The channel 'Retro Game Mechanics Explained' just recently did an entire video about trying to reverse engineer the code of Yars' Revenge from the neutral zone effect! Worth a watch for anyone interested and technically minded!
Haha my friends and I discovered the easter egg very quickly, and were confused as hell by it. We called it 'The hishwish' and thought it led to a secret level or whole new game if we could trigger it properly somehow. ;-) Warshaw owes me for many MANY wasted hours chasing down the secret of the hishwish!
Next time, my childhood favorite 2600 game. Even post crash, it offered higher stakes than usual, and an actual power fantasy... But as a port of the arcade? It's difficult to defend, except on its own merits.
Excellent video. What more can be said about Yar's Revenge? Of course, the companion game is far more interesting to me because it is less talked about and CommaVid's creators are much harder to talk to than HSW. As we get deeper into 1982 there will be more mysterious games I find much more alluring and worthy of talking about, though I do love that you treat EVERY game as equally worthy (and that is why I love your channel so much.)
Yars' Revenge is so special. All of the Atari carts I had in my youth were missing any documentation but like you stated a bit of time with Yar you could figure it out.
Being born in the mid 80s and therefore not old enough to actually play my parents' Atari for several years, I always always thought "Yar" was Tasha Yar from TNG and her revenge was coming back from the dead 😅
Atari blue Logbook Challenge: Play game 6 with difficulty A. Pro (Honorable Scout): 100,000 Master (Yar Avenger): 230,000 Wizard (Yar General): 500,000 I think made Pro (the designation of the first level for all games in the green logbook) in the 1990s, but haven't made it to the next level. I accidentally hit the Easter Egg line last time I played, and because it ended the game it annoyed me so much I haven't been back. I think as kids we just played game 1 of many of these carts and played until we turned it over, instead of going for the hardest variation. This looks like the latest game in the 1982 blue logbook, and I don't think Atari released another one in 1983. I think they did have a set of challenges in one instruction manual, but didn't make it a regular thing like Activision did for its patch reward. It's interesting that this game was based on an arcade, since people thought it was original at the time. Of course, this channel taught me that a lot of Atari console games of the 1970s were based on arcade games, which means they were tested in the real world with quarters. Wikipedia lists this as one of 27 games for the Atari that sold more than 1 million copies. Looking at that printout, 13:17, I find it hard to believe that Football sold 1 million, as well as Bowling and others doing better than Missile Command (which is said to have sold 2.5 million), though the figures aren't there for 1978-1979 as well as not being there for 1981+.
Nice on! Enjoyed the intro with Star Castle, I'm going to try to find that via emulation. Yars was a clever game, very impressive for a debut. Not seen Cosmic Swarm before, will try that one as well, I like the graphics on the bugs!
Another excellent retrospective. In a way, I'm not surprised about Yar's having the critical reception it did on release. I feel it's one I got to appreciate more in modern times thanks to learning about those later game modes. As for Cosmic Swarm, I'd never come across that, and I can see how CommaVid's games can strike that interesting deal - I can't help but ponder what its reception would have been had it been released elsewhere. Probably because the single stick of the VCS kind of hampers the experience, at least based on watching the gameplay.
I was able to get Yars Revenge when my mom was buying a betamax for my dad and it was on sale and secretly my mom was playing on the atari after me and my sister would fall asleep
Criminally underrated channel that deserves 200k subscribers.
The channel 'Retro Game Mechanics Explained' just recently did an entire video about trying to reverse engineer the code of Yars' Revenge from the neutral zone effect! Worth a watch for anyone interested and technically minded!
Still play Yars' to this day...thanks for the nostalgia trip!
I think it's fascinating that the neutral zone is the code of the game itself.
Not enough of it to reconstruct the code from the graphics.
Great work as always and I can't wait for the Defender episode!
I was so intrigued by this game and its accompanying media. Great ep!
How serendipitous that both games should feature space bugs!
I do love Yars' Revenge.
Haha my friends and I discovered the easter egg very quickly, and were confused as hell by it. We called it 'The hishwish' and thought it led to a secret level or whole new game if we could trigger it properly somehow. ;-) Warshaw owes me for many MANY wasted hours chasing down the secret of the hishwish!
Next time, my childhood favorite 2600 game. Even post crash, it offered higher stakes than usual, and an actual power fantasy...
But as a port of the arcade? It's difficult to defend, except on its own merits.
Excellent video. What more can be said about Yar's Revenge? Of course, the companion game is far more interesting to me because it is less talked about and CommaVid's creators are much harder to talk to than HSW. As we get deeper into 1982 there will be more mysterious games I find much more alluring and worthy of talking about, though I do love that you treat EVERY game as equally worthy (and that is why I love your channel so much.)
Yars' Revenge is so special. All of the Atari carts I had in my youth were missing any documentation but like you stated a bit of time with Yar you could figure it out.
Being born in the mid 80s and therefore not old enough to actually play my parents' Atari for several years, I always always thought "Yar" was Tasha Yar from TNG and her revenge was coming back from the dead 😅
Atari blue Logbook Challenge: Play game 6 with difficulty A.
Pro (Honorable Scout): 100,000
Master (Yar Avenger): 230,000
Wizard (Yar General): 500,000
I think made Pro (the designation of the first level for all games in the green logbook) in the 1990s, but haven't made it to the next level. I accidentally hit the Easter Egg line last time I played, and because it ended the game it annoyed me so much I haven't been back. I think as kids we just played game 1 of many of these carts and played until we turned it over, instead of going for the hardest variation. This looks like the latest game in the 1982 blue logbook, and I don't think Atari released another one in 1983. I think they did have a set of challenges in one instruction manual, but didn't make it a regular thing like Activision did for its patch reward.
It's interesting that this game was based on an arcade, since people thought it was original at the time. Of course, this channel taught me that a lot of Atari console games of the 1970s were based on arcade games, which means they were tested in the real world with quarters. Wikipedia lists this as one of 27 games for the Atari that sold more than 1 million copies. Looking at that printout, 13:17, I find it hard to believe that Football sold 1 million, as well as Bowling and others doing better than Missile Command (which is said to have sold 2.5 million), though the figures aren't there for 1978-1979 as well as not being there for 1981+.
Terrific as always, nothing beats a new Atari Archive!!
Nice on! Enjoyed the intro with Star Castle, I'm going to try to find that via emulation. Yars was a clever game, very impressive for a debut. Not seen Cosmic Swarm before, will try that one as well, I like the graphics on the bugs!
Yar's Revenge is definitely a VCS classic and both games make this a good 69th episode. Looking forward to Defender next time.
What a noise Yar game makes
Another excellent retrospective. In a way, I'm not surprised about Yar's having the critical reception it did on release. I feel it's one I got to appreciate more in modern times thanks to learning about those later game modes.
As for Cosmic Swarm, I'd never come across that, and I can see how CommaVid's games can strike that interesting deal - I can't help but ponder what its reception would have been had it been released elsewhere. Probably because the single stick of the VCS kind of hampers the experience, at least based on watching the gameplay.
Amazing work, as always!
Nice
Great content! Subscribed!
This is great! I just got your first book. Any time line for the next?
Not yet, hoping to get some more clarity on that in the coming months, though!
I was able to get Yars Revenge when my mom was buying a betamax for my dad and it was on sale and secretly my mom was playing on the atari after me and my sister would fall asleep