This is one of my all-time favorite 2600 games. Top five for me. I love how well polished it is. Imagic made many versions of Demon Attack for various gaming and computer systems. My very favorite version is for the Commodore VIC-20, which is almost identical to the 2600 version except the upper aliens will move down and start firing if they are the last survivors of a wave.
3:25 when I played this game in the 7800 console, it did not have a kill screen, it relooped, but in the 2600 console it kill screened, it's crazy that I'm not the one who knew of stage 84, after every 7th stage the color patterns would reloop, 6 pairs of "demons" 12 different sounds of an enemy getting hit, 3 pairs shooting pellets, 3 shooting double lasers, per se, this is what I was doing with my life in 5th grade 1987-88!
Sorry it took me so long to comment, especially since I've asked several times in the past for you to review this game. It's one of my all-time favorites on the Atari. But, I've just gotten out of the hospital, and I'm recovering from surgery. Thanks for reviewing it and I'm glad it made it into the top ten, even if I'd rank it a bit higher myself.
It sold over 2 million copies making it one of the top twelve 2600 carts. It certainly had great advertising and people did love it. I preferred Phoenix which I first played at the arcade, but it looks like the 2600 version didn't sell even 1 million. Someone suggested the lawsuit was really over the Intellivision version which had a boss screen like Phoenix! But if the lawsuit was because of the 2600 version, one wonders how much money they really made on this game after that?
This is another game that I really dug back in the day. Never owned it personally, but had friends who did and played at their houses and sometime bring it over and play on my system. I never really understood how different game companies could get away with suing over copyright infringement with the entire genre Space Invaders genre being what it is... ... well Gorf legitimately crossed the line with it's enemy designs... but gameplay wise ?....
The math geek in me loved the cycling color pattern of the creatures. In particular, the first of each pair in Round 4 looked like the second of each pair in Round 1. The prepubescent kid in me thought that with one of the color cycles, the small creatures in the last part of a round looked like boobies.
Imho the best shooter on the system and indeed one of the overall best games on the 2600. I absolutely love this game. The only issue of it is, that after several rounds the difficulty doesn't increase anymore and you gather extra lives faster than you loose them, so that it's pretty easy to play forever. Obviously I never played it forever, but long enough to see the score overflow and rotate back to 0 (takes just a few hours). So if there is not some Pac-Man Arcade-like kill screen somewhere further down the road you can indeed play it for all eternity (and the game difficulty allows for this too).
Huge fan of this game for the 2600. I also have the Intellivision version of Demon Attack which graphically beats the stuffing out of the 2600 version. It also has an end boss that will really remind you of Phoenix. Sadly, the controls on the Intellivision version hurts it for me. Using one of the side buttons to fire while guiding movement with that infernal disc makes the game hard to play.
The Intellivision controller were probably the worst controllers out there, worse than the 5200 and the Coleco controllers. This controller design simply sucks. Don't know what they were thinking and why seemingly never anyone bothered test playing with them prior to release. With Colecovision you at least had the option to substitute one controller with a competition pro and use the key pad on the second coleco controller for selecting the game, so that this was not really and issue.
I suspect it was because of the Magnavox Odyssey 2 and it's keyboard. Atari developed the keyboard controllers as a response to the Odyssey 2's ability to use the keyboard with sports games as well as more specialized control schemes (like one of the games on the O2 pack-in title, Crypto-Logic. Mattel was going to have a keyboard with their Intellivision, but since it was planned to be an optional device Mattel still wanted more functionality so they came up with that...unfortunate controller, probably so people could still use games that may otherwise have required the keyboard. And worse, the Atari 5200 would follow suit with the numeric keypad. But I agree; I would rather use the 5200 keypad than the Intellivision. And if Atari had went with the designers' plan for that controller, it would have been much more durable (though I would still have preferred the controller to be self-centering.
Never though of it, but this sounds quite reasonable. What I don't get is that nobody at Mattel recognized how unusable these controllers were. I mean a single 45 min match of NASL Soccer and you can get yourself a new pair of hands. Someone at Mattel must have played the console at least once before it was sold to customers. Right ? It's somewhat unique that imho Intellivision games are best experienced on the PS2 via Intellivision lives with a PS2 controller, rather than on the original hardware, just because of the controller.
Demon Attack was probably my favourite 2600 game. Thanks for the video
This is my #1 favorite Atari 2600 game!
This is one of my all-time favorite 2600 games. Top five for me. I love how well polished it is.
Imagic made many versions of Demon Attack for various gaming and computer systems. My very favorite version is for the Commodore VIC-20, which is almost identical to the 2600 version except the upper aliens will move down and start firing if they are the last survivors of a wave.
A clear Top 10 game for the 2600. Probably the console's best shooter.
Absolutely agree
Phoenix >= Demon Attack
3:25 when I played this game in the 7800 console, it did not have a kill screen, it relooped, but in the 2600 console it kill screened, it's crazy that I'm not the one who knew of stage 84, after every 7th stage the color patterns would reloop, 6 pairs of "demons" 12 different sounds of an enemy getting hit, 3 pairs shooting pellets, 3 shooting double lasers, per se, this is what I was doing with my life in 5th grade 1987-88!
This was my favorite game for the Atari 2600. Even after I got my ColecoVision, I still played Demon Attack with the ColecoVision 2600 add-on console.
Greatest game cover of all time!
You bet, I wanna get this game now just for the cover.
Absolutely.
The entirety of the box was awesome. The art, the shiny silver with orange/red stripes...and the slide out plastic tray.
I clicked like before even watching. The combination of 2600, Demon Attack, and this channel guarantees a like. :)
This was one of my favorite carts back in the day.
Sorry it took me so long to comment, especially since I've asked several times in the past for you to review this game. It's one of my all-time favorites on the Atari. But, I've just gotten out of the hospital, and I'm recovering from surgery. Thanks for reviewing it and I'm glad it made it into the top ten, even if I'd rank it a bit higher myself.
loved playing this for hours back in the day
It sold over 2 million copies making it one of the top twelve 2600 carts. It certainly had great advertising and people did love it. I preferred Phoenix which I first played at the arcade, but it looks like the 2600 version didn't sell even 1 million. Someone suggested the lawsuit was really over the Intellivision version which had a boss screen like Phoenix! But if the lawsuit was because of the 2600 version, one wonders how much money they really made on this game after that?
Also a major fan of this game!
This is another game that I really dug back in the day. Never owned it personally, but had friends who did and played at their houses and sometime bring it over and play on my system. I never really understood how different game companies could get away with suing over copyright infringement with the entire genre Space Invaders genre being what it is...
... well Gorf legitimately crossed the line with it's enemy designs... but gameplay wise ?....
The math geek in me loved the cycling color pattern of the creatures. In particular, the first of each pair in Round 4 looked like the second of each pair in Round 1.
The prepubescent kid in me thought that with one of the color cycles, the small creatures in the last part of a round looked like boobies.
Baby tie fighter!! The force is strong with this game.
Imho the best shooter on the system and indeed one of the overall best games on the 2600. I absolutely love this game. The only issue of it is, that after several rounds the difficulty doesn't increase anymore and you gather extra lives faster than you loose them, so that it's pretty easy to play forever. Obviously I never played it forever, but long enough to see the score overflow and rotate back to 0 (takes just a few hours). So if there is not some Pac-Man Arcade-like kill screen somewhere further down the road you can indeed play it for all eternity (and the game difficulty allows for this too).
I always liked Demon Attack for the 2600. The version for the Atari 8-bit computer is almost identical.
I just wish it were paddle-based and that's the main reason I give Tac-Scan a slight edge over it. Very good game though.
Great game and great graphics... but I think the background could use a bit more .. like some stars and stuff :)
Huge fan of this game for the 2600. I also have the Intellivision version of Demon Attack which graphically beats the stuffing out of the 2600 version. It also has an end boss that will really remind you of Phoenix. Sadly, the controls on the Intellivision version hurts it for me. Using one of the side buttons to fire while guiding movement with that infernal disc makes the game hard to play.
The Intellivision controller were probably the worst controllers out there, worse than the 5200 and the Coleco controllers. This controller design simply sucks. Don't know what they were thinking and why seemingly never anyone bothered test playing with them prior to release.
With Colecovision you at least had the option to substitute one controller with a competition pro and use the key pad on the second coleco controller for selecting the game, so that this was not really and issue.
I suspect it was because of the Magnavox Odyssey 2 and it's keyboard. Atari developed the keyboard controllers as a response to the Odyssey 2's ability to use the keyboard with sports games as well as more specialized control schemes (like one of the games on the O2 pack-in title, Crypto-Logic.
Mattel was going to have a keyboard with their Intellivision, but since it was planned to be an optional device Mattel still wanted more functionality so they came up with that...unfortunate controller, probably so people could still use games that may otherwise have required the keyboard. And worse, the Atari 5200 would follow suit with the numeric keypad.
But I agree; I would rather use the 5200 keypad than the Intellivision. And if Atari had went with the designers' plan for that controller, it would have been much more durable (though I would still have preferred the controller to be self-centering.
Never though of it, but this sounds quite reasonable.
What I don't get is that nobody at Mattel recognized how unusable these controllers were. I mean a single 45 min match of NASL Soccer and you can get yourself a new pair of hands. Someone at Mattel must have played the console at least once before it was sold to customers. Right ?
It's somewhat unique that imho Intellivision games are best experienced on the PS2 via Intellivision lives with a PS2 controller, rather than on the original hardware, just because of the controller.
Oh yeah...I have that collection for the PS2 (as well as the one for the Nintendo DS). Much easier on my hands, too.
100% spot on bud!!!! This is such an amazing game.
I always wondered why they called it "Demon" Attack since the story makes it sound like a generic alien invasion story. I guess demon sounds cooler.
Good point... Perhaps they were worried about the amount of space games out there!
It's good. Bit tough though
There is no music in this lame game. Boring only 1 board crappy graphics. Intellivision version WAY BETTER.