didn't work, or perhaps it was because I was running the games right off the CD-ROM and it was expecting write capability or something - I wasn't allowed on the Internet for the longest time (basically not until the '00s), so it's not like I could debug it or compare it to versions you could obtain from downloading it.
Still, they seem to have done a decent job emulating the originals. I'm honestly curious if they received any legal threats, given how close the not-Champ-Mode variants run to the real deal...
Also, those _Microsoft Arcade_ compilations are making me get fairly nostalgic. I never owned a single one of them, but I sure as hell recognize the _Return to the Arcade_ box.
I honestly really love this channel
Thank you
0:30 Maaaaaaan that screenshot takes me back to days of sleepovers at my buddy's house, nagging my tightwad Pops to finally get us internet access, and downloading GIFs of video game characters doing...uhh..."odd things." ;)
Thanks for the youtube time machine...as always! :)
Yeah 1997 was a good year, I also downloaded these CHAMP games from AOL and was impressed. In '96 / '97 we also had early versions of emulators thanks to sites like Zophar's Domain.
I had lot of the PLBM and CHAMP games back in the day. Now they can be downloaded from Abandonware and other places. Love these games.
Another class episode mate
I just moved to a new area in Virginia, and the mall right down the road from me has a HUGE arcade! I haven't seen an arcade this big since I was in high school. If you're ever up north you should stop by Greenbrier Mall in Chesapeake.
I had an Amusement park some 3-4 miles from where i lived as a kid that didnt close down until around 2010 ( bought my 4 arcade machines there, they here dirt cheap since it was "everything must go NOW or its the scrapyard" kind of a deal, so i bought Virtua Cop 2, Sega Shooting Master, Outrun Deluxe sit-down cab and Sega's Hang-on Deluxe big bike for 100 bucks a piece.) so my arcade needs where satisfied for a long time.
Another solid video. Thanks LGR!
Quite interesting. I also remember getting my first PC (A Gateway) and my parents spending like 2k at the time. I'm not quite sure what they were thinking. I remember having Police Quest...can't recall if I played it. But I remembered loving...still loving...FMV ;)
Great vid, as usual ;)
Before I discovered MAME I had these shareware Champ games. They were very popular with my computer group then.
Holy crap, that AOL window brings back memories. Back when I'd search down the Games list and stumble upon some of my all time favorites, one of which is Dare 2 Dream. I just loved the MSPaint style pixel art. I didn't get that adventure game style itch scratched until my cousin introduced me to Last Half of Darkness when I was 12. Scary spoopy. Especially those twin vampire girls. Nopenopenope.
Have you seen LGR's gameplay of Last Half?
I have! Only part 1 though. I'd like to play the other two myself someday before I actually watch those videos.
I nostalgia'd so hard seeing the AOL screen. Then I saw the button for Kids Only and I nostalgia'd again.
Lazy Game Reviews luckily when I was a child we had this place called nickelcade. Imagine it was like chuck-e-cheese without the animatronics or prizes. It was basically an arcade with a couple of areas designed for partys.
I guess nowadays they have prizes, but they used to be all about the arcade cabinets alone when I was a kid.
Man I love these versions. Just last year I played them and posted videos on one of the high score sites. Really a shame the Burgertime and Frogger versions didn't come out as they are two of my favorite arcade games.
Surprisingly I didn't know about these growing up. I would have been stolked! If only I could go back in time and hand myself a shareware floppy with these on it. Great video!
When are you gonna do the MAME episode?
Probably never, since it’s not as interesting as ways to play arcade games in the 90’s.
Fuck mame
Wow. I didn't even know these existed. And I live a few exits from where this guy was selling these games! I didn't even know of them on bbses in the region!
My very first PC actually came with Microsoft Arcade pre-installed, being my first exposure to quite a few games.
Another awesome video. Keep up the great work :)
I remember those quite fondly, very good ports, and I also remember in 97 running a few emulators, mostly NES or Genesis, as those ran fairly well in comparison to everything else, MAME was mostly broken, only extremely old titles ran well on a Pentium/K6 @ 233mhz. Though, console emulation was extremely at it's infancy at that time.
These look like great dos games! I wouldn't mind tracking them down!
Very good episode. I do remember thos games when I was playing them at my mothers house when I was young, She also has AOL lol man the Internet back then where AOL was King and now we have Google, Firefox, and others lol. -sighs- I'm getting old :(
Those are the games I grew up on that and sega, the good old days.
Reminds me of Deluxe Galaga for Amiga. Was basically a "Champ" version of Galaga for the Amiga, as you could imagine. Same programmer also made a Pacman clone called, you guessed it, Deluxe Pacman.
"Then I got MAME several years later, and my face melted into my keyboard, but that's another story for another day.."
I'll eagerly await that day, LGR.
may not have played the champ versions, but OH MAN i spent LITERAL HOURS playing centipede. so good! i miss that game! (im so old lmao)
Man, I had Champ Kong when I was a kid! It was actually really great (I think).
I'm glad I'm not the only kid who viewed Office Depot as my own personal arcade.
fond memories of going to the gateway store even though it was starting to become obsolete at my age.
I find it kinda intriguing that Pizza Worm got popular (well, popular enough that Clint has mentioned it a few times and done a review of it) since it's made by a Finnish guy in his bedroom in 94. It's not a bad game for what it is, a copy of Nibbles & Snake and other such game, but it did feature turning at any angle, which made it wonky but interesting.
This is awesome. Thanks for bringing these classics to light. I've been a Champ fan for a long time and they're all completely free now. He did a couple of games on the 2600 including the fantastic clone of Lady Bug. I actually have some early code on one of my computers with a 2600 ice hockey game he was working on but never released. I'm a big NHL fan so he wanted me to try it out :)
Maybe you could send it to LGR so he can check it out. :)
His Lady Bug and Conquest of Mars games are awesome indeed!
Lazy Game Reviews
Hi, first: one of your best videos ever. Champ was awesome. Well, at least for its time. You really feel, that he loved the originals and did not simply make primitive clones. Also many thanks for the info on the 2600 Lady Bug version by him. Didn't know until this post (i don't read every atari age thread). Keep up the great work. If you like champ, you might want to have a look at the remakes by Bob DeCrescenzo for the Atari 7800 in another video. You might also wanna take a look at Archon, Elite, Seven Cities of Gold or Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics in one of your reviews (if you are interested in suggestions).
Didn't Champ do a version of the arcade Mario Bros as well? Or maybe I'm thinking of another company that was doing similar ports. I don't recall. Either way, I did play a good bit of Pac-em back in the day. It's nice to see someone talk about the Champ releases.
Funnily enough Champ Pack-Em was the way I played the original Pac-Man as a kid. While I had played home console releases of Ms. Pac-Man, I'd never played the original before playing the Champ version on my brother's friend's computer.
I wish I could of got that sweet AOL advise from the L Geeeezy back in the day.
In my amiga days, PD games took a lot of my gaming time. Some of the most amazing asteroids,pacman,invaders,tetris clones ever, most of them for free.
I think this is the first time you've ever talked about something I have never even heard of.
My brother had two of these on a zip disk back in the day. :)
Still waiting on that MAME story Clint...
It seemed like every shareware compilation disc had a Champ game or two on it. (usually hidden away somewhere... I learned early on that the menu programs never listed every game on the disc for some reason)
Sadly, they never seemed to run for me, so it's great to see what the games actually looked like.
Amazing how the idea of paying for games sounded like such anathema to PC users then. Even though I wasn't a rich kid, I'd never been above renting/buying console titles back then.
:D - Playing catch-up (on your videos), as have been busy doing other things for a bit.
Cool and informative video, as ever.
this kind of fit into the history series you're doing too
I remember that intro and it was like WOW
I hope you get a chance to review the Hexen series or Marathon. So many great games back then and also that excited feeling playing some of the first 3D shooters. I started with playing California Rasins and still have my copy of Shadow Warrior.
A quick search? On AOL? In the 90's? More like a 25 minute search.
Astroid!!!! I remember playing that on our win3 computer when I was 7 or 8 =)
Clint sits in his room (or storage) and sings "... Look at my DOS, my dos is amazing... "
"I'm so glad I had AOL" Literally the first time this phrase has ever been uttered.
Clearly you didn't have AOL in the mid-90's :)
The Internet was the hottest thing in tech and AOL was the king of content and access. It was brilliant, believe it or not!
Lazy Game Reviews
My father had BTX/Datex-J, later called T-Online. We mainly used the SLIP mode, aka Internet connection, back then, tough. Was expensive as hell back then in Germany, somewhere around 12 Pfennig (around 6 Eurocent) per minute(!) and that only after 20 o clock.
I always envied the US folks with their flatrates, the holy grail called T1 and whatnot back in the 90s. :)
And what do i have now? A "T50" line for ~45 Euro per month. 50 MBit down, 10 up. ;)
Lazy Game Reviews Did you use other online services like Compuserve? You could do a video on those some time. I remember getting on MSN a lot. Speaking of Microsoft they also had the Zone game service that let you play IPX games over the internet..
I remember Champ Kong on AOL.
Haha, I used to have that gateway but it came with g-police and redline racer instead of police quest and need for speed. It was an amazing computer.
I have an old compilation CD from the early 90s called Fun Pack that has clones of pac man, asteroids, breakout, missile command, and 3 others. My favorite games were Blitzer and missile command(which was called Warhead). None of these had Champ mode though
When Gateway was on top of their game man I wanted one so damn bad but I could never afford it but I dreamed a lot picking out systems and parts lol.
Always lusted over them too, and I loved going into the Gateway Country stores and playing with them.
My childhood, man.
Would you consider making a quick review of Little Computer People?
As soon as I get a copy, you bet.
Lazy Game Reviews That's awesome. Thank you!
Wait, you had a Battletoads Arcade cabinet?
The arcade game was awesome!
I didn't mean it literally.
At least they did the best of a port from the original arcade games.
I was most familiar with Pac em and ms Pac em, but I love all of them
fair play to you LGN
i like your channel, dude
inspires me to do vids myself
Thanks!
Damn, a Gateway 2000 running Windows '95 was my first PC too.
pretty cool video!
Mouse control for Pac-Man? hahah :D
This is pretty cool though. Great episode.
man if these games came out in the past 10 years, they'd be slapped with DMCAs all day long.
I wonder if they would or not, seeing as how the practice of ripping off classic games is alive and well on mobile platforms (and Facebook, etc).
Love it!
I've never heard of CHAMP Programming until today when I was watching a video of Donkey Kong Remix for C64. It sucks they don't run in Windows 10.
Where do you get a fully working version of MAME for the PC?
Some great looking games for being arcade clones.