Tank was the name of the original Atari arcade cabinet. When the game was being converted to the home version, the programmer added the air battle games & it was renamed to Combat, which was the pack-in game for the 2600. Quite a lot of people still referred to it as Tank because they were familiar with the arcade version.
Yes! I'll never forget the first time playing adventure. No clock. No score. Open world. Inventory. Items. A quest. A storyline. Wish they would've made 10 different RPG games like Adventure. And yes- I found the "secret room" in fifth grade! Someone on the playground told me how to do it; and I couldn't believe it when his advice worked.
same here! i was in 7th grade and someone told me you push the cursor, or character gainst a wall and it says "Created By Warren Robinette". Great times!! I love Adventure! I will play it tonight!
The Imagic games really knocked my socks off as a kid. Cosmic Ark, Atlantis, and Riddle of the Sphinx all sparked my imagination and impressed me technically.
Demon Attack was better than space invaders. I also really enjoyed River Raid 1 & 2, along with Chopper Command. I had a game where you would have to shoot a path through a ufo looking space ship that had a rotating disc with an empty slot that your bullets would have to pass through to blow it up. Does anyone know what this game was called?
Imagic also made its games for Intellivision, which is the system I had. For the time, Imagic games' graphics were great. I had Atlantis and Micro-Surgeon. Micro-Surgeon must have been inspired by the 1966 movie, Fantastic Voyage, as one pilots a surgical probe through a patient's body and zaps illnesses (including tapeworms!).
Imagic was awesome! Their greatest accomplishments were their Texas Instruments Home Computer ports. They pushed the limits with the superior hardware. Check out Super Demon Attack which was arcade level quality at the time. The unreleased Dragonfire is visually stunning. Fathom very impressive. Microsurgeon was the most technically superior game for the system with the multiple screens and zoom in view the other versions did not include. Makes me wonder what could have been. I believe Activision had the rights to some of their titles. Unfortunately many of them are no longer available. I would really like to see a collection released of all the Imagic games for the multiple systems they developed for.
TIMESTAMPS 0:01 INTRO 0:20 Adventure 1:16 Battlezone 2:06 BMX Air Master 2:57 Commando 3:44 Double Dragon 4:09 Escape from the Mind Master 5:25 F-14 Tomcat 6:14 Frogger 7:09 Ghostbusters 7:51 Hero 8:45 Ikari Warriors 9:38 Jungle Hunt 10:24 Kung Fu Master 11:19 Millipede 12:12 Montezuma's Revenge 13:10 Pete Rose Baseball 13:56 Phoenix 14:57 Pitfall II 16:27 Quadrun 16:56 River Raid II 17:43 Solaris 19:26 Space Invaders 20:19 Space Shuttle 21:22 Tapper 22:21 Tunnel Runner 22:56 Xenophobe 23:40 OUTRO 23:59 END Awesome video; many thanks for posting. Atari 2600 Pac-Man was the first video game I'd ever played on a home console back in the very early 80s, but Space Invaders (...the second game I'd ever played) is the game that made me a gamer... I still play it to this day on occasion (there's a cool rapid-fire trick, too! For anyone curious/interested... th-cam.com/video/piotWam68AY/w-d-xo.html). Cheers! \m/, (*o*) ,\m/
Excellent list. A large part of the 2600's appeal, even to this day, is seeing how far the technically limited capabilities of the original hardware can be pushed.
It’s crazy how much memory had to do with limitations. It would have been unaffordable to make an advanced cartridge with a megabyte of memory. Otherwise these games would have looked far better than you ever thought possible. Donkey Kong VCS is a great example of homebrew games you would have never seen back in the day.
@@AngryCalvin Something to mention: Limitations can lead to creativity. As an example, the book "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Suess came out due to a bet with the author. The challenge was to write a compelling story using 50 words or less. In the same way, the limitations of the 2600 lead to Programmers having to become more creative in a way that wouldn't have happened if there had been high capabilities.
I quite liked the 2600 port of KLAX. The idea of porting a Arcade game from 1990 to a console from 1977 is insane. Still plays well and the rotation effect on the blocks is well done.
Combat blew my mind. Blasting a tank so hard across the battlefield boundaries and have it appear on the opposite side of the TV screen was the most powerful thing I've seen on Atari 2600.
I have a weird joystick controller that causes the tank to go into turbo mode for some reason, doubling it's speed, and making the engine sound higher pitch....I have no idea why it does that, it's like as if the controller is literally hacking the rom somehow. 🤷🏼 It's the weirdest glitch on the Atari 2600 I have ever witnessed.
That was part of the thrill back then. These days, and even 25-30 years ago, you could do a search for "complete list of atari 2600 games" and that was that. Before the Internet era, you'd come across games you'd literally never knew existed before.
I didn't like the 2600 port. It controlled awful. That having been said, a trackball version, with the up and down reversed was available for a while, and was a much better experience
Space shuttle blew my mind. The first sim ever. Sorry Battle Zone fans. It was AWESOM. If I’ dknown 4:584:53 4 4:534:534:53 TOMCAT. Was out there I’d have been all over that!
@@GregsGameRoom yeah i notice that for alot of consoles later in its lifespan games got graphically better! Devs really figured out the ins and outs of the consoles full potential!
This is a good video. I grew up with the 2600 since the beginning. Many of these I’ve never seen. The Super Charger is completely new also. Very informative. Well done.
One game for the 2600 to mention is Ms. Pacman. Unlike the Pacman released for the 2600 (which was panned, although I think it would have fared better had it not been called Pacman), Ms. Pacman is virtually identical to the arcade version. The only difference is that it is a one-player game. Considering the limitations of the 2600, it is a reasonable change considering how much the 2600 version got right.
Just a point of correction. Escape From the Mind Master was not the pack-in game for the Starpath Supercharger. In fact, when the Supercharger was released, it was listed as a "Coming Soon" title for future release. PHASER PATROL came packaged with all Superchargers.
Adventure is a game i play all the time on an emulator. Something I didn't realizer until I was an adult was that the red dragon will actually chase the bat if the bat is holding the white key. I'm sure the other dragons would do this if they could keep up. He will only divert to kill you when he ends up in your screen. I find this quite hilarious.
Solaris blew my mind away the first time I saw it! I wonder how long it would take to beat it because you have to do it in one sitting. The game is huge!
Pitfall 2 was the mind blowing game... later to discover it had a special chip added to it to be as awesome as it it makes total sense as its above and beyond all other atari 2600 games for complexity of programming and all thats going on with it.
Great list. And they are games from the 80s, made with the tools from that time. 2600 is so unique because the hardware is super limited by at same time the lack of video memory let the software do all sort of tricks.
Thanks for taking the time to watch the video! Check these out too! Homebrews for Atari 2600 Episode 3!: th-cam.com/video/JDrxbgzC6Uw/w-d-xo.html Atari 2600+ Review: th-cam.com/video/VKUQiImtRws/w-d-xo.html 5 Minute History: The Atari 2600 th-cam.com/video/H8vaXOKJxKQ/w-d-xo.html
Correction to the Supercharger segment; Phaser Patrol was the game included with the Supercharger not Escape from the Mind Master which was a stand alone release, number 5 in the series.
Omega Race was a very good port worthy of mention here. It required a peripheral that slid over the joystick and daisy chained to the controller jack. It added a second button to fire your weapon. The joystick button was used for thrust to move the space ship.
I didn't know about that controller peripheral, interesting! I found a workaround by using a weird little rectangular controller that has a small joystick on one side, a paddle/dial on the other side, and a single button. It's a bit awkward to maneuver around, but it works.
11:43 You're talking about "racing the beam". The 2600 had no VRAM, so you had to draw all of the graphics as the cathode ray beam scanned across a single line. By moving the two sprites, the two "bullets", and the one "ball" around the screen during each scan line, you can fake the appearance of more sprites than the console actually supported. The ball was a square and the bullets were two rectangles half that height. Graphics like the mushrooms were drawn with either the ball or the bullets which is why they're so simple.
Close. The two missiles, the ball, and the sprites don't really have a 'height'. The missiles and ball are just a single 'dot', that can be stretch horizontally to some degree (NUSIZ/CTRLPF). Any 'height' they have is caused by showing the object at the same position across multiple scanlines. Sprites are just 8-bits wide, so you had to swap the graphics out on subsequent lines to draw anything interesting. This would be awful, except that the limits here are per scanline, unlike systems like the intellivision, where MOBs could only appear once per frame. There are also some neat tricks that let you reuse the same sprites on the same scanline, allowing for things like the famous 6-digit score routine.
@@GregsGameRoom Mine is hooked up to an old mp3 player. The only other game I had back then besides Phaser Patrol was Fireball...which was a super breakout clone.
The thing I love about late era games for most of these systems (even the NES) is that you can see what 6, 7 years of working with the console and figuring out the back to front tricks of it can achieve. The 2600 was designed as you say to play very simple games with simple abstract graphics. The NES's early titles are often just as rough looking, relatively speaking. But get to those late era games, and the programmers were performing miracles with this technology, because they'd gotten the handle on the ins and outs and how to do neat graphical tricks within the meager memory allowed.
IMO, Solaris and Pitfall 2 are the best games on the system and are must plays if you have any interest in the 2600. River Raid is up there, too. Wasn't that much of a fan of River Raid 2 because of the altitude. The one button controller and flat graphics on the Atari make it a difficult game to play. I'd suggest H.E.R.O. as well, but it costs a lot to play an official card, and the only other option is Activision Classics on the PS1 and Activision Anthology on the PS2.
The ColecoVision version of Montezuma's Revenge was the first game that really made me understand that the 2600 could be surpassed. I was blown away by it.
Starmaster, by Activision was pretty good! Demon Attack, by Imagic, was also pretty good! There were sooo many games made that i never checked out, that i might buy on ebay. I got out my 2600 for the first time in 20 years the other day, and am surprised it even turned on! Aside from a 2600, i also have an Atari 800, and a 130XE. I downloaded a gazillion games for the computer back in the day! i need to get out my 130XE and the floppy drive and load up some of the games and get lost for a few days, if the floppies are still in good shape. I also want to download an Atari 8-bit Windows based emulator for my PC.
I picked up a Starpath Supercharger on clearance back in the '84 crash along with Suicide Mission and Escape from the Mind Master. They both melted my brain that the humble 2600 was capable of games like this. A few years ago I played the home-brew version of Donkey Kong Arcade and practically soiled myself with shock. Other than not having slanted girders on the first level, the game was as close as it could ever be on the 2600. And the home-brew port of Star Castle, a game that was thought to be impossible on the 2600 (their approximation of the game style back in the day turned into Yar's Revenge) but some crazy programmer took on the challenge.
Battlezone was crap compared with Robot Tank by Activision. Everybody at the time knew this. Escape From The Mindmaster was NOT the pack-in Supercharger title. That honor went to Phaser Patrol. Before Phoenix was ported to the 2600 there was Demon Attack by Imagic, which was much better and it won several awards.
Dragonstomper and Phaser Patrol are my 2 mind blowing games for 2600. Both used a supercharger cassette but can be easily emulated or better yet get a Harmony Cartridge from atari age and use on original 2600 hardware. No lag with harmony cartridge and own every game ever made for free.
Honestly the fact that people are able to push the 2600 to it’s limits even in the home brew market is great Even so out of all of the Atari consoles, the 2600 is my personal favorite
Not surprised Solaris made the list. It's a masterclass of 2600 programming, and by one guy! Part of the reason it stands out is that Neubauer continued developing it on his own for years after the US video game market crash. Atari later picked it up for their 2600 relaunch lineup. Solaris could technically qualify as a "homebrew" game, as most of the development wasn't under a commercial contract. The level of refinement is more of what you'd see in such a passion project. Publisher games churned out back in the day didn't get that level of development work. It's also one of the few Atari published games that gave developer credits.
Solaris blew my mind as a kid. There are so many levels to that game and it's incredibly difficult to win. I think when I finally did beat it I used a VCR to record the event lol
Pitfall 2 is so much fun. I agree on all points. Finally got a re-release that has it, and it's much fun as it was back then. No love for Indians Jones? That was pretty mind-blowing for ny friends and I at the time.
I liked the list but was a lil disappointed Journey Escape didnt make it. If nothing else, the fact it actually played a real song that was on the radio at the time was amazing and correct me if i am wrong but it was the only game that had that.
Nice subject! I think you've covered most of the bases, too. I'd suggest Midnight Magic as another game that defies expectations on the 2600. The Atari 2600 Jr. ads used to show it in direct comparison to Video Pinball, and the gap in visual quality is immense.
Two games that always impressed me and are still fun are Starmaster and Mountain King. Starmaster was so unique in the way that you used the radar screen and had to manage so many systems, and yet it was still fun, intense, and accessible. Mountain King was a great platformer that blew my mind, once I figured out how to properly jump and what I was actually supposed to do.
My brothers and I loved Pitfall II, Space Invaders, and Armored Ambush. It's surprising that Keystone Cops didn't make this list I loved that one, but my all-time favorite is Lock'N'Chase.
Late stage 2600 games like Xenophobia, Double Dragon & Ikari Warriors are incredible frats of programming! It's also surprising anyone was bothering to put that kind of effort into a 2600 game at the time! The 7800 Master System & NES were out by the time of the 2600 Jr it's strange that there was enough of an audience for 2600 games at the time to justify such titles. So even if some are not that good I'm glad they exist to show what the 2600 could do!
For jungle hunt I think the green front foliage is just the background. Hence the low resolution. The other foliage is 2 sprites multiplied x3 = 6 The wines is the two missiles and ball repositioned every scanline. That is why you see one wine having the same colors as the player as those two objects share the same color
Solaris is definitely the most amazing game released during the 2600's lifespan. Obviously once you start considering homebrew, the story changes, but even then, Solaris would almost certainly remain the most amazing original IP. All of the truly mind blowing homebrew games are ports of arcade games. And as far as that goes, while there's a good half dozen solid contenders, my vote will forever go to Mappy. When you see that game in action, and simultaneously understand that the VCS has 5 sprites and was designed to last for 3 years on games like Tank and Pong, it's just astounding.
The amazing thing is that Jay Miner described in a documentary how they were forced to leave out many of the planned hardware assited features in order to keep the price of the system low. Their reasoning was that the system was powerful enough for those features to be realized through programming.
Strangely enough, I think the best games on the 2600 tended to come from third-party publishers. Activision itself was founded by a cadre of pissed-off Atari programmers who were sick of the low pay and lack of credit Atari was becoming notorious for. And Atari was certainly not above some really crappy business practices right up until the very end. They were to blame in large part for the 1983 crash.
Moon patrol was probably the first that blew my mind and of them all sword quest blew me away the most with the bright colors and variety of challenges. Honestly surprised you did not mention sword quest
I had a c64 but went round a neighbors house who was playing pitfall 2. Up into that point I pitied those Atari owners. But I was amazed by pitfall and was suddenly envious. It was awe inspiring the amount of depth and secrets that seemed to stream out of that game. It wasn’t until Mario on the NES that I had that feeling again.
I would add California Games & Secret Quest to the list. CG has impressive graphics, multiple game play styles & opening screen music. SQ is a space game that is clearly trying to be a Zelda clone. Imagine the dungeon levels from Zelda 1, on the 2600 in space & that's about it. Rather complex game mechanics on the 2600.
@@GregsGameRoom I couldn't get into SQ really either. It's technically impressive & a cool idea but the PS3 was out by the time I knew it existed. If I had it pre or slightly into the NES lifetime maybe I would have been drawn in. But for me today it's very ambitious it's too graphically simple to hold my attention.
4:12 this is some backrooms type of stuff, omg! And that other maze game later. 5:28 Admiral, we have found the nuclear wessel...and Admiral, it is the Enterprise. 😁 Moon Patrol was really good, I was amazed that an Atari game could have actual background music, and you could switch it on or off! Demon Attack, Phoenix, Star Raiders, Star Master, and of course Solaris especially blew my mind as far as how impressive they looked when I first played them. The layered background of Jungle Hunt impressed me as well. Vanguard was great too, Battlezone, Enduro, and Fatal Run. Also, a little known educational game called Word Zapper looks and sounds really good for a 2600 game. TagScan was pretty nifty as well, for a paddle controller game. I always tried to find the obscure and technically high quality games whenever shopping for Atari games at thrift stores back in the 1990s.
Great video and lineup of mind blowing games for the 2600. Solaris reminds me a bit of Mad Planets arcade. When you look at the first Pacman version that was dog crap (I know the programmer was rushed to make it), but these games show how much better it could have been.
superb games .I like your review it's close to the truth .I think maybe all the atari 2600 games are fun because of the simplicity which makes the player able to focus on the game play while enjoying colorful solid objects in the background it's neat and enjoyable .
Pitch perfect 2600 top game tech video. Best demo re how vastly far ahead the 2600 video chip hardware was when released in 1977. The only thing holding back the 2600 was Rom, ram limits, as demonstrated by the Supercharger, later 8K+ carts and much later homebrews. Given more rom, ram and perhaps other (sound, etc) chips as costs came down over the 80s, 90s, the 2600s games could have easily met or bested nes games, though post 92 the genesis and snes were tops in the us
The first game that blew my mind on the 2600 was Mountain King. It has some of the best music on the 2600 I've ever heard, and one of the first games with a "secret" area/world that you can access with a jump glitch.
It's called Combat* not tank
What was the original arcade game called?
@@GregsGameRoom it might have been
Tank was the name of the original Atari arcade cabinet. When the game was being converted to the home version, the programmer added the air battle games & it was renamed to Combat, which was the pack-in game for the 2600. Quite a lot of people still referred to it as Tank because they were familiar with the arcade version.
I remember that game as Armored Ambush.
"Tank" is listed as one of the games on the Combat cartridge.
Yes! I'll never forget the first time playing adventure. No clock. No score. Open world. Inventory. Items. A quest. A storyline. Wish they would've made 10 different RPG games like Adventure. And yes- I found the "secret room" in fifth grade! Someone on the playground told me how to do it; and I couldn't believe it when his advice worked.
same here! i was in 7th grade and someone told me you push the cursor, or character gainst a wall and it says "Created By Warren Robinette". Great times!! I love Adventure! I will play it tonight!
Awesome video, thanks for sharing your passion and enthusiasm Greg !
The Imagic games really knocked my socks off as a kid. Cosmic Ark, Atlantis, and Riddle of the Sphinx all sparked my imagination and impressed me technically.
Demon Attack was great too, and the treasures in Dragonfire looked so cool I wished I could actually reach into the screen and grab them irl.
Demon Attack was better than space invaders. I also really enjoyed River Raid 1 & 2, along with Chopper Command.
I had a game where you would have to shoot a path through a ufo looking space ship that had a rotating disc with an empty slot that your bullets would have to pass through to blow it up. Does anyone know what this game was called?
Megamania, too!
Imagic also made its games for Intellivision, which is the system I had. For the time, Imagic games' graphics were great. I had Atlantis and Micro-Surgeon. Micro-Surgeon must have been inspired by the 1966 movie, Fantastic Voyage, as one pilots a surgical probe through a patient's body and zaps illnesses (including tapeworms!).
Imagic was awesome! Their greatest accomplishments were their Texas Instruments Home Computer ports. They pushed the limits with the superior hardware. Check out Super Demon Attack which was arcade level quality at the time. The unreleased Dragonfire is visually stunning. Fathom very impressive. Microsurgeon was the most technically superior game for the system with the multiple screens and zoom in view the other versions did not include.
Makes me wonder what could have been. I believe Activision had the rights to some of their titles. Unfortunately many of them are no longer available. I would really like to see a collection released of all the Imagic games for the multiple systems they developed for.
TIMESTAMPS
0:01 INTRO
0:20 Adventure
1:16 Battlezone
2:06 BMX Air Master
2:57 Commando
3:44 Double Dragon
4:09 Escape from the Mind Master
5:25 F-14 Tomcat
6:14 Frogger
7:09 Ghostbusters
7:51 Hero
8:45 Ikari Warriors
9:38 Jungle Hunt
10:24 Kung Fu Master
11:19 Millipede
12:12 Montezuma's Revenge
13:10 Pete Rose Baseball
13:56 Phoenix
14:57 Pitfall II
16:27 Quadrun
16:56 River Raid II
17:43 Solaris
19:26 Space Invaders
20:19 Space Shuttle
21:22 Tapper
22:21 Tunnel Runner
22:56 Xenophobe
23:40 OUTRO
23:59 END
Awesome video; many thanks for posting. Atari 2600 Pac-Man was the first video game I'd ever played on a home console back in the very early 80s, but Space Invaders (...the second game I'd ever played) is the game that made me a gamer... I still play it to this day on occasion (there's a cool rapid-fire trick, too! For anyone curious/interested... th-cam.com/video/piotWam68AY/w-d-xo.html). Cheers!
\m/, (*o*) ,\m/
Thanks for providing the timestamps!
Excellent list. A large part of the 2600's appeal, even to this day, is seeing how far the technically limited capabilities of the original hardware can be pushed.
Some great games!
Yep,except he sounds too humoristic to me so i hardly could take hime serious whatever he says.
Well, Not too many home brews these days of that in reality. Silly stuff like galagon, dk arcade, robotron, and countless put an end to that!
It’s crazy how much memory had to do with limitations. It would have been unaffordable to make an advanced cartridge with a megabyte of memory. Otherwise these games would have looked far better than you ever thought possible. Donkey Kong VCS is a great example of homebrew games you would have never seen back in the day.
@@AngryCalvin Something to mention: Limitations can lead to creativity. As an example, the book "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Suess came out due to a bet with the author. The challenge was to write a compelling story using 50 words or less. In the same way, the limitations of the 2600 lead to Programmers having to become more creative in a way that wouldn't have happened if there had been high capabilities.
I quite liked the 2600 port of KLAX. The idea of porting a Arcade game from 1990 to a console from 1977 is insane. Still plays well and the rotation effect on the blocks is well done.
Love me some KLAX!
It is the twenties and there is time for KLAX!
First played it on the Lynx, but recently tracked down a cartridge to play on my 2600+.
@@GregsGameRoomyou forgot Patrol by imagic has scrolling
Adventure also had the pleasure of being the first game with an Easter egg.
Oh, how I loved Adventure! I played it for days...not sure why now lol! Such good memories, ty! 👍👍
The game I showed was odd, the dragons were out in force!
Original zelda
Combat blew my mind. Blasting a tank so hard across the battlefield boundaries and have it appear on the opposite side of the TV screen was the most powerful thing I've seen on Atari 2600.
Yeah the Combat glitches were hilarious!
I have a weird joystick controller that causes the tank to go into turbo mode for some reason, doubling it's speed, and making the engine sound higher pitch....I have no idea why it does that, it's like as if the controller is literally hacking the rom somehow. 🤷🏼 It's the weirdest glitch on the Atari 2600 I have ever witnessed.
Now that is one of a kind. A keeper for sure!@@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785
Very cool and surprising list! Thank you! ❤
Star Wars arcade for the 2600 was a mind blowing game , I never knew it existed and I found a copy of it at a yard sale , it is awesome.
That was part of the thrill back then. These days, and even 25-30 years ago, you could do a search for "complete list of atari 2600 games" and that was that. Before the Internet era, you'd come across games you'd literally never knew existed before.
I didn't like the 2600 port. It controlled awful.
That having been said, a trackball version, with the up and down reversed was available for a while, and was a much better experience
2600 was my first console in the early 80s, and Breakout was my favorite. Played that and Pac-Man aaaall the time.
Even the fact that Pitfall 2 had music was wild back then. Not many Atari games had any music.
Great selections! Love the pace too.
Thank you!
Space shuttle blew my mind. The first sim ever. Sorry Battle Zone fans. It was AWESOM. If I’ dknown 4:58 4:53 4 4:53 4:53 4:53 TOMCAT. Was out there I’d have been all over that!
Thanks greg! 1st time seeing alot of these games! Didnt know the 2600 can really pump out some graphical games under the right devs!
The later games were pretty amazing!
@@GregsGameRoom yeah i notice that for alot of consoles later in its lifespan games got graphically better! Devs really figured out the ins and outs of the consoles full potential!
This is a good video. I grew up with the 2600 since the beginning. Many of these I’ve never seen. The Super Charger is completely new also. Very informative. Well done.
One game for the 2600 to mention is Ms. Pacman. Unlike the Pacman released for the 2600 (which was panned, although I think it would have fared better had it not been called Pacman), Ms. Pacman is virtually identical to the arcade version. The only difference is that it is a one-player game. Considering the limitations of the 2600, it is a reasonable change considering how much the 2600 version got right.
dude, what a great video. thanks.
70's gear ... tends to be hard to program. I'll stick with 80's hardware. Really cool and mind-blowing video!
Just a point of correction. Escape From the Mind Master was not the pack-in game for the Starpath Supercharger. In fact, when the Supercharger was released, it was listed as a "Coming Soon" title for future release.
PHASER PATROL came packaged with all Superchargers.
What has always impressed me about the VCS is the use of color. Absolutely incredible. Thanks for the video. ❤❤❤❤
Adventure is a game i play all the time on an emulator. Something I didn't realizer until I was an adult was that the red dragon will actually chase the bat if the bat is holding the white key. I'm sure the other dragons would do this if they could keep up. He will only divert to kill you when he ends up in your screen. I find this quite hilarious.
Keep up the good work greg! U deserve more subs! Love your content!
I appreciate that!
Armor ambush is definitely a top 2600 game. Ice hockey is also great fun
Solaris blew my mind away the first time I saw it! I wonder how long it would take to beat it because you have to do it in one sitting. The game is huge!
Pitfall 2 was the mind blowing game... later to discover it had a special chip added to it to be as awesome as it it makes total sense as its above and beyond all other atari 2600 games for complexity of programming and all thats going on with it.
The Adventure Bat... The first Video game TROLL? haha
Nice video! I love that you included my most favorite version of Frogger!
I still frequently play, and am STILL impressed by Tunnel Runner. It was a favorite of mine in the 80's. A favorite of mine today.
I love videos like this! Nice work, Greg! It’s cool to see developers pushing the hardware to its limits.
Thanks man! What a herculean effort by the developers to make these games!
Phoenix was one of my favorite games in the arcade. just loved it
Loved Phoenix. Felt like Demon Attack (by Imagix) got all the glory on the 2600, but Phoenix was the better game.
@@semperconstance I think that demon attack did an amazing job on Atari, and the Intellivision version was much more like Phoenix.
Mindblowing. These graphics are good, but you should see some of the stuff they've done with Unreal Engine 5.
Great list. And they are games from the 80s, made with the tools from that time. 2600 is so unique because the hardware is super limited by at same time the lack of video memory let the software do all sort of tricks.
Yeah wanted to make it about the original games using the original tools.
Thanks for taking the time to watch the video! Check these out too!
Homebrews for Atari 2600 Episode 3!: th-cam.com/video/JDrxbgzC6Uw/w-d-xo.html
Atari 2600+ Review: th-cam.com/video/VKUQiImtRws/w-d-xo.html
5 Minute History: The Atari 2600 th-cam.com/video/H8vaXOKJxKQ/w-d-xo.html
13:56 14:02 14:37
Excellent list. I would have included the first Pitfall as well 1982 along with Radar Lock 1989...
Great video, Greg!
Thanks!
Good selecetion. I'd include Pac Man Jr. in a favourites list. It's a nice conversion of the arcade and has big vertically scrolling mazes.
Oh, Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was a real dud.
Nailed it dude.
Thanks!
I had no idea the 2600 was capable of this. Impressive.
let's not forget that Adventure had what was probably the first Easter egg.
Always underrated: Vanguard
Thank you for bringing me back to my childhood, Greg. 🥲
Pitfall II was my favorite.
Correction to the Supercharger segment; Phaser Patrol was the game included with the Supercharger not Escape from the Mind Master which was a stand alone release, number 5 in the series.
Noted!
Space Invaders was a system seller. Most people didn't give half a shit about the 2600 prior to its release.
100% - Space Invaders put the 2600 on the map.
Omega Race was a very good port worthy of mention here. It required a peripheral that slid over the joystick and daisy chained to the controller jack. It added a second button to fire your weapon. The joystick button was used for thrust to move the space ship.
Never know, I might cover it for "Mind Blowing 2600 Games Part 2."
I didn't know about that controller peripheral, interesting! I found a workaround by using a weird little rectangular controller that has a small joystick on one side, a paddle/dial on the other side, and a single button. It's a bit awkward to maneuver around, but it works.
11:43 You're talking about "racing the beam". The 2600 had no VRAM, so you had to draw all of the graphics as the cathode ray beam scanned across a single line. By moving the two sprites, the two "bullets", and the one "ball" around the screen during each scan line, you can fake the appearance of more sprites than the console actually supported. The ball was a square and the bullets were two rectangles half that height. Graphics like the mushrooms were drawn with either the ball or the bullets which is why they're so simple.
Close. The two missiles, the ball, and the sprites don't really have a 'height'. The missiles and ball are just a single 'dot', that can be stretch horizontally to some degree (NUSIZ/CTRLPF). Any 'height' they have is caused by showing the object at the same position across multiple scanlines. Sprites are just 8-bits wide, so you had to swap the graphics out on subsequent lines to draw anything interesting. This would be awful, except that the limits here are per scanline, unlike systems like the intellivision, where MOBs could only appear once per frame. There are also some neat tricks that let you reuse the same sprites on the same scanline, allowing for things like the famous 6-digit score routine.
For me , Solaris.😊
I bought a SuperCharger back in the day and it came with Phaser Patrol...which I loved.
I tried playing the games off of a CD when I got mine.
@@GregsGameRoom Mine is hooked up to an old mp3 player. The only other game I had back then besides Phaser Patrol was Fireball...which was a super breakout clone.
River Raid was my favorite.
What amazes me with Tapper is that the “clients” have all different colors (3) I don’t know how it’s done?
I remember buying Solaris new and been blown away by the gameplay. Definitely my favourite Atari 2600 game
The thing I love about late era games for most of these systems (even the NES) is that you can see what 6, 7 years of working with the console and figuring out the back to front tricks of it can achieve. The 2600 was designed as you say to play very simple games with simple abstract graphics. The NES's early titles are often just as rough looking, relatively speaking. But get to those late era games, and the programmers were performing miracles with this technology, because they'd gotten the handle on the ins and outs and how to do neat graphical tricks within the meager memory allowed.
Turmoil, and Barnstorming
I played so much Space Shuttle. It was incredibly immersive.
The slower pace of the game made it feel more realistic.
Great list! My 7 yo boy love to play Atari games with me.
IMO, Solaris and Pitfall 2 are the best games on the system and are must plays if you have any interest in the 2600. River Raid is up there, too. Wasn't that much of a fan of River Raid 2 because of the altitude. The one button controller and flat graphics on the Atari make it a difficult game to play. I'd suggest H.E.R.O. as well, but it costs a lot to play an official card, and the only other option is Activision Classics on the PS1 and Activision Anthology on the PS2.
Montezuma's Revenge on C-64 was so awesome, and I still love it to this day. I'll check out the Atari 2600 port too.
The ColecoVision version of Montezuma's Revenge was the first game that really made me understand that the 2600 could be surpassed. I was blown away by it.
Excellent video had fun watching it and it brought me back to the days. I grabbed my Atari and started playing thanks
What a good compilation. Instant subscribed to this channel!
Starmaster, by Activision was pretty good! Demon Attack, by Imagic, was also pretty good! There were sooo many games made that i never checked out, that i might buy on ebay. I got out my 2600 for the first time in 20 years the other day, and am surprised it even turned on! Aside from a 2600, i also have an Atari 800, and a 130XE. I downloaded a gazillion games for the computer back in the day! i need to get out my 130XE and the floppy drive and load up some of the games and get lost for a few days, if the floppies are still in good shape. I also want to download an Atari 8-bit Windows based emulator for my PC.
I picked up a Starpath Supercharger on clearance back in the '84 crash along with Suicide Mission and Escape from the Mind Master. They both melted my brain that the humble 2600 was capable of games like this. A few years ago I played the home-brew version of Donkey Kong Arcade and practically soiled myself with shock. Other than not having slanted girders on the first level, the game was as close as it could ever be on the 2600. And the home-brew port of Star Castle, a game that was thought to be impossible on the 2600 (their approximation of the game style back in the day turned into Yar's Revenge) but some crazy programmer took on the challenge.
Supercharger was a brilliant idea. Kinda like a 32x but with cassette tapes.
Battlezone was crap compared with Robot Tank by Activision. Everybody at the time knew this.
Escape From The Mindmaster was NOT the pack-in Supercharger title. That honor went to Phaser Patrol.
Before Phoenix was ported to the 2600 there was Demon Attack by Imagic, which was much better and it won several awards.
15:25 I have to try Pitfall II
Dragonstomper and Phaser Patrol are my 2 mind blowing games for 2600. Both used a supercharger cassette but can be easily emulated or better yet get a Harmony Cartridge from atari age and use on original 2600 hardware. No lag with harmony cartridge and own every game ever made for free.
Honestly the fact that people are able to push the 2600 to it’s limits even in the home brew market is great
Even so out of all of the Atari consoles, the 2600 is my personal favorite
Some amazing homebrews too!
These are all (or mostly) original releases. Home-Brews are lame and usually copy older games
@@pinebarrenpatriot8289there are some great home brews… but then you have the frauds like… donkey Kong, galagon, Robotron and so many others.
Ikari Warriors, Ikari means Fury in Japanese. Great list!
Not surprised Solaris made the list. It's a masterclass of 2600 programming, and by one guy! Part of the reason it stands out is that Neubauer continued developing it on his own for years after the US video game market crash. Atari later picked it up for their 2600 relaunch lineup.
Solaris could technically qualify as a "homebrew" game, as most of the development wasn't under a commercial contract. The level of refinement is more of what you'd see in such a passion project. Publisher games churned out back in the day didn't get that level of development work. It's also one of the few Atari published games that gave developer credits.
Solaris blew my mind as a kid. There are so many levels to that game and it's incredibly difficult to win. I think when I finally did beat it I used a VCR to record the event lol
@@WinterInTheForest Same here. Never won though... I could never get through the final waves of Cobra fighters. They're relentless and brutal.
My parents got me the Journey game, as in the band Journey.
Pitfall 2 is so much fun. I agree on all points. Finally got a re-release that has it, and it's much fun as it was back then.
No love for Indians Jones? That was pretty mind-blowing for ny friends and I at the time.
I liked the list but was a lil disappointed Journey Escape didnt make it. If nothing else, the fact it actually played a real song that was on the radio at the time was amazing and correct me if i am wrong but it was the only game that had that.
Nice subject! I think you've covered most of the bases, too. I'd suggest Midnight Magic as another game that defies expectations on the 2600. The Atari 2600 Jr. ads used to show it in direct comparison to Video Pinball, and the gap in visual quality is immense.
Comparing the early games to the newer ones sounds like an interesting premise for a video.
Two games that always impressed me and are still fun are Starmaster and Mountain King. Starmaster was so unique in the way that you used the radar screen and had to manage so many systems, and yet it was still fun, intense, and accessible. Mountain King was a great platformer that blew my mind, once I figured out how to properly jump and what I was actually supposed to do.
My brothers and I loved Pitfall II, Space Invaders, and Armored Ambush. It's surprising that Keystone Cops didn't make this list I loved that one, but my all-time favorite is Lock'N'Chase.
Solaris definitely is a masterpiece. One of my picks is Stargate.
Absolutely! Nothing can touch Solaris!
One more thing of tunnel runner . The sound as you move through. Louder when closer adds to the environment. Great game
Late stage 2600 games like Xenophobia, Double Dragon & Ikari Warriors are incredible frats of programming! It's also surprising anyone was bothering to put that kind of effort into a 2600 game at the time! The 7800 Master System & NES were out by the time of the 2600 Jr it's strange that there was enough of an audience for 2600 games at the time to justify such titles. So even if some are not that good I'm glad they exist to show what the 2600 could do!
Had to make the games somewhat interesting since Nintendo was already out.
@@GregsGameRoom truth! But still surprising they had enough of a buyer base left to justify the effort
For jungle hunt I think the green front foliage is just the background. Hence the low resolution. The other foliage is 2 sprites multiplied x3 = 6
The wines is the two missiles and ball repositioned every scanline. That is why you see one wine having the same colors as the player as those two objects share the same color
Solaris is definitely the most amazing game released during the 2600's lifespan. Obviously once you start considering homebrew, the story changes, but even then, Solaris would almost certainly remain the most amazing original IP. All of the truly mind blowing homebrew games are ports of arcade games. And as far as that goes, while there's a good half dozen solid contenders, my vote will forever go to Mappy. When you see that game in action, and simultaneously understand that the VCS has 5 sprites and was designed to last for 3 years on games like Tank and Pong, it's just astounding.
There’s really nothing that comes close to Solaris. It’s freaking amazing.
Great video
Pitfall 2 and Indiana Jones
I remember playing some of these games when I was a kid!
I'm not sure why you are impressed with the scrolling in Ikari Warriors. River Raid had endless scrolling seven years earlier.
Since the 2600 isn’t tile based like the NES Ikari is pretty cool for having non-procedurally generated objects like houses, walls, trees, etc.
The amazing thing is that Jay Miner described in a documentary how they were forced to leave out many of the planned hardware assited features in order to keep the price of the system low. Their reasoning was that the system was powerful enough for those features to be realized through programming.
Strangely enough, I think the best games on the 2600 tended to come from third-party publishers. Activision itself was founded by a cadre of pissed-off Atari programmers who were sick of the low pay and lack of credit Atari was becoming notorious for. And Atari was certainly not above some really crappy business practices right up until the very end. They were to blame in large part for the 1983 crash.
Moon patrol was probably the first that blew my mind and of them all sword quest blew me away the most with the bright colors and variety of challenges. Honestly surprised you did not mention sword quest
I loved Jungle Hunt and the Pitfalls!
I had a c64 but went round a neighbors house who was playing pitfall 2. Up into that point I pitied those Atari owners. But I was amazed by pitfall and was suddenly envious. It was awe inspiring the amount of depth and secrets that seemed to stream out of that game. It wasn’t until Mario on the NES that I had that feeling again.
I would add California Games & Secret Quest to the list. CG has impressive graphics, multiple game play styles & opening screen music.
SQ is a space game that is clearly trying to be a Zelda clone. Imagine the dungeon levels from Zelda 1, on the 2600 in space & that's about it. Rather complex game mechanics on the 2600.
Was never a fan of SQ. But California Games is awesome!
@@GregsGameRoom I couldn't get into SQ really either. It's technically impressive & a cool idea but the PS3 was out by the time I knew it existed. If I had it pre or slightly into the NES lifetime maybe I would have been drawn in. But for me today it's very ambitious it's too graphically simple to hold my attention.
4:12 this is some backrooms type of stuff, omg! And that other maze game later.
5:28 Admiral, we have found the nuclear wessel...and Admiral, it is the Enterprise. 😁
Moon Patrol was really good, I was amazed that an Atari game could have actual background music, and you could switch it on or off!
Demon Attack, Phoenix, Star Raiders, Star Master, and of course Solaris especially blew my mind as far as how impressive they looked when I first played them. The layered background of Jungle Hunt impressed me as well. Vanguard was great too, Battlezone, Enduro, and Fatal Run. Also, a little known educational game called Word Zapper looks and sounds really good for a 2600 game. TagScan was pretty nifty as well, for a paddle controller game. I always tried to find the obscure and technically high quality games whenever shopping for Atari games at thrift stores back in the 1990s.
Great video and lineup of mind blowing games for the 2600. Solaris reminds me a bit of Mad Planets arcade. When you look at the first Pacman version that was dog crap (I know the programmer was rushed to make it), but these games show how much better it could have been.
Great video thank you
Millipede is amazing
Great video. I've got a atari classic gold and one game yhat is addictive is save mary. Simple but fun.
Adventure: "The chalice with the palace holds the brew that is true."
Back then, all of them. My little mind had just played pong consoles back then so just the ability to plug and unplug other games was enough at first.
superb games .I like your review it's close to the truth .I think maybe all the atari 2600 games are fun because of the simplicity which makes the player able to focus on the game play while enjoying colorful solid objects in the background it's neat and enjoyable .
Pitch perfect 2600 top game tech video.
Best demo re how vastly far ahead the 2600 video chip hardware was when released in 1977.
The only thing holding back the 2600 was Rom, ram limits, as demonstrated by the Supercharger, later 8K+ carts and much later homebrews.
Given more rom, ram and perhaps other (sound, etc) chips as costs came down over the 80s, 90s, the 2600s games could have easily met or bested nes games, though post 92 the genesis and snes were tops in the us
great video
The first game that blew my mind on the 2600 was Mountain King. It has some of the best music on the 2600 I've ever heard, and one of the first games with a "secret" area/world that you can access with a jump glitch.