You can see my top 10 Atari 8-bit Arcade games video here: th-cam.com/video/Fg1zOvO_5gk/w-d-xo.html I also have a new series with the wife and son where we compare popular Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 8-bit titles to see which one is better. The first episode of that is at: th-cam.com/video/P4h81tnjXec/w-d-xo.html
ARCHON would be awesome if someone made a NEW modern 2023 version using RTX 4080 3D graphics , with online multi player... Play the 2D gameboard against the pc or other humans, and then drop into 3D view - looking like skyrim or witcher - for the 1-on-1 fights. The zoom in 1-on-1 would have variable land, hills, woods, rocks, even different planet surfaces, following the 'light' and 'dark' cycles.
Need some honorable mentions that dont fit in top 10! Drol, Alternate Reality, Conan, Boulder Dash, Pooyan, Ultima 2, Necromancer, Pharahos Curse, Lost Tomb, Archon 2, Monster Maker.
What about Jet Boot Jack, Eidolon, Rescue on Fractalus, H.E.R.O, Captain Beeble or Starfighter? But yea, Archon was imo one of the few best games for 800 - also Archon 2 and M.U.L.E. edit - wrote this at #2, didn't expected MULE to be n1.
Even with the date gap I still found the Atari 800 the better machine. 256 colors, 4 channel sound, famous near perfect arcade games, faster tape drive, faster disk drive, better BASIC and NO GIANT BORDER like the C64.
@@MagicRoosterBluesBand Better still: Color indirection, true bitmap and character graphics modes with a wider variety of color and resolution combinations, 1.89 MHz vs. 1 MHz on the C64. No one really did a proper comparison of the speed, but it's obvious in computation-heavy games like Rescue on Fractalus. What it REALLY means is that the Atari 8-bits (from the 400 on), were almost TWICE the CPU speed of the C64. This was due to the slower RAM used in the C64, which also affected the overall responsiveness of the machine. . The C64 was better at character-based graphics, and it was timely for them too. With most processors limited to 64K at a time back then, most arcade video games turned to character graphics to save memory while providing bigger gameplay areas (think, Super Mario Brothers, or any shooter from 1986 on). But you know what the C64 was best at? Documentation. . Proper documentation for the Atari 8-bits didn't come until 82 or so, in fact, Atari did their best to hide the hardware internals of their machines until they realized that software is kinda important. Even when the docs did arrive, they were by 3rd parties. Commodore was SMARTER than they knew. Since the PET, they provided documentation with their computers. This included memory maps, full explanations of their graphics and sound, etc. The VIC-20 gave Linus Torvalds (the inventor of Linux) his first programming experience, and plenty more learned how to code on the C64. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. . EVERY company made mistakes back then. Home computers were a new thing, after all. But some companies never recovered...
It's a very good point. When I was an 8 year old in the UK, the Atari 800XL was almost a third of the price of the Commodore 64 and only slightly more expensive than the ZX Spectrum with included tape deck and 5 games.
Thanks for the video. I had an Atari 800XL back in the day. I remember some of these games like Montezuma's Revenge, Archon, and Bruce Lee. Never saw that Alley Cat game but it looked like a lot of wacky fun.
Agreed. Star Raiders was the raison d'etre, THE reason to buy an Atari at the time. It wouldn't be until 'Elite' came out in 1984, that we'd see something come close to that masterpiece. Amazing that it ran in 16K! Stayed on Electronic Games magazine's top games list until their demise in 1984.
i couldn’t say how long ago i watched this channel but it’s nearing 6-7 years at least. I want to say thank you for creating your minecraft survival and the killing floor playthroughs later after this. it’s absolutely amazing to see that you guys still make content and i wish you luck in the future. You had a positive and lasting effect my early teens (now 17) and i hope all of the guys from the old crew have a brilliant new year and christmas !!!
Bought an 800XL a couple years ago, modded an S-Video output to it (one lead) and bought an SD-card thingy from Lothar. Also modded it's speed by removing 2 capacitors (or resistors, can't remember which). Works a treat! Lovely machine!
@@TheTechDungeon True, Space Harrier comes to mind. Also, on right hands, the soundchip can produce amazing music. Love Rob Hubbard, so Warhawk is the first one which comes to my mind...
Yeah, overall the C64 hardware capabilities were superior, but there were a heck of a lot of games which took a "lowest common denominator" approach to make C64 Atari 8-bit conversion easy. And in general, those looked a bit better on the Atari because of the superior palette. One of the few exceptions would be Jumpman, where the C64 version would take advantage of multi-color sprites. But usually, the C64 version would be saddled with sprites based on the Atari version, as well as limited colors (not taking advantage of tile coloring). Oh, and there was also the fun fact that the Atari version could actually be played without waiting 3 months for the 1541 floppy drive to load first. I had a C64 myself, and my top 10 would actually overlap a lot with the above Atari list. Obviously, I never got to play 4 player M.U.L.E. on a C64. As for my suggestions for what to check out on the C64? Well, I think there are plenty of "favorite C64 games" lists out there, so I'll suggest something a bit different. If you like the idea of hitting "BREAK" on a BASIC (or partly BASIC) game and then cheating or just rooting around by modifying variable values or whatever? Check out Telenguard and Questron. Telenguard is pure BASIC and it is SLOW, but you can fiddle around with it like crazy as a result. Questron is an Ultima clone, but there are some fun twists to the formula and the ability to just muck around with BASIC makes it more interesting to just screw with. With those BASIC games, you didn't need to be a machine language code genius to just go in and cheat/mod.
C64 capabilities were not superior, hence so many games that pushed both to the limits looked better on the Atari, or ran smoother (think Rescue on Fractulas, and Elecktra glide). The Atari had a faster CPU, more and far more vibrant colours, and four channels of POKEY sound. As Archer Maclean, programmer of Dropzone and IK+ said, “The [Commodore] 64 Dropzone is about 46k [kilobytes] long and consists of 15,000 lines of sparsely commented code with around 350 subroutines and around 3000 labels. Those who can reach Megastar status on the 64 should have had enough practice to attempt an Atari supervised Dropzone mission. The Atari, being the Porsche of home computers, is capable of running Dropzone 2.5 times faster than the 64 and can handle any amount of blobs on screen, even when you release a Strata Bomb. It is visually, sonically etc., identical and about 12K shorter. However, the 64 is still a respectable BMW 316.[7]”
I grew up on Atari too. I had loads and loads of games for it but I have to say I smiled when MULE came up as your number 1 choice because it was also my favorite by far. In fact I could take five of your choices and have them in my top 10. Nice one.
I was 11 years old in 1988 living in Poland, my ATARI 65XE I believe it was, was my life. My 3 most favorite games were BRUCE LEE, Montezuma and one I think called ROBBO. I moved with my parents to Canada shortly after and my next computer was a PC386. Many memories, thanks.
Great video awesome memories. My childhood computer was also an Atari 800XL. I loved that old machine and eventually got the 130XE a few years later. I also played the crap out of Montezuma & Goonies. Some of my other favorites not listed here are Load Runner, Conan, Zorro, World Karate Championship, Mercenary, Alternate Reality, Ninja, Crossbow (light gun). Also does anyone remember the Antic disks? I had the subscription to that magazine and got the disks every month. Loved those too! I miss my Atari.
Great choices. I still remember the clue from the manual for level 1 Goonies. " Mama Fatella is greedy and mean, money will drive her off the screen, quench the embers run, run ,run and you'll find your quest is done." Strange what you remember.
Star Raiders made me buy an Atari 400. Years ahead of it's time. Could only dream of an 800 as so expensive. Mule was a huge favourite. Warlords with 4 rotating controllers. Qix, and Joust were fantastic. Cartridges slowly replaced by 5.25 disk drives. I finally got an 800 and it still sits above my desktop monitor, to remind me where it started.
My tape days were on my 400 with its flat keyboard. Tapes were wtill a darn sight quicker than keying a program in from a magazine. Oh the hours of fun debugging those to find where you had mistyped something. Happy days.
@Richard Evans I hear you. Sometimes I would type them by myself, other times friends would take turns with me. I remember when some of the magazines got smarter and included checksums for each line so you could quickly figure out which lines you screwed up on.
OMG I came across you guys again!!!! In like 3rd grade I watched you so much. I loved your “The Mole Series” and “Sisters” on Minecraft. So many flashbacks
OMG I used to watch your channel when I was younger! You were my fav channel to watch and rlly inspired me!!! I hope that you and the rest of the OG Minecraft crew have an amazing new year!!! ( tell the rest of the crew I say hi ) Have an amazical day! -Frito
I grew up with my brother bootlegging Atari 800 games in his teens back in the 80s. He had a little business set up in my parents living room. I got to try out a lot of games back then! It was my first introduction to RPG and adventure games. Leisure suit Larry, Zorro, police quest, Dallas quest etc. One of my fav unique games (cause of the graphics and concept) was Agent USA. Oh ..I also loved Spy VS Spy. (Even though I had zero clue the actual concept of the game). It makes me laugh how back then these games always blew my mind at how advanced the graphics seemed to look. I remember hearing games with voice modulators and being amazed. We would have relatives visit and we always had to show them the Atari games that had cool graphics. 😂
@@TheTechDungeon No worries dude, really enjoyed the video. BTW do you know the channel "Laird's Lair"? He's super obsessed into obscure Atari hardware Etc. I think you might like his channel :)
What a great video guys!! Back in the days I had a Atari 800XL myself and loved to play Pitfall 2, Robin Hood and off course Bounty Bob / Miner 2049. I actually started an emulator now and start playing those games again.
Number 1. Paul Woake's seminal Mercenary. Number 2. Microprose Silent Service (I actually went Silica Systems to buy the 1050 Floppy Drive for this) Number 3. Bounty Bob Strikes Back. Number 4. Microprose F15 Strike Eagle. Number 5. Star Raiders II. Number 6. Spy Vs Spy. Number 7. Dropzone (awesome Defender Clone), Number 8. Rescue on Fractalus Number 9. International Karate Number 10. Blue Max
My list would be like 80% different but I can understand your choices :) Playability and gaming satisfaction was for me on another level those days and games like Archon would keep me glued to my Atari for several weeks or even months. From your list I managed to finish Montezuma, Archon and Bruce Lee but frankly top 10 is not enough :))) It´s like 20 or 30 games that stay with me even today. Like Zorro, Mision Shark, Draconus, Druid or International Karate... Man those times were awesome! Thanks for the reminder :)
Wow, Alley Cat! It was one my favorites but I had completely forgotten about it for decades! I wonder which games made #1-#9 and what other forgotten memories will be stirred up. Thanks!
Absolutely love Miner 2049'er! Man...the pattern on those levels, I had a similar default pattern. It was a trip to watch you play the first 3 levels. It came back to me like it was yesterday. I also loved Shamus and Sea Dragon.
I admire your passion for the Atari 8-bit games ... I thoroughly enjoyed watching this overview. It's become especially pertinent, with the upcoming release of the 400 mini ... it looks awesome, I've purchased two of them, and I'm super hyped to receive it
What I always felt was lacking with Atari games was a great explanation like you just did. Way more understanding like how to play MULE. Was always hard for me to see the strategy. Maybe you could do more in depth on same games and how to play? Thanks, great video
Great List! Personally I also love Capture the Flag, Rally Speedway, Dropzone, Return of Heracles, Great American Cross-Country Road Race, International Karate, Archon II - Adept, Mercenary, Shamus - Case II, Trailblazer and Zone Ranger.
I didn't read the list ahead and just let you reveal it and so I kept saying "yes, that's a good choice!". Really liked your video and the summary of each game. I have particularly strong memories of most of the games on your list. I would personally have added in my list Mercenary, Rescue on Fractalus, Boulderdash and the exquisite The Pawn. Many thanks!
Ah yes. My childhood channel. I remember you from way back... 7 whole years. Wow, time flies. You probably won’t read this, but if you do, I wanted to say that you should keep doing what you’re doing. It’s extremely underrated content. I know that everyone else wants The Crew back together, and frankly so do I, but if you can’t/don’t want to, I’d understand. Everything changes with time. I’ll stick around though. Hope you keep uploading dude!!
hey great video format! I had an atari 800xl but didn't play a lot of these days even though I wanted them and read about them in the magazines and catalogs at a time. I love that you give a good feel for how the games played without taking too long. I FINALLY know how MULE plays! thanks!
Atari 8-bit Donkey Kong was good, but my absolute favorite arcade port on the platform was Defender. It had the look of the arcade down, to the extent that the graphics mode would allow it, and it was just enough easier to not frustrate me... Joust was pretty good too--the graphics were slightly simplified from the arcade version but it had all the gameplay.
Same as you I was an ATARI guy growing up, did have a VIC-20 but never used it. I did migrate to the ST range but I found the 8-bit was golden for me. Agree with you top 10, I played all of them and ally cat was my fav, DROL was also great and whistlers brother, zorro and load runner. dropzone, the lust is endless
I went from Timex Sinclair 1000, to Vic-20 to the Atari 800, ST, STE, TT and even grabbed a Falcon at the end from an ex-Atari dev. Yeah Zorro and Load Runner were close to making my top 10.
I had the 800 and Archon was my favorite. I had the tape, then floppy disk drive. I started with Star Raiders and Basic. When I got a 1040ST I gave the 800 to a relative, who was not a computer guy. I eventually got it back in 2000 but without all the floppies of games I had collected. As of now it still sits in the garage.
“K-Razy Shootout” is, to this day, my #1 Atari 8-bit game. “Star Raiders” is co-#1. I am surprised neither made your list! “Star Raiders” was the definitive 400/800 game “back in the day”.
That is genuinely the best description of Alley Cat I've ever heard. It's a game I've tried to explain for decades to non-Atari players and my best efforts usually resorted to comparing it to Wizball in some ways. But you nailed it on the head.
Haven't seen this before. 56-year-old Atari fan since I first played with it in 1981, still have several machines but they've been in storage 12 years and I don't know if they still work... :-( Thank goodness for emulators -- but there's still no real substitute for an actual, physical, Atari -- or an actual, physical, Atari joystick in your hand! That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this video. If I knew how to make them myself, I'd love to make one that shows my *own* favorite games! Many of them are the same as yours -- I spent dozens of hours on Miner 2049er, Alley Cat, and especially M.U.L.E with all four players (something you couldn't do, or at least not as effectively, on any machine later than the original four-port 800!). I'd never seen Goonies or Dandy before this video, though, and never got the hang of Ghostbusters. (A lot of games were impossible to play when you got them from friends and thus without instructions! "Superman" springs to mind.) I see here that Dandy strongly resembles both Shamus and Tutankham, and that The Goonies resembles any number of platformers. My own favorites that don't overlap with yours included Necromancer, Spindizzy, Gyruss, Spy's Demise, Buried Bucks (even though it was ungodly frustrating!), Ballblazer, Koronis Rift (up to a point; again, instructions unclear), The Eidolon (mixed feelings, again because of the instructions thing; didn't find those until about two years ago!), Drol, .... Much belatedly, in the age of emulation and "anthology/collection" disk images, I've come to enjoy Star League Baseball and an extremely silly (but hilarious) thing called Ducks Ahoy. And of course all the things I enjoyed in the arcade, of which there are excellent ports to the Atari: Pac-Man, Frogger, Defender, Joust, ... These are just the ones I can recall off the top of my head; somewhere I have a list that I actually *wrote down* a few years ago... Later, I switched camps and went with the Amiga rather than the ST, so I'm going to have to check out your other vids as well!
@@TheTechDungeon Thank you right back. Sorry it has taken me two years to discover that I'd received a notification that you'd replied... I have a couple photos of the time I got Necromancer running on my brother-in-law's arcade cabinet under the "atari800" emulator... (Unfortunately, a lot of games were impossible to play because there was no way to press F2, F3, or F4, which are what the Windows port of atari800 uses for Option / Select / Start! Surprisingly, the emulator doesn't respond to those "keystrokes" from the on-screen keyboard from the "accessibility tools" menu. I hope I might do better with a different emulator, but haven't had a chance to try as my brother-in-law lives about 2000 miles from me. Will be going there again in a few weeks, though... In recent times I've discovered Twitter and made contact with several of today's "leading lights" in the Atari retro / fandom / emulation / etc. community, which has been fun; I've finally delved into Kyan Pascal in earnest, after seeing it briefly around 1982, buying a copy myself around 1983, and *never working with it until mid-2020*. :-o In the process, I discovered there are filesystem corruptions in a lot of the "preserved" software disk images available online, and am hoping to alert the "preservation" community at large before the orgiinal disks are *really, truly* gone. The last few weeks, however, have been devoted to delving into an Amiga emulator a friend gave me. He presented it as a retro *gaming* environment, but I did a lot more than that with it, back in the day, and am rediscovering all those joys -- plus a lot more; after 25+ years' more professional experience, the OS and programming principles make a *whole lot more sense* than they did in the 1980s and 90s! So I'm having a grand time pulling ridiculous all-nighters every night...
Archon was awesome along with MULE. It’s funny that you chose Mule as number one, because it would’ve been my number one also. There was nothing like it at the time and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but it was the first I remember of its kind. Like a real time strategy game with a stock market kind of aspect where prices would go up and down. It was so much fun back in the day. I played this game for hours upon hours straight. Never got sick of it.
It was unique for the time. I had an Atari 800 at that time and we could do four players easily with four joysticks. Had some fun with that and my friends.
Alleycat such a unique an quirky title for the system it's actually in my top 5 Atari xl games alongside things like Bruce Lee and Ollies Follies. Nice list dude! 👌
When you got to Miner 2049 at #2, I thought, where is M.U.L.E. !?! Of course you put it at #1. Personally I liked Lode Runner over Miner 2049er, but mostly because of the ability to make your own levels, which is also why I loved Pinball Construction Set (also by Electronic Arts.) So many great games...
How come in these videos my personal favorites never get any love: 1) Mail Order Monsters 2) F15 Strike Eagle 3) Realm of Impossibility So many amazing titles on the 800xl platform, but those 3 are far and away my favorites.
Those are some pretty solid choices there. Never played Dandy, but it legit looks like the inspiration for Gauntlet, as you say. Also never played The Goonies, Ghostbusters, or Bruce Lee, but they all look like fun. I frickin' LOVE Archon! ...now if only I could just get someone to play it with me. Oh well. There was a fan-made version of M.U.L.E. called Planet M.U.L.E. Not sure how often people play it these days, though.
Great List! I have M.U.L.E. as my #1 as well with Castle Wolfenstein, Summer Games, Karateka, Pitfall, Bruce Lee, Archon, Jumpman, Jungle Hunt and Miner 2049'er ranked highly. M.U.L.E. is the main reason I still have my Atari and still play it with friends. I have the cartridge version so I don't have to have my disc drive hooked up and risk damaging the disc version. However, after seeing this, I need to hookup the floppy drive so I can play some of those others! Thanks for the video!
Not a bad list, but, there are many other games that were not mentioned. Let’s talk about them: Draconus, Zybex, international karate, ninja, spy vs spy, river raid, and karateka.
Hi, guy ! Nice selection ! M.U.L.E is my all time greatest on the 800 ! On a personal list, I would have added a few other games, such as "Rescue on Fractalus", "Ballblazer" ans "F15 Strike Eagle".
Atari 8-bit computers had 256 colors and 4 channel sound. The C64 had 16 colors, 3 channel sound and a very slow disc drive. I don't see the advantages of the C64, as both machines had thousands of software. Maybe someone can explain it.
Commodore users think Jay Miner is a legend for the Amiga (he is), but refuse to accept he helped design a machine the equal of the C64 2-years prior to that machine.
Agreed. I am amazed at how well the Atari 800 held up to machines like the Commodore 64 that were a few years later. I would love to see an alternate reality where Atari actually managed their computer line properly. So many bad decisions.
I never had an Atari 8-bit computer, but I did have a C64, which had a lot of the same games. Montezuma's Revenge - I loved this on the Atari 2600, but didn't like the computer version as much. Mostly it was because of the much larger map. While I'd normally love having more to explore, it seemed too overwhelming, especially figuring out which way you need to go to make sure you have enough keys and other items. Plus some of the screens were just WTF? Like the one where you jump up the glowing platforms; Why is there a sword in the gap where you can't possibly get it without dying? The Goonies - I really liked this game and I managed to make it to the pirate ship, but I never managed to figure it out. Of course back then, there were no save states and my copy didn't have a trainer, so I had to play through all the levels to get there, then when I lost all my lives, it was back to the start. That kind of discouraged me from trying too many times in a row. Archon - This was one of my favorites. It was the first game I ever got on floppy disk, along with Archon II. I'd seen the screenshots in the magazines and really wanted to play it. I got both for Christmas along with the floppy drive itself. Ghostbusters - I liked the game, but I was always disappointed that having more money in the bank actually made the game harder. When you have more money, you want to spend it on more stuff, which then means that you need to make even more money to win the game. I never saw the point of using the password for the bank account when I was just going to buy exactly the same stuff I always did. M.U.L.E. - I know a lot of people like this game, but I never had it and never had any desire to play it. I'm terrible at strategy games that involve resource management, resource gathering, etc. I'm also not a fan of turn-based gameplay. For the record, I never liked Civilization either.
I am not a sim or strategy game fan, but my friends and I loved to play M.U.L.E. I really like games that have multiplayer co-op (why Dandy was on my list), and even though mule wasn't co-op, it was simple and fun to play with 3 other friends.
@@TheTechDungeon I usually only had one friend to play with at any given time, and we usually preferred action games. We did play the Archon games occasionally, but it was usually stuff like International Karate, Realm of Impossibility, Pitstop II, even Leaderboard Golf. Or we'd take turns at various arcade type games to see who could get the highest score.
I use to run a BBS for our local Atari club on an Atari ST. I ended up giving that job to someone else after I got my TT and the Atari laser printer. I started doing the clubs Newsletter.
The sound effects in Alley Cat are still amazing to hear all these years later! Still have no idea how they created such realistic sounds without samples!
Yeah, it was mind blowing at the time. I also remember the copy protection was so strict it would only load from a standard atari drive. We replaced our atari drive with an astra and remember being so disappointed when the game wouldnt load on it (probably also because it was a bootleg copy, lol)!
Always thought this with Alley Cat. Never heard such realistic sounds on the Atari XL. The water does sound sampled. Amazing game for the time,and only 32k!
Man my top ten is so close to yours…I have such great memories with my 800xl…a few others I loved were Air Support, Gauntletak, Last Starfighter, Ultima III & IV, Quasimodo, Ms. Pac-Man, and Stealth
I keep hoping someone will release a version of Zenji for Android. My favorites were Agent USA, Zenji, Drol, Moon Patrol, Star Raiders, Ultima series, one on one, Montezuma's Revenge, Bruce Lee, Infocom games, Archon, Space Dungeon, Castle Wolfenstein (and it's sequel)
Enjoyed the video! informative also, the way you describe the games and key elements. As a C64 guy I feel I could give you some recommendations, let's make it ten: Impossible Mission, Trolls & Tribulations (also available on the Atari but the C64 version is smoother), Bruce Lee II (also available on PC), Turrican II, Pitstop II, IK+, Paradroid, Leaderboard, Great Giana Sisters and Maniac Mansion... are all great ones to try. They're still making new C64 games and some of them are absolutely stunning. Check out Sam's Journey to see how the programmers are still pushing the old beast to new heights. Ofcourse AtariBlast and Yoomp! are excellent recent(ish) Atari games!
Sadly I haven't messed with the C64 much yet. Looking forward to restoring it and building that 1541 disk emulator for the Raspberry Pi. I remember Impossible Mission, didn't know about Bruce Lee II, all the others you mention I was a fan of all. There were many RPG, Adventure, Arcade games I struggled with putting in the top 10. But I felt like a top 10 for those separately might make more sense. I remember Yoomp! coming out and I think I tried it on an Emulator at the time. Thanks for the reply!
Great list. The game I would personally omit, would be Ghostbusters, as I was spoiled by the C64 version, back in the day. I would add Dropzone - for sure. The Atari version was superb.
I had a Atari 400, hated it, bad keyboard but got a 520ST and used it for a long, long time. These games bring back good memories. My favorite games were 7 cities of gold, Star Raiders, F-15 game and the standard arcade type games. I tried made for pc atari games but they were really terrible so I gave up on that. I wish I had a working Atari with all the games I had. I had a TON of them. In a way I like a lot of those simple games more than a lot of PC games to a point but they were fun..
After wanting a computer since I was 6 years old, I finally got a 400 when I was 13 - LOVED IT. Sure, the keyboard sucked. Sure the tape drive was slow. BUT, I was able to code some of my first programs - AND - when I discovered the Action! programming language on my shiny new 600XL, it completely changed everything I understood about programming.
Seven cities of gold, drol, rescue on fractalus/jaggi lines, bouderdash and bluemax should probably get honorable mentions, or maybe replace alley cat and goonies. I remember how the 8 bit games evolved, they became more intricate (goonies/conan), but the gameplay suffered. Bruce lee and seven cities had TONS of replay value, but goonies was sort of done when you finished it. Fractalus was one of the first FPS games ever made.
Really enjoyed this. I got the Atari 400 in 1978 or 79 then the 800XL in 82. Although I never played Alley Cat, I was a huge Synapse software fan. Blue Max and Shamus being two of my favorites. I used to pour over their catalog with screenshots and drool about the games I could never play(due to $). Synapse was acquired by Broderbund which was already one of my favorite publishers as well , making them my favorite at that point. My brother and I never had Archon, but we played the hell out of Archon II: Adept. They seemed pretty similar from what I can tell. I was also a fan of the Datasoft games. Again, I never played Goonies, but i can see that Datasoft used the same engine/designs in Zorro. Similar music, puzzles, screen, and overall feel among Zorro, Bruce Lee, Goonies..and one other I think I am forgetting. This may be hard to believe but I never played M.U.L.E. I don't have any hardware any more(I wish like hell I had told my parents to save it when I left for the service), so maybe I'll have to fire it up on one of my emulators. Great stuff!
I had half of those on the list, Archon, Alley Cat, Donkey Kong, Bruce Lee and Goonies. Great games. Some others I enjoyed back then: -Racing Destruction Set -The Great American (Cross Country) Road Race -Moon Patrol -Joust -Vanguard
The perfect 8-bit system would have been SID sound and graphics with Antic color pallette with the memory to use it, at least 256K. BTW, I also had an Atari 800, before I gotten a Commodore 64.
Solid list...although I'd have "Seven Cities Of Gold" on my list. And I loved "Deadline", the text-based adventure. "Agent USA" still fun as was "Star League Baseball" and "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein"
I loved Deadline. I played quite a few Infocom adventures. Got my name Belboz from their game Enchanter. My friends and I would play Star League Baseball all the time.
@@TheTechDungeon By the way...credit for you including Alley Cat. Had totally forgotten about that one until I saw you listed it. Totally remember it...it was a lot of fun to play.
What was the intro music from, is it from an actual game? Miner 2049'er looked great! Wish I had played that one. I'll have to checkout windows version. Ghostbusters also looked fun. Ghostbusters car loadout reminded me a bit of Hackers also by activision. Goonies was definitely one of my favorites. Here is my top 10 that I can remember. #10 Zorro (Never got to play Bruce Lee or Conan also by Datasoft) #9 Star Wars (I could role the wave counter.) #8 Drelbs (Had this as a demo. Never had full version until emulators came along. What a great game.) #7 Fort Apocalypse (One of the first games we got for our Atari 800xl along with Survivor) #6 Rescue on Fractulus (Knock... Knock... Knock...) #5 World Karate Championship (Game was fun and I was good at but could never beat.) #4 Goonies (I am a huge goonies fan so that's all that needs to be said.) #3 Temple of Apshai Trilogy (The cover art alone I knew it was going to be a great game.) #2 Load Runner (Simple but fun and challenging. I could literally play all day) #1 Alternate Reality: The Dungeon (I spent so many hours in the dungeon. The intro pulled me into a whole new world. Thank god for Gary Gilbertson & Phillip Price)
I remember most of these games, Alley Cat is amazing. Do you remember Preppie? The Ultima adventures were also good, also the text adventures. Star raiders, Moonbase IO, Blue Max, the list goes on and on. What a fantastic machine! Thanks for the video 😀👍
Yeah I enjoyed Preppie and Preppie II. LOVED the Ultima series. Played a lot of Infocom Adventures like Deadline, Enchanter (my online name is from a character in Enchanter), Zork, etc. Star Raiders never clicked with me. Not sure on Moonbase IO. Blue Max was fun! Great list you mention!
@@TheTechDungeon Thanks, the Atari 800 was the best for a good few years. I used to go to an amazing computer shop in Manchester, UK called "Micro C" where I got my Vic-20 from. We couldn't afford the Atari 800, but I used to totally admire it. They had a great selection of American imports in that shop, I wish I had photos of the shop, but can't find any. I remember when Miner 2049er was released, I was only a young boy back then, about 11 years old. I learnt how to play star raiders in the shop by trial and error with no instructions. I used to buy weekly and monthly computer magazines and type in the games listings. Now I'm a senior software engineer and write my own stuff in C++. I love these old computers and their software, they are timeless classics! Thanks again 😀👍
Talk about old school! I can see you favor platformers, I prefer strategic games, or simulations. I was surprised to see Pitfall missing from your list considering the notoriety it got back in the day. Others that I might have included are games like Jumpman Jr. (instead of miner 49er) Oilswell, Kennedy Approach, Seven Cities of Gold and even Gorf might have made the list. There are so many to choose from that it is easy to find your list is different from mine. Boulderdash, Last Star Fighter, Agent USA and even Missile Command were fun to play back in the day. I am thankful that there are emulators to re-live the glory days. Using an emulator, I still play Cribbage, Kennedy Approach, and M.U.L.E. Have fun with your Commodore, I'd say the hardware wasn't that much different (it uses the same 6502 CPU) but they had the advantage of 2 years of advancements in software and manufacturing (as you point out) and a ready made market(!) such that they were able to become a big hit. You might stay connected to the Atari theme, there is already a Commodore channel that has a major following (The 8-bit Guy). Good luck!
Solid list...and I remember all the games you listed (except Dandy.) I'd add to the list "Karateka" and "Seven Cities of Gold". (Probably remove Dandy and Alley Cat.) Not including arcade game ports, also liked Boulderdash, Lode Runner, BC's Quest for Tires, Deadline, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Agent USA, Caverns of Mars, Blue Max, River Raid, Pitstop, Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory, The Pharaoh's Curse, Summer Games.
The only practical difference between Atari and Commodore was sprites - the c64 sprites are genius, the Atari's PMs were poor even for 1979, but still useful.
Wow. I recall playing Alley Cat on my PC-XT in CGA back in the mid 80's. I had no idea it was available on Atari 800. Although I am a C64 person but I recently bought a 800xl. Must get these games for it. Mule looks great as well. Excited to play this version of Alleycat though the most.
You can see my top 10 Atari 8-bit Arcade games video here: th-cam.com/video/Fg1zOvO_5gk/w-d-xo.html
I also have a new series with the wife and son where we compare popular Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 8-bit titles to see which one is better. The first episode of that is at: th-cam.com/video/P4h81tnjXec/w-d-xo.html
ARCHON would be awesome if someone made a NEW modern 2023 version using RTX 4080 3D graphics , with online multi player...
Play the 2D gameboard against the pc or other humans, and then drop into 3D view - looking like skyrim or witcher - for the 1-on-1 fights.
The zoom in 1-on-1 would have variable land, hills, woods, rocks, even different planet surfaces, following the 'light' and 'dark' cycles.
Need some honorable mentions that dont fit in top 10!
Drol, Alternate Reality, Conan, Boulder Dash, Pooyan, Ultima 2, Necromancer, Pharahos Curse, Lost Tomb, Archon 2, Monster Maker.
@@alfonsedente9679 great choices
@@TheTechDungeon got a correction... Monster Maker was wrong.
I meant Mail Order Monsters
What about Jet Boot Jack, Eidolon, Rescue on Fractalus, H.E.R.O, Captain Beeble or Starfighter?
But yea, Archon was imo one of the few best games for 800 - also Archon 2 and M.U.L.E.
edit - wrote this at #2, didn't expected MULE to be n1.
The first game I saw on the Atari 400 was Star Raiders, and I was blown away by the graphics and sound. It was awesome.
I still break out my 800 XL from time to time just to play Star Raiders. What a timeless classic!
I'm so glad you mentioned the 2.5 year release date gap between the Atari 800 and C64. Hardly anyone ever takes that into account.
Even with the date gap I still found the Atari 800 the better machine. 256 colors, 4 channel sound, famous near perfect arcade games, faster tape drive, faster disk drive, better BASIC and NO GIANT BORDER like the C64.
@@MagicRoosterBluesBand Better still: Color indirection, true bitmap and character graphics modes with a wider variety of color and resolution combinations, 1.89 MHz vs. 1 MHz on the C64. No one really did a proper comparison of the speed, but it's obvious in computation-heavy games like Rescue on Fractalus. What it REALLY means is that the Atari 8-bits (from the 400 on), were almost TWICE the CPU speed of the C64. This was due to the slower RAM used in the C64, which also affected the overall responsiveness of the machine.
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The C64 was better at character-based graphics, and it was timely for them too. With most processors limited to 64K at a time back then, most arcade video games turned to character graphics to save memory while providing bigger gameplay areas (think, Super Mario Brothers, or any shooter from 1986 on).
But you know what the C64 was best at? Documentation.
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Proper documentation for the Atari 8-bits didn't come until 82 or so, in fact, Atari did their best to hide the hardware internals of their machines until they realized that software is kinda important. Even when the docs did arrive, they were by 3rd parties. Commodore was SMARTER than they knew. Since the PET, they provided documentation with their computers. This included memory maps, full explanations of their graphics and sound, etc. The VIC-20 gave Linus Torvalds (the inventor of Linux) his first programming experience, and plenty more learned how to code on the C64. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
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EVERY company made mistakes back then. Home computers were a new thing, after all. But some companies never recovered...
@@MagicRoosterBluesBand or 4 hour disk load time
@TurboCMinusMinus give me some comparisons of games where the C64 was superior to the Atari 800?
It's a very good point. When I was an 8 year old in the UK, the Atari 800XL was almost a third of the price of the Commodore 64 and only slightly more expensive than the ZX Spectrum with included tape deck and 5 games.
Star raiders was outstanding and i also liked crazy shutout and pole position.
👍
Thanks for the video. I had an Atari 800XL back in the day. I remember some of these games like Montezuma's Revenge, Archon, and Bruce Lee. Never saw that Alley Cat game but it looked like a lot of wacky fun.
Your top is terrible. There are a lot of games that derserve in top ten.
Archon and MULE were awesome, but I can't believe you left out Star Raiders!
Agreed. Star Raiders was the raison d'etre, THE reason to buy an Atari at the time. It wouldn't be until 'Elite' came out in 1984, that we'd see something come close to that masterpiece. Amazing that it ran in 16K! Stayed on Electronic Games magazine's top games list until their demise in 1984.
Same here. I just assumed Star Raiders would be #1 at the start of the video.
i couldn’t say how long ago i watched this channel but it’s nearing 6-7 years at least. I want to say thank you for creating your minecraft survival and the killing floor playthroughs later after this. it’s absolutely amazing to see that you guys still make content and i wish you luck in the future. You had a positive and lasting effect my early teens (now 17) and i hope all of the guys from the old crew have a brilliant new year and christmas !!!
Bought an 800XL a couple years ago, modded an S-Video output to it (one lead) and bought an SD-card thingy from Lothar. Also modded it's speed by removing 2 capacitors (or resistors, can't remember which). Works a treat! Lovely machine!
Very nice! They are awesome machines. Love all the new stuff being made for all the 8-bit systems out there!
@@TheTechDungeon True, Space Harrier comes to mind. Also, on right hands, the soundchip can produce amazing music. Love Rob Hubbard, so Warhawk is the first one which comes to my mind...
Yeah, overall the C64 hardware capabilities were superior, but there were a heck of a lot of games which took a "lowest common denominator" approach to make C64 Atari 8-bit conversion easy. And in general, those looked a bit better on the Atari because of the superior palette. One of the few exceptions would be Jumpman, where the C64 version would take advantage of multi-color sprites. But usually, the C64 version would be saddled with sprites based on the Atari version, as well as limited colors (not taking advantage of tile coloring).
Oh, and there was also the fun fact that the Atari version could actually be played without waiting 3 months for the 1541 floppy drive to load first.
I had a C64 myself, and my top 10 would actually overlap a lot with the above Atari list. Obviously, I never got to play 4 player M.U.L.E. on a C64.
As for my suggestions for what to check out on the C64? Well, I think there are plenty of "favorite C64 games" lists out there, so I'll suggest something a bit different.
If you like the idea of hitting "BREAK" on a BASIC (or partly BASIC) game and then cheating or just rooting around by modifying variable values or whatever? Check out Telenguard and Questron. Telenguard is pure BASIC and it is SLOW, but you can fiddle around with it like crazy as a result. Questron is an Ultima clone, but there are some fun twists to the formula and the ability to just muck around with BASIC makes it more interesting to just screw with.
With those BASIC games, you didn't need to be a machine language code genius to just go in and cheat/mod.
C64 capabilities were not superior, hence so many games that pushed both to the limits looked better on the Atari, or ran smoother (think Rescue on Fractulas, and Elecktra glide). The Atari had a faster CPU, more and far more vibrant colours, and four channels of POKEY sound. As Archer Maclean, programmer of Dropzone and IK+ said, “The [Commodore] 64 Dropzone is about 46k [kilobytes] long and consists of 15,000 lines of sparsely commented code with around 350 subroutines and around 3000 labels. Those who can reach Megastar status on the 64 should have had enough practice to attempt an Atari supervised Dropzone mission. The Atari, being the Porsche of home computers, is capable of running Dropzone 2.5 times faster than the 64 and can handle any amount of blobs on screen, even when you release a Strata Bomb. It is visually, sonically etc., identical and about 12K shorter. However, the 64 is still a respectable BMW 316.[7]”
I grew up on Atari too. I had loads and loads of games for it but I have to say I smiled when MULE came up as your number 1 choice because it was also my favorite by far. In fact I could take five of your choices and have them in my top 10. Nice one.
I was 11 years old in 1988 living in Poland, my ATARI 65XE I believe it was, was my life. My 3 most favorite games were BRUCE LEE, Montezuma and one I think called ROBBO.
I moved with my parents to Canada shortly after and my next computer was a PC386.
Many memories, thanks.
The author of Montezuma's Revenge I believe has a new version on Steam.
@@TheTechDungeon
Wow! Interesting, I have to check that out, I use Steam for several of my games 👍
Thanks. 🍻
Great video awesome memories. My childhood computer was also an Atari 800XL. I loved that old machine and eventually got the 130XE a few years later. I also played the crap out of Montezuma & Goonies. Some of my other favorites not listed here are Load Runner, Conan, Zorro, World Karate Championship, Mercenary, Alternate Reality, Ninja, Crossbow (light gun). Also does anyone remember the Antic disks? I had the subscription to that magazine and got the disks every month. Loved those too! I miss my Atari.
Started with an Atari 5200. Not as many games (or as good as quality), but fun none-the-less.
Great choices. I still remember the clue from the manual for level 1 Goonies. " Mama Fatella is greedy and mean, money will drive her off the screen, quench the embers run, run ,run and you'll find your quest is done." Strange what you remember.
... I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner...
Star Raiders made me buy an Atari 400. Years ahead of it's time. Could only dream of an 800 as so expensive. Mule was a huge favourite. Warlords with 4 rotating controllers. Qix, and Joust were fantastic. Cartridges slowly replaced by 5.25 disk drives. I finally got an 800 and it still sits above my desktop monitor, to remind me where it started.
Very cool memories I am sure! Worst days were the slow tape loading days!
My tape days were on my 400 with its flat keyboard. Tapes were wtill a darn sight quicker than keying a program in from a magazine. Oh the hours of fun debugging those to find where you had mistyped something. Happy days.
@Richard Evans I hear you. Sometimes I would type them by myself, other times friends would take turns with me.
I remember when some of the magazines got smarter and included checksums for each line so you could quickly figure out which lines you screwed up on.
Spot on with MULE at #1. I remember playing this nearly every night in 1984, along with Montezuma's revenge.
OMG I came across you guys again!!!! In like 3rd grade I watched you so much. I loved your “The Mole Series” and “Sisters” on Minecraft. So many flashbacks
Thanks for the kind comments! Glad to hear you loved Mole (one of my favorite series to make)!
Never played any 8-bit Atari games personally, but Archon, Bruce Lee, and Miner 2049'er particularly look like lots of fun.
Grab the free Windows emulated version of Miner 2049'er from the original author! It has the full game and the sequel!
OMG I used to watch your channel when I was younger! You were my fav channel to watch and rlly inspired me!!! I hope that you and the rest of the OG Minecraft crew have an amazing new year!!! ( tell the rest of the crew I say hi )
Have an amazical day!
-Frito
I grew up with my brother bootlegging Atari 800 games in his teens back in the 80s. He had a little business set up in my parents living room. I got to try out a lot of games back then! It was my first introduction to RPG and adventure games. Leisure suit Larry, Zorro, police quest, Dallas quest etc. One of my fav unique games (cause of the graphics and concept) was Agent USA. Oh ..I also loved Spy VS Spy. (Even though I had zero clue the actual concept of the game). It makes me laugh how back then these games always blew my mind at how advanced the graphics seemed to look. I remember hearing games with voice modulators and being amazed. We would have relatives visit and we always had to show them the Atari games that had cool graphics. 😂
I remember watching this channel so long ago. It's good to see it's still alive and well.
Great video Sir!!! BTW Dandy is a play on words of "D and D" AKA Dungeons and Dragons!
Thanks Man. Means a lot coming from you.
@@TheTechDungeon No worries dude, really enjoyed the video. BTW do you know the channel "Laird's Lair"? He's super obsessed into obscure Atari hardware Etc. I think you might like his channel :)
In the c64 version of Bruce Lee i saw that the sumo guy can chase climbing just like you do, that was cool.
What a great video guys!! Back in the days I had a Atari 800XL myself and loved to play Pitfall 2, Robin Hood and off course Bounty Bob / Miner 2049.
I actually started an emulator now and start playing those games again.
Atari 800 xl is my favourite Atari computer!!!
After 40 years of playing Miner 2049er you have just taught me the easter egg with the phone number.... cheers
Number 1. Paul Woake's seminal Mercenary.
Number 2. Microprose Silent Service (I actually went Silica Systems to buy the 1050 Floppy Drive for this)
Number 3. Bounty Bob Strikes Back.
Number 4. Microprose F15 Strike Eagle.
Number 5. Star Raiders II.
Number 6. Spy Vs Spy.
Number 7. Dropzone (awesome Defender Clone),
Number 8. Rescue on Fractalus
Number 9. International Karate
Number 10. Blue Max
Great video and format. Helped me get into Atari 8 bit.
Glad you enjoyed it!
My list would be like 80% different but I can understand your choices :) Playability and gaming satisfaction was for me on another level those days and games like Archon would keep me glued to my Atari for several weeks or even months. From your list I managed to finish Montezuma, Archon and Bruce Lee but frankly top 10 is not enough :))) It´s like 20 or 30 games that stay with me even today. Like Zorro, Mision Shark, Draconus, Druid or International Karate... Man those times were awesome! Thanks for the reminder :)
Wow, Alley Cat! It was one my favorites but I had completely forgotten about it for decades! I wonder which games made #1-#9 and what other forgotten memories will be stirred up. Thanks!
There is a remake for pc. www.joflof.com/alley.html
@@stfm Thanks for this - VERY well done!
Absolutely love Miner 2049'er! Man...the pattern on those levels, I had a similar default pattern. It was a trip to watch you play the first 3 levels. It came back to me like it was yesterday. I also loved Shamus and Sea Dragon.
You just won a subscriber with that last pick! Great video! May I suggest you do a countdown of the best 8-bit music in these games?
Great suggestion!
Aw boz, came across you again. Proud of you still making videos. You building contest server was the best. Unlike anything else.
I admire your passion for the Atari 8-bit games ... I thoroughly enjoyed watching this overview. It's become especially pertinent, with the upcoming release of the 400 mini ... it looks awesome, I've purchased two of them, and I'm super hyped to receive it
I have a mini on order also. Glad you liked the video!
What I always felt was lacking with Atari games was a great explanation like you just did. Way more understanding like how to play MULE. Was always hard for me to see the strategy. Maybe you could do more in depth on same games and how to play?
Thanks, great video
Great List! Personally I also love Capture the Flag, Rally Speedway, Dropzone, Return of Heracles, Great American Cross-Country Road Race, International Karate, Archon II - Adept, Mercenary, Shamus - Case II, Trailblazer and Zone Ranger.
Loved Rally Speedway.
2020 and I'm still playing the 130 XE! I have the actual system that still works from 1985 and use emulators too.
I didn't read the list ahead and just let you reveal it and so I kept saying "yes, that's a good choice!". Really liked your video and the summary of each game. I have particularly strong memories of most of the games on your list. I would personally have added in my list Mercenary, Rescue on Fractalus, Boulderdash and the exquisite The Pawn. Many thanks!
Yeah those are all great games too. It was hard to pick just 10. But I wanted to go with the ones that really stuck with me back in the day.
@@TheTechDungeon Absolutely right! Your channel, you pick your favourites! Your list is great!
Great vid. For me the greatest was Boulderdash followed by Whirlinurd.
Ah yes. My childhood channel. I remember you from way back... 7 whole years. Wow, time flies. You probably won’t read this, but if you do, I wanted to say that you should keep doing what you’re doing. It’s extremely underrated content. I know that everyone else wants The Crew back together, and frankly so do I, but if you can’t/don’t want to, I’d understand. Everything changes with time. I’ll stick around though. Hope you keep uploading dude!!
Thanks Remi !
You know what? I kinda wanna make a video in tribute to you guys. It was a big part of my childhood after all
hey great video format! I had an atari 800xl but didn't play a lot of these days even though I wanted them and read about them in the magazines and catalogs at a time. I love that you give a good feel for how the games played without taking too long. I FINALLY know how MULE plays! thanks!
Glad I could help!
Atari 8-bit Donkey Kong was good, but my absolute favorite arcade port on the platform was Defender. It had the look of the arcade down, to the extent that the graphics mode would allow it, and it was just enough easier to not frustrate me...
Joust was pretty good too--the graphics were slightly simplified from the arcade version but it had all the gameplay.
Yeah when I do a top 10 arcade games on the 8-bit line you can bet Defender will be on there. Was a great conversion
Same as you I was an ATARI guy growing up, did have a VIC-20 but never used it. I did migrate to the ST range but I found the 8-bit was golden for me. Agree with you top 10, I played all of them and ally cat was my fav, DROL was also great and whistlers brother, zorro and load runner. dropzone, the lust is endless
I went from Timex Sinclair 1000, to Vic-20 to the Atari 800, ST, STE, TT and even grabbed a Falcon at the end from an ex-Atari dev.
Yeah Zorro and Load Runner were close to making my top 10.
Nice, Started ZX8, we are almost the same. Then ATARI 400 , 600XL, 800XL, 130XE, 520ST then 1040STFM, always wanted a TT.... cool@@TheTechDungeon
Mule was so much fun. Two favorites of mine were Seven Cities of Gold and Agent USA.
loved ghostbusters on the spectrum and bruce lee on C64 too, DROPZONE favourite on 800XL
All great ones!
I had the 800 and Archon was my favorite. I had the tape, then floppy disk drive. I started with Star Raiders and Basic. When I got a 1040ST I gave the 800 to a relative, who was not a computer guy. I eventually got it back in 2000 but without all the floppies of games I had collected. As of now it still sits in the garage.
Similar to my progression. Grab an SD interface for the 800 and play all your stuff off an SD card!
Henry's House? Draconus? Misja? International Karate? River Raid? Boulder Dash? Zybex?
Interesting picks. But remember as I stated in the video these are my picks on games that I loved back in the day.
“K-Razy Shootout” is, to this day, my #1 Atari 8-bit game. “Star Raiders” is co-#1. I am surprised neither made your list! “Star Raiders” was the definitive 400/800 game “back in the day”.
I had Star Raiders, but just never really got into it.
Spent many hours on "Bruce Lee". Other two favorites were "Gateway to Apshai" and "Star Raiders".
That is genuinely the best description of Alley Cat I've ever heard.
It's a game I've tried to explain for decades to non-Atari players and my best efforts usually resorted to comparing it to Wizball in some ways. But you nailed it on the head.
Thanks. I agree it is a game that is hard to explain
Haven't seen this before. 56-year-old Atari fan since I first played with it in 1981, still have several machines but they've been in storage 12 years and I don't know if they still work... :-( Thank goodness for emulators -- but there's still no real substitute for an actual, physical, Atari -- or an actual, physical, Atari joystick in your hand!
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this video. If I knew how to make them myself, I'd love to make one that shows my *own* favorite games! Many of them are the same as yours -- I spent dozens of hours on Miner 2049er, Alley Cat, and especially M.U.L.E with all four players (something you couldn't do, or at least not as effectively, on any machine later than the original four-port 800!). I'd never seen Goonies or Dandy before this video, though, and never got the hang of Ghostbusters. (A lot of games were impossible to play when you got them from friends and thus without instructions! "Superman" springs to mind.) I see here that Dandy strongly resembles both Shamus and Tutankham, and that The Goonies resembles any number of platformers.
My own favorites that don't overlap with yours included Necromancer, Spindizzy, Gyruss, Spy's Demise, Buried Bucks (even though it was ungodly frustrating!), Ballblazer, Koronis Rift (up to a point; again, instructions unclear), The Eidolon (mixed feelings, again because of the instructions thing; didn't find those until about two years ago!), Drol, .... Much belatedly, in the age of emulation and "anthology/collection" disk images, I've come to enjoy Star League Baseball and an extremely silly (but hilarious) thing called Ducks Ahoy. And of course all the things I enjoyed in the arcade, of which there are excellent ports to the Atari: Pac-Man, Frogger, Defender, Joust, ... These are just the ones I can recall off the top of my head; somewhere I have a list that I actually *wrote down* a few years ago...
Later, I switched camps and went with the Amiga rather than the ST, so I'm going to have to check out your other vids as well!
Thanks for the kind words. Some great games you mentioned. So much good stuff from the good old days!
@@TheTechDungeon Thank you right back. Sorry it has taken me two years to discover that I'd received a notification that you'd replied... I have a couple photos of the time I got Necromancer running on my brother-in-law's arcade cabinet under the "atari800" emulator... (Unfortunately, a lot of games were impossible to play because there was no way to press F2, F3, or F4, which are what the Windows port of atari800 uses for Option / Select / Start! Surprisingly, the emulator doesn't respond to those "keystrokes" from the on-screen keyboard from the "accessibility tools" menu. I hope I might do better with a different emulator, but haven't had a chance to try as my brother-in-law lives about 2000 miles from me. Will be going there again in a few weeks, though...
In recent times I've discovered Twitter and made contact with several of today's "leading lights" in the Atari retro / fandom / emulation / etc. community, which has been fun; I've finally delved into Kyan Pascal in earnest, after seeing it briefly around 1982, buying a copy myself around 1983, and *never working with it until mid-2020*. :-o In the process, I discovered there are filesystem corruptions in a lot of the "preserved" software disk images available online, and am hoping to alert the "preservation" community at large before the orgiinal disks are *really, truly* gone.
The last few weeks, however, have been devoted to delving into an Amiga emulator a friend gave me. He presented it as a retro *gaming* environment, but I did a lot more than that with it, back in the day, and am rediscovering all those joys -- plus a lot more; after 25+ years' more professional experience, the OS and programming principles make a *whole lot more sense* than they did in the 1980s and 90s! So I'm having a grand time pulling ridiculous all-nighters every night...
Archon was awesome along with MULE. It’s funny that you chose Mule as number one, because it would’ve been my number one also. There was nothing like it at the time and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but it was the first I remember of its kind. Like a real time strategy game with a stock market kind of aspect where prices would go up and down. It was so much fun back in the day. I played this game for hours upon hours straight. Never got sick of it.
It was unique for the time. I had an Atari 800 at that time and we could do four players easily with four joysticks. Had some fun with that and my friends.
Alleycat such a unique an quirky title for the system it's actually in my top 5 Atari xl games alongside things like Bruce Lee and Ollies Follies. Nice list dude! 👌
Thanks!
When you got to Miner 2049 at #2, I thought, where is M.U.L.E. !?! Of course you put it at #1. Personally I liked Lode Runner over Miner 2049er, but mostly because of the ability to make your own levels, which is also why I loved Pinball Construction Set (also by Electronic Arts.) So many great games...
Lode Runner was great too.
How come in these videos my personal favorites never get any love:
1) Mail Order Monsters
2) F15 Strike Eagle
3) Realm of Impossibility
So many amazing titles on the 800xl platform, but those 3 are far and away my favorites.
it misses Fort Apocalypse, Drop Zone & Star Raiders. But you have a few good ones, typically The Goonies, Bruce Lee, Ghostbusters, MULE
Love Archon, Miner 2049er, and M.U.L.E. (my all time favorite).
I'd like to recommend a couple more games: Spelunker and Jump Man.
Yeah. Two good choices
Those are some pretty solid choices there. Never played Dandy, but it legit looks like the inspiration for Gauntlet, as you say. Also never played The Goonies, Ghostbusters, or Bruce Lee, but they all look like fun.
I frickin' LOVE Archon! ...now if only I could just get someone to play it with me. Oh well.
There was a fan-made version of M.U.L.E. called Planet M.U.L.E. Not sure how often people play it these days, though.
Dandy was the inspiration for Dark Chambers and both for Gauntlet.
We always played with a floppy drive, the only reason to have a cassette player was Alley Cat 😂
I want one of these computer but finding these games without paying an arm and a leg seen's like a real challenge
Drelbs rivals Alley Cat for weird- and wonderfulness
Great List! I have M.U.L.E. as my #1 as well with Castle Wolfenstein, Summer Games, Karateka, Pitfall, Bruce Lee, Archon, Jumpman, Jungle Hunt and Miner 2049'er ranked highly. M.U.L.E. is the main reason I still have my Atari and still play it with friends. I have the cartridge version so I don't have to have my disc drive hooked up and risk damaging the disc version. However, after seeing this, I need to hookup the floppy drive so I can play some of those others! Thanks for the video!
Castle Wolfenstein. Forgot about that one.
Not a bad list, but, there are many other games that were not mentioned. Let’s talk about them:
Draconus, Zybex, international karate, ninja, spy vs spy, river raid, and karateka.
Hi, guy ! Nice selection ! M.U.L.E is my all time greatest on the 800 ! On a personal list, I would have added a few other games, such as "Rescue on Fractalus", "Ballblazer" ans "F15 Strike Eagle".
Good call!
Zombies or Realm of Impossibllity and The Return of Heracules were my favorites growing up. And Gateway to Apshai.
Don't remember Zombies. But the latter two were great titles!
Atari 8-bit computers had 256 colors and 4 channel sound. The C64 had 16 colors, 3 channel sound and a very slow disc drive. I don't see the advantages of the C64, as both machines had thousands of software. Maybe someone can explain it.
Commodore users think Jay Miner is a legend for the Amiga (he is), but refuse to accept he helped design a machine the equal of the C64 2-years prior to that machine.
Agreed. I am amazed at how well the Atari 800 held up to machines like the Commodore 64 that were a few years later.
I would love to see an alternate reality where Atari actually managed their computer line properly. So many bad decisions.
I never had an Atari 8-bit computer, but I did have a C64, which had a lot of the same games.
Montezuma's Revenge - I loved this on the Atari 2600, but didn't like the computer version as much. Mostly it was because of the much larger map. While I'd normally love having more to explore, it seemed too overwhelming, especially figuring out which way you need to go to make sure you have enough keys and other items. Plus some of the screens were just WTF? Like the one where you jump up the glowing platforms; Why is there a sword in the gap where you can't possibly get it without dying?
The Goonies - I really liked this game and I managed to make it to the pirate ship, but I never managed to figure it out. Of course back then, there were no save states and my copy didn't have a trainer, so I had to play through all the levels to get there, then when I lost all my lives, it was back to the start. That kind of discouraged me from trying too many times in a row.
Archon - This was one of my favorites. It was the first game I ever got on floppy disk, along with Archon II. I'd seen the screenshots in the magazines and really wanted to play it. I got both for Christmas along with the floppy drive itself.
Ghostbusters - I liked the game, but I was always disappointed that having more money in the bank actually made the game harder. When you have more money, you want to spend it on more stuff, which then means that you need to make even more money to win the game. I never saw the point of using the password for the bank account when I was just going to buy exactly the same stuff I always did.
M.U.L.E. - I know a lot of people like this game, but I never had it and never had any desire to play it. I'm terrible at strategy games that involve resource management, resource gathering, etc. I'm also not a fan of turn-based gameplay. For the record, I never liked Civilization either.
I am not a sim or strategy game fan, but my friends and I loved to play M.U.L.E.
I really like games that have multiplayer co-op (why Dandy was on my list), and even though mule wasn't co-op, it was simple and fun to play with 3 other friends.
@@TheTechDungeon I usually only had one friend to play with at any given time, and we usually preferred action games. We did play the Archon games occasionally, but it was usually stuff like International Karate, Realm of Impossibility, Pitstop II, even Leaderboard Golf. Or we'd take turns at various arcade type games to see who could get the highest score.
Great 10 picks, another stand out for me was Fort Apocalypse
Alley cat is one of my first games on XT, such a fantastic game
Yes it is fun and such a unique game.
The best Atari game of all time was Star Raiders - it was the killer app for that platform.
I miss my Atari computers. I had a BBS back in the day.
I use to run a BBS for our local Atari club on an Atari ST. I ended up giving that job to someone else after I got my TT and the Atari laser printer. I started doing the clubs Newsletter.
Me too, Sean. I ran the GoldenTree Express BBS from the 8-bit into the 16-bit days. Cowboy Kidd was my alias. Too much fun!
The sound effects in Alley Cat are still amazing to hear all these years later! Still have no idea how they created such realistic sounds without samples!
Such a unique game
@@TheTechDungeon It's a unique experience all round!
Yeah, it was mind blowing at the time. I also remember the copy protection was so strict it would only load from a standard atari drive. We replaced our atari drive with an astra and remember being so disappointed when the game wouldnt load on it (probably also because it was a bootleg copy, lol)!
Always thought this with Alley Cat. Never heard such realistic sounds on the Atari XL. The water does sound sampled. Amazing game for the time,and only 32k!
Man my top ten is so close to yours…I have such great memories with my 800xl…a few others I loved were Air Support, Gauntletak, Last Starfighter, Ultima III & IV, Quasimodo, Ms. Pac-Man, and Stealth
Definitely some good ones in your list. I loved Ultima III and IV. Was going to do a top 10 RPG for the 8-bit at some point
@@TheTechDungeon that’s great, would love to see that!
I keep hoping someone will release a version of Zenji for Android. My favorites were Agent USA, Zenji, Drol, Moon Patrol, Star Raiders, Ultima series, one on one, Montezuma's Revenge, Bruce Lee, Infocom games, Archon, Space Dungeon, Castle Wolfenstein (and it's sequel)
Enjoyed the video! informative also, the way you describe the games and key elements.
As a C64 guy I feel I could give you some recommendations, let's make it ten: Impossible Mission, Trolls & Tribulations (also available on the Atari but the C64 version is smoother), Bruce Lee II (also available on PC), Turrican II, Pitstop II, IK+, Paradroid, Leaderboard, Great Giana Sisters and Maniac Mansion... are all great ones to try.
They're still making new C64 games and some of them are absolutely stunning. Check out Sam's Journey to see how the programmers are still pushing the old beast to new heights.
Ofcourse AtariBlast and Yoomp! are excellent recent(ish) Atari games!
Sadly I haven't messed with the C64 much yet. Looking forward to restoring it and building that 1541 disk emulator for the Raspberry Pi.
I remember Impossible Mission, didn't know about Bruce Lee II, all the others you mention I was a fan of all.
There were many RPG, Adventure, Arcade games I struggled with putting in the top 10. But I felt like a top 10 for those separately might make more sense. I remember Yoomp! coming out and I think I tried it on an Emulator at the time.
Thanks for the reply!
@@TheTechDungeon i warn uou, the commodore 64 1541 disk driver is SLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW
@@lvintagenerd Nothing that can't be helped through emulation. ;)
Great list.
The game I would personally omit, would be Ghostbusters, as I was spoiled by the C64 version, back in the day.
I would add Dropzone - for sure. The Atari version was superb.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah Dropzone was a good one
I had a Atari 400, hated it, bad keyboard but got a 520ST and used it for a long, long time. These games bring back good memories. My favorite games were 7 cities of gold, Star Raiders, F-15 game and the standard arcade type games. I tried made for pc atari games but they were really terrible so I gave up on that. I wish I had a working Atari with all the games I had. I had a TON of them. In a way I like a lot of those simple games more than a lot of PC games to a point but they were fun..
Love hearing everyone's Atari memories. Loved my ST computers too.
After wanting a computer since I was 6 years old, I finally got a 400 when I was 13 - LOVED IT. Sure, the keyboard sucked. Sure the tape drive was slow. BUT, I was able to code some of my first programs - AND - when I discovered the Action! programming language on my shiny new 600XL, it completely changed everything I understood about programming.
Seven cities of gold, drol, rescue on fractalus/jaggi lines, bouderdash and bluemax should probably get honorable mentions, or maybe replace alley cat and goonies.
I remember how the 8 bit games evolved, they became more intricate (goonies/conan), but the gameplay suffered. Bruce lee and seven cities had TONS of replay value, but goonies was sort of done when you finished it. Fractalus was one of the first FPS games ever made.
Blue Max, Star Raiders, Star Raiders II, Jumpman too!
Really enjoyed this. I got the Atari 400 in 1978 or 79 then the 800XL in 82. Although I never played Alley Cat, I was a huge Synapse software fan. Blue Max and Shamus being two of my favorites. I used to pour over their catalog with screenshots and drool about the games I could never play(due to $). Synapse was acquired by Broderbund which was already one of my favorite publishers as well , making them my favorite at that point. My brother and I never had Archon, but we played the hell out of Archon II: Adept. They seemed pretty similar from what I can tell. I was also a fan of the Datasoft games. Again, I never played Goonies, but i can see that Datasoft used the same engine/designs in Zorro. Similar music, puzzles, screen, and overall feel among Zorro, Bruce Lee, Goonies..and one other I think I am forgetting. This may be hard to believe but I never played M.U.L.E. I don't have any hardware any more(I wish like hell I had told my parents to save it when I left for the service), so maybe I'll have to fire it up on one of my emulators. Great stuff!
Yeah Blue Max, Shamus were great. Loved Zorro also.
I had half of those on the list, Archon, Alley Cat, Donkey Kong, Bruce Lee and Goonies. Great games.
Some others I enjoyed back then:
-Racing Destruction Set
-The Great American (Cross Country) Road Race
-Moon Patrol
-Joust
-Vanguard
Great choices. Loved playing two player Joust.
Some good taste in the games shown here, hence I am subscribing. Atari 8bit software does not get enough love...
Thanks, doing more Commodore vs Atari videos very soon!
The perfect 8-bit system would have been SID sound and graphics with Antic color pallette with the memory to use it, at least 256K. BTW, I also had an Atari 800, before I gotten a Commodore 64.
Great list, I’d probably have Leaderboard, International Karate and Zorro in my top 10.
Great choices!
One of my favorites is Blue Max.
Solid list...although I'd have "Seven Cities Of Gold" on my list. And I loved "Deadline", the text-based adventure. "Agent USA" still fun as was "Star League Baseball" and "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein"
I loved Deadline. I played quite a few Infocom adventures. Got my name Belboz from their game Enchanter.
My friends and I would play Star League Baseball all the time.
@@TheTechDungeon By the way...credit for you including Alley Cat. Had totally forgotten about that one until I saw you listed it. Totally remember it...it was a lot of fun to play.
What was the intro music from, is it from an actual game? Miner 2049'er looked great! Wish I had played that one. I'll have to checkout windows version. Ghostbusters also looked fun. Ghostbusters car loadout reminded me a bit of Hackers also by activision. Goonies was definitely one of my favorites. Here is my top 10 that I can remember.
#10 Zorro (Never got to play Bruce Lee or Conan also by Datasoft)
#9 Star Wars (I could role the wave counter.)
#8 Drelbs (Had this as a demo. Never had full version until emulators came along. What a great game.)
#7 Fort Apocalypse (One of the first games we got for our Atari 800xl along with Survivor)
#6 Rescue on Fractulus (Knock... Knock... Knock...)
#5 World Karate Championship (Game was fun and I was good at but could never beat.)
#4 Goonies (I am a huge goonies fan so that's all that needs to be said.)
#3 Temple of Apshai Trilogy (The cover art alone I knew it was going to be a great game.)
#2 Load Runner (Simple but fun and challenging. I could literally play all day)
#1 Alternate Reality: The Dungeon (I spent so many hours in the dungeon. The intro pulled me into a whole new world. Thank god for Gary Gilbertson & Phillip Price)
The intro music was from the "robot/ship demo" made by Atari. I don't remember if that was the actual name of it, but I think it was.
I remember most of these games, Alley Cat is amazing. Do you remember Preppie? The Ultima adventures were also good, also the text adventures. Star raiders, Moonbase IO, Blue Max, the list goes on and on. What a fantastic machine! Thanks for the video 😀👍
Yeah I enjoyed Preppie and Preppie II. LOVED the Ultima series. Played a lot of Infocom Adventures like Deadline, Enchanter (my online name is from a character in Enchanter), Zork, etc. Star Raiders never clicked with me. Not sure on Moonbase IO. Blue Max was fun! Great list you mention!
@@TheTechDungeon Thanks, the Atari 800 was the best for a good few years. I used to go to an amazing computer shop in Manchester, UK called "Micro C" where I got my Vic-20 from. We couldn't afford the Atari 800, but I used to totally admire it. They had a great selection of American imports in that shop, I wish I had photos of the shop, but can't find any. I remember when Miner 2049er was released, I was only a young boy back then, about 11 years old. I learnt how to play star raiders in the shop by trial and error with no instructions. I used to buy weekly and monthly computer magazines and type in the games listings. Now I'm a senior software engineer and write my own stuff in C++. I love these old computers and their software, they are timeless classics! Thanks again 😀👍
Talk about old school! I can see you favor platformers, I prefer strategic games, or simulations. I was surprised to see Pitfall missing from your list considering the notoriety it got back in the day. Others that I might have included are games like Jumpman Jr. (instead of miner 49er) Oilswell, Kennedy Approach, Seven Cities of Gold and even Gorf might have made the list. There are so many to choose from that it is easy to find your list is different from mine. Boulderdash, Last Star Fighter, Agent USA and even Missile Command were fun to play back in the day. I am thankful that there are emulators to re-live the glory days. Using an emulator, I still play Cribbage, Kennedy Approach, and M.U.L.E.
Have fun with your Commodore, I'd say the hardware wasn't that much different (it uses the same 6502 CPU) but they had the advantage of 2 years of advancements in software and manufacturing (as you point out) and a ready made market(!) such that they were able to become a big hit. You might stay connected to the Atari theme, there is already a Commodore channel that has a major following (The 8-bit Guy). Good luck!
Yeah I did like platformers, arcade, rpg.
if you be player 2 and control the green guy you can make him yawn as young kids under 10 we used to laugh ourselves silly doing this back in the day
You could also help Bruce Lee by not going after him and protecting him with the other character
Did you know IRATA is ATARI spelled backwards? LOL my friends and I always brought that up when we played.
Solid list...and I remember all the games you listed (except Dandy.) I'd add to the list "Karateka" and "Seven Cities of Gold". (Probably remove Dandy and Alley Cat.) Not including arcade game ports, also liked Boulderdash, Lode Runner, BC's Quest for Tires, Deadline, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Agent USA, Caverns of Mars, Blue Max, River Raid, Pitstop, Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory, The Pharaoh's Curse, Summer Games.
Yeah loved Karateka, Lode Runner, Deadline, Wolfenstein, Caverns of Mars, Blue Max, River Raid, Summer games. All your picks are great
Had my atari 800 at college in the late 80s, me and roommates had a great time playing mule. We made a hobby out of mugging the poor Wumpus.
The wumpus was some good money!
The only practical difference between Atari and Commodore was sprites - the c64 sprites are genius, the Atari's PMs were poor even for 1979, but still useful.
woah is this TheHillsoftware channel?
Yeah, memories
Yes it is!
@@TheTechDungeon the first minecraft videos i ever watched back in 2013
Wow ... I grew up with an Atari 130XE and non of those games were among favorites ... and only a few of them titles I knew about.
Wow. I recall playing Alley Cat on my PC-XT in CGA back in the mid 80's. I had no idea it was available on Atari 800. Although I am a C64 person but I recently bought a 800xl. Must get these games for it. Mule looks great as well. Excited to play this version of Alleycat though the most.
I am surprised , i still have most of those games still in box
#1 M.U.L.E. No question! The BEST reason to own an 800! Can't believe they don't make THE REAL ONE for PC. Money in the bank!
Alleycat is my top 800xl game, great stuff!
Yeah it is a unique and awesome little game!