Top 10 Atari 2600 Games of All Time: th-cam.com/video/sHZ-eqAHtPM/w-d-xo.html My Own Personal Top 10 Atari: th-cam.com/video/XVgKqaPD0K4/w-d-xo.html Top 10 NES Games of All Time: th-cam.com/video/6nv9ycdzSMg/w-d-xo.html Top 10 Genesis Games of All Time: th-cam.com/video/GZ9kqff_Xwo/w-d-xo.html My Own Personal Top 10 Genesis: th-cam.com/video/1CBIaocYXHg/w-d-xo.html My Own Personal Top 10 NES: th-cam.com/video/FjPcZrjRGeA/w-d-xo.html My Own Personal Top 10 Dreamcast: th-cam.com/video/Cx2zuq19C4A/w-d-xo.html My Own Personal Top 10 Vectrex: th-cam.com/video/jYqrrwRfvKA/w-d-xo.html My Top 10 Most Played Systems: th-cam.com/video/eRxPlhEnGcg/w-d-xo.html
My mom worked at Ames Department Store and would bring home games about once a month. When she brought home Turmoil, no one had ever heard of it. I sat down to play it not knowing what to expect. I got one of the best Atari 2600 games ever! When I brought it to my friend's house, it immediately became the go to game for everyone. Endless competitions of who could last longer. I still have my original heavy sixer from Christmas 1982 and still have that Turmoil cartridge. Edit: I just checked, the box has the $9.99 price tag still on it.
I never played it, but heard it was really good! I liked Tempest in the arcade, but knew that because the steering controllers were only packaged with Indy 500 and not the console, we'd never get a second Indy 500, or Tempest.
Thanks for the video! The recommendations are very interesting and the background information is great. You definitely put a lot of effort into putting it together.
Good stuff in this list! I was fortunate to find a cart-only copy of Solar Fox last summer for a few bucks, nearly grabbed Midnight Magic from the same store but opted for Venture instead. Among the underrated on 2600, an unsung title I can't keep away from lately is Subterranea - it's become my favourite of Imagic's releases on the console, but I'm quite a sucker for Defender-style speedy horizontal shooters.
@@GamingTheSystems1 Given your penchant for fast-paced shooting games, I think you'll have some fun with it! The action is quite precise and satisfying, though reacting in time to not crash into enemies can feel all but impossible at first. At least, that's been my experience.
Another nice thing about Jawbreaker from Tigervision is that, due to its design, there is zero flicker because there are never more than two sprites (the 2600's maximum) in a horizontal area, so there's no need to fake more by alternating every other frame like other games do to simulate more than two in a horizontal area.
Both surprised and happy to see Mountain King on the list. I think part of what puts people off the game is that its one of the few 2600 titles where reading the manual is necessary to playing the game. The rules of the game are difficult to figure out independently, so if you acquire the game as a loose cart you're not likely to understand what you need to do. I'm not sure what you mean by the game having a "weird" name. The title is a direct reference to a very famous piece of classical music by Edvard Greig, which is the music played when you claim the crown and are racing to get it to the top. And when I say "famous" - its been sampled or covered by Trent Reznor, ELO, The Who, Erasure, and other pop artists.
We'll have to agree to disagree about the term "Mountain King" being a well recognized term within the general public. My sense is that it is not. Sounds more like a DLC pack for Goat Simulator. That last sentence was a line cut from the script of this video.
I was surprised to see it too. I've never known anyone else who has played the game. I also thought I was the only person in the world who ever found "glitch heaven". I found it by jumping around one day and seeing a ladder in the sky. I spent days trying to reach that ladder before finally finding the right jump to get there.
I don't know if I got this on the cheap at the thrift store or as a hand-me down with another console. But, yeah you need to RTFM; until the internet I didn't know how to get the treasure. I may have won once by climbing and jumping to the top, but don't remember. Not a good game.
As always, Kevin, great video! I really appreciate your attention to detail with the charts for release dates by month! It really helps to illustrate the problems that led to the "Crash of '83". Granted, it would have been nice to get a few more quality titles during the earlier years of the console, but given the oversaturation of Pong consoles at the time the VCS came out, I understand that it was still a little cagey of a market for Atari early on.
Yes. I count 17 games released in 1981, 117 in 1982, and 141 (30 just by Atari) in 1983. Why pay full price for a new game in 2nd half of 1983 (or 1984) when there were so many games, including good ones to get on the cheap? But someone said the number of games wasn't the only thing, since there might be more than that number of NES and SNES games out there. I suspect if they could have doubled the number of people buying games, on whatever format, consoles or computers, then things would have worked out.
Gotta remember that back then really the only way to know about games was word of mouth - no Internet, no gaming magazines, just your friends and relatives. I remember going to Toys R Us and there being a literal wall of games, and the only thing helping us pick out something was the cover art and whatever was on the back of the box.
There were video game magazines, but most kids didn't read them so often got screwed with bad games they hadn't played before buying (or more likely asking for) or their parents just bought cheap carts for them without asking. I remember going to a store at night with my folks to buy a couple Atari games (probably after Christmas since we got Space Invaders). I think there was someone in charge of the sample console who would trade out cartridges for us to test. I liked Dodge 'Em so we got that too. Last year, I finally learned patterns well enough to beat game 1 with both difficulty switches on A. J.C. Penney's had a special Atari console where you could play game 1 of various games in the Atari library. Not so helpful for 3rd party games. Pretty much the only good one I DIDN'T get from 1977-1981 was Circus Atari. I had played it at a friend's home, but didn't get it until years later. Instead I got Clowns for the VIC-20 in the early '80s.
To the best of my knowledge it's the only 2600 game that utilized 3d graphics. I ended up getting a copy for $3 out of a bargain bin in 1984. Totally worth it
What a great trip down memory lane! I remember most of those. At my peak, I think I had 115 cartridges. But I was outdone by Dwayne the guy who ran the Teen Room at the city rec center -- he would buy everything that was released. So. Many. Cartridges! I loved Solar Fox! Totally forgot about that gem. Played it so much! Now, I don't know if they were "underrated" or not, but I do recall enjoying Demon Attack, and absolutely being addicted to Activision's Megamania. Thanks for the great video.
Big fan of Dark Cavern and Mountain King from back in the day. We used to see how high we could climb in "glitch heaven" before falling. Good times. :)
1:31 - I remember playing that one when I was like 4 or 5. Didn't know the name. It's kinda bizarre seeing it so clearly for the first time, because I only remember those rotating balls in an old very shitty CRT. My favorite game on the System was a racing game called Enduro.
Great video and an interesting list. The more games I play from the Atari the more I'm impressed with the overall quality of the game library. In my view there are far more great and interesting games than not. The think a big cause of the crash was just too many games at once, the public just wasn't ready to absorb so much at the time - regardless of other high profile duds like Pac Man and ET.
Fast Food was among the games my grandmother had for the VCS at her house. She must've bought a bunch of them cheap when the video game crash occured; these are great.
I remember brand new old stock 2600 games still being sold new in Circus World around 1989-90. They were in a bargain bin near the entrance, priced something like $5-10 each
I remember back when the Atari 2600 came out. Actually I remember Pong, yes I had Pong, and believe it or not, at the time it was a really big deal. If I can remember correctly the Pong game that we had was the Sears Tele-Games Model. I had a few different games, not just the standard "Tennis" type game. Granted they were all basically a version of the same game, but back then, like with most toys and games you had to use your imagination. But when the Atari came out it was a really special time. Now compared to the systems, games, and even handheld games that would follow, the Atari was not remotely close to the technological advancements that systems would later have, but again for us back then it was really really REALLY cool. There were a lot of games that came out that set the bar high.
I was one of the lucky ones that discovered Turmoil when it was released. The game was thrilling and involved quick reflexes and precision under pressure.
This is a really solid list. I'm fortunate to have a number of these, but a couple I do not. Turmoil is one I didn't have as a kid, but got it later and it's fantastic. Laser Gates is quite expensive, and not easy to find. That looks like a good one. Also, I forgot about Mountain King--haven't played that one.
Great list. I had many of them. Finish everyone that had a ending. One that should be on list is Lock n' Chase. Solatis was a late release, a great game to. Oh and Air Raiders was a awesome game.
People talk about Pitfall 2 all the time. The problem was that hardly anyone was buying full-priced new games in 1984 for Atari, when they could buy good games on sale from 1982-3, and older kids had computers they could buy games for, or program from code in magazines. So not many sold. Same with H.E.R.O.
I was expecting to see Turmoil somewhere on this list and I'm NOT disappointed that it took the top spot. 20th Century Fox put out some amazing twitch-style 2600 games besides this one also check out Flash Gordon, Fantastic Voyage, Earth Dies Screaming and Spacemaster X-7!
Out of curiosity which system are you using to record the footage for this one? I know you'll use the hdmi clones for the better image quality so I'm curious if it's hyperkins, the 2600+, or 7800+.
For footage capture I use the Stella emulator on PC. For personal use I use an actual Atari on a CRT. Also have a Retro77 with Stella on it, but it stopped working.
Really glad to see Dark Cavern on the list. It doesn't look great on the surface, but if you really give it a chance, it's surprisingly fun. Depending on my mood, sometimes I prefer it over Berzerk. I would have suggested games like Solaris and Secret Quest, but I thought most collectors already knew about those. ^^;
comment for engagement. all of these games are cool and i dont think i had heard of any of them. this video is very useful thanks. (ok i think i heard of 3 of them)
Check out a game called Breakdown AKA Capture (Dynamics Goliath). The game is an absolute gem and would be probably my favorite game of all time if it had 2 player co-op action. I wonder if anyone could mod the game for this
You should have thrown in Blueprint, Gorf, and Omega Race so you could have every game by CBS Electronics on the list. I actually do feel Omega Race is a hidden gem, but Gorf is probably too well known to be considered hidden.
Just to be clear, I can't throw games in there because I want to. It's all based on mentions from other people. Those games did come up a lot though, just not as much as the others.
I never hear anybody talking about any of the Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger games, especially my favorite, Escape from the Mindmaster. It even had a port to the Colecovision (that never got published). Definitely an underrated game.
Those were mentioned by some of the respondents, but not enough to get into the list. Frogger came close. They are just TOO hidden, but maybe as more people play them on emulator they will become more known.
You know I've always wondered why 2600 games still look so good till this day, and I think one big reason is the resolution 162x192 which is quite high for such old hardware.
Activision was a 3rd party developer who made some of the best Atari games. 🐊Pitfall🐊 was one of my all-time favorite games. 🧨💥💣💥💣Ka-Boom💣💥💣💥🧨 was another great game. One of the older games, Adventure, also was a pretty good game. It wasn't graphically impressive, but what it lacked in looks it made up for in story and uniqueness. On the flip side there were some real 💩terds💩 as well. I'll never forget about one particular game. It had just come out and our local Toys"R"Us had it. It was also the first time that my Mom allowed me to take the 🚍🚏City🚍Bus🚏🚍 without a "parent" with me. My friend came with me though. I was really REALLY EXCITED about this game. I loved the Arcade version of it, and I couldn't wait to be able to have a home version of it. I remember the 🚌 bus🚏stopped🚍 right on the corner of 27th Street and Howard Avenue. Which was where Toys"R"Us was. I ran across the parking lot to the entrance. I grabbed my Ticket, scanned a few other games, looking for any other new releases. Normally I'd spend a LOT OF TIME looking at toys, action figures, Hot Wheels, ⚾️🧢Baseball⚾️Gloves🧢⚾️, and basically anything and everything inside of Toys"R"Us. This time however I was in and our in maybe 10 minutes. We caught the🚏🚍City🚏Bus🚍🚏 across the street and took the 10-15 minute ride home. When bus dropped us I RAN to our house. I popped in the game and 💩💩(big fart!)💩💩 The game was Donkey Kong. I had hoped that it would be a close replica to the Arcade game, but being a little kid I didn't or wasn't very realistic about my expectations. Looking back now however, considering when it came out, it wasn't a horrible game. But when your a little kid who's hopes were that you'd have a close representation of an arcade game at home. Ooops it didn't happen. One other arcade game was somewhat of a "letdown". The classic and Iconic Pac-Man 😶 -- -- -- -- -- ■ 👻-- -- -- --🍒-- -- --■ -- -- 👻 -- -- ■ -- -- --👻 Instead of dots and circles you got wafers and squares and a really bad flicker. However Ms.Pac-Man turned out to be one of my ALL-TIME FAVORITE GAMES! Atari was the Grandfather of home video games. They were the ones to introduce us to the possibility of having an arcade in your home, and since then WOW has the technological advancements exploded! 3-D, Virtual Reality, sports games that look like your actually controlling an actual player, in a actual 🏟Stadium🏟 complete with announcers, crowd noise that fluctuates depending on the games score and with what's occurring on the field. Statistics like never before. League leaders, records, all-time records, single season records, single game records? Its all there for the most part. But back in the day Atari Football, 3 players pretty much all moving in sync of each other. But boy were those games a LOT OF FUN!!!!!
How about sky skippier? It’s a well underated game. Not only that but it was a nintendo game wich only got ported to the atari 2600. Althrough many of those games you mentioned are indeed great as well😁
In 1984-85 because of the game crash every store (even drug stores) had a bin of 2600 games of all sorts selling for $2 each. My mom wouldn't mind at all getting a game for that price. Most of them were terrible shovelware. And that's why the crash happened, NOT because of ET which was was a decent game. Of this list I had I had Beamrider and fast food, which I did play on a black and white TV because that's what we had.
1st: Loss of investor confidence when Atari said its increase in profit would only be 15% instead of 50% (probably due to the unforeseen competition). 2nd: Loss of retailer confidence when stores that never sold video games got in on it, but didn't know what to stock, and couldn't return games that didn't sell. 3rd: Loss of consumer confidence when they bought carts that weren't very good even with the Atari name on it. So many little kids couldn't play E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (and were too young to read the manual) that parents took back who knows how many carts to the store after Christmas 1982? Atari released 9 games in 1981, 15 in 1982 and 30 in 1983! Clearly they were shoveling something too!
@mentallymad7714 Thank you. One thing I love about retro game channels is being reminded of games I've long forgot about, and probably never would have thought about again. I recently got recommended a bunch of videos about old electromechanical arcade games. The first arcade I used to go to in the 70s had some, and back then, I didn't realize that some of them WEREN'T computerized video games, because the lights, mirrors, screens and reflections were so impressive to a kid my age
I almost didn't click on this video because I hate the term "underrated." It's the most over-used term in TH-cam comments. Who's rating or under-rating it? Nobody ever says. Is it true? Almost never. When talking about movies or actors and actresses, they always point to ones that made money, or won awards, which is the opposite of underrated. Nevertheless, I like watching reviews of old Atari games to see if there's some "gem" that I missed that would have been worth playing. For instance CBS/20th Century Fox seemed like a lame 3rd party publisher and I don't ever remember seeing TV or print ads. But several of its games are considered good, like Wizard of War (I disagree that Mountain King is good, even after finding the rules on the internet). For instance, some of the Starpath Supercharger games are considered really good. But you had to pay a lot for the add-on and its game before buying the others. I can guess how long it took to load games from tape after having a VIC-20 so that would be another downer. They did come out with a CD-ROM years later with all the games. Finally, no one seems to have converted these games to any of those throwback machines where you can play many of the old Atari carts from the leading publishers without having to buy the carts.
@GamingTheSystems1 lol... Oops. You are right. That was a Nintendo thing. Still... joust and river raid were outstanding and pitfall was just epic for the era.
@@GamingTheSystems1 and... joust was a 5200 game. At least that wasn't as bad as confusing a Nintendo game, I had both the 2600 and 5200 at the same time as a kid.
@@GamingTheSystems1 sorry being a grammar nazi. everyone uses lying and laying incorrectly. Cool video I was 10 in 1978 and Atari was the most amazing thing. don't mind me
As always, Kevin, great video! I really appreciate your attention to detail with the charts for release dates by month! It really helps to illustrate the problems that led to the "Crash of '83". Granted, it would have been nice to get a few more quality titles during the earlier years of the console, but given the oversaturation of Pong consoles at the time the VCS came out, I understand that it was still a little cagey of a market for Atari early on.
Atari released theirs in 1977, and Magnavox released the Odyssey² in 1978. It had a computer keyboard on it, but I don't know how many games that was useful for. Had they released it with a two-button joystick, maybe that would have been a selling point since there's only so much you can do with one button. Most of their games were atrocious with only Baseball! and Football! beating Atari's Home Run and Football in quality, until M-Network and Realsports releases in 1982. They say one programmer designed over half their games, which explains why you didn't see improvement until 1983 when Imagic and Parker Bros. finally released games for the system (in Europe and Brazil). Supposedly the Intellivision was the better-looking system, but it was D.O.A. since Atari got Space Invaders in 1980, a must-have game that doubled its sales of consoles and gave them over 70% of market share. Sports games using their multi-button controller (with no A.I. for 1-player) wasn't enough to compete, nor was saying "we have space games too" which is my paraphrase of their "I didn't know" TV ad. Still with 80% of market share after Pac-Man, the console market was theirs to lose. And good 3rd-party games did as much to hurt them (by taking away sales) as bad 3rd-party games, plus their own bad games that did and didn't sell.
Top 10 Atari 2600 Games of All Time:
th-cam.com/video/sHZ-eqAHtPM/w-d-xo.html
My Own Personal Top 10 Atari:
th-cam.com/video/XVgKqaPD0K4/w-d-xo.html
Top 10 NES Games of All Time:
th-cam.com/video/6nv9ycdzSMg/w-d-xo.html
Top 10 Genesis Games of All Time:
th-cam.com/video/GZ9kqff_Xwo/w-d-xo.html
My Own Personal Top 10 Genesis:
th-cam.com/video/1CBIaocYXHg/w-d-xo.html
My Own Personal Top 10 NES:
th-cam.com/video/FjPcZrjRGeA/w-d-xo.html
My Own Personal Top 10 Dreamcast:
th-cam.com/video/Cx2zuq19C4A/w-d-xo.html
My Own Personal Top 10 Vectrex:
th-cam.com/video/jYqrrwRfvKA/w-d-xo.html
My Top 10 Most Played Systems:
th-cam.com/video/eRxPlhEnGcg/w-d-xo.html
My mom worked at Ames Department Store and would bring home games about once a month. When she brought home Turmoil, no one had ever heard of it. I sat down to play it not knowing what to expect. I got one of the best Atari 2600 games ever!
When I brought it to my friend's house, it immediately became the go to game for everyone. Endless competitions of who could last longer.
I still have my original heavy sixer from Christmas 1982 and still have that Turmoil cartridge.
Edit: I just checked, the box has the $9.99 price tag still on it.
Nothing but nostalgia for Ames....
I never played it, but heard it was really good! I liked Tempest in the arcade, but knew that because the steering controllers were only packaged with Indy 500 and not the console, we'd never get a second Indy 500, or Tempest.
I loved playing Wizard of Wor at the arcade! Great game!!
Wor is one of my favorite coop games on the Atari
Cool video. Honestly I thought I was pretty well versed in the "2600" but there were a couple of tiles I hade never heard of, good job.
Man Tunnel Runner. Those creatures used to haunt my dreams as a kid. Love that game
Thank you for making this video. I've been wanting to add some more games to my Atari 2600 collection and this video helps a lot.
“Montezuma’s Revenge” on the Colecovision remains one of my favorite platformers of all time.
Yeah, in my research some people were mentioning that port. Probably demolishes the 2600 one.
The tidbit about the Turmoil dev going on to develop NBA Jam for Midway is awesome
Thanks for the video! The recommendations are very interesting and the background information is great. You definitely put a lot of effort into putting it together.
Awesome, thank you!
Good stuff in this list! I was fortunate to find a cart-only copy of Solar Fox last summer for a few bucks, nearly grabbed Midnight Magic from the same store but opted for Venture instead. Among the underrated on 2600, an unsung title I can't keep away from lately is Subterranea - it's become my favourite of Imagic's releases on the console, but I'm quite a sucker for Defender-style speedy horizontal shooters.
Subterranea does get mentioned a lot as a hidden gem. Not enough to appear in the video, but I do want to try it out.
@@GamingTheSystems1 Given your penchant for fast-paced shooting games, I think you'll have some fun with it! The action is quite precise and satisfying, though reacting in time to not crash into enemies can feel all but impossible at first. At least, that's been my experience.
Subterranean is fantastic! One of my favorites for sure.
Some great games there, Montezuma's Revenge is my favourite, amazing how they did this on the 2600
I was unaware of Jawbreaker. Looks solid!
Another nice thing about Jawbreaker from Tigervision is that, due to its design, there is zero flicker because there are never more than two sprites (the 2600's maximum) in a horizontal area, so there's no need to fake more by alternating every other frame like other games do to simulate more than two in a horizontal area.
Both surprised and happy to see Mountain King on the list. I think part of what puts people off the game is that its one of the few 2600 titles where reading the manual is necessary to playing the game. The rules of the game are difficult to figure out independently, so if you acquire the game as a loose cart you're not likely to understand what you need to do. I'm not sure what you mean by the game having a "weird" name. The title is a direct reference to a very famous piece of classical music by Edvard Greig, which is the music played when you claim the crown and are racing to get it to the top. And when I say "famous" - its been sampled or covered by Trent Reznor, ELO, The Who, Erasure, and other pop artists.
We'll have to agree to disagree about the term "Mountain King" being a well recognized term within the general public. My sense is that it is not. Sounds more like a DLC pack for Goat Simulator. That last sentence was a line cut from the script of this video.
I was surprised to see it too. I've never known anyone else who has played the game. I also thought I was the only person in the world who ever found "glitch heaven". I found it by jumping around one day and seeing a ladder in the sky. I spent days trying to reach that ladder before finally finding the right jump to get there.
This was my first time playing it, so I had difficulty with the jumps. Couldn't make it to glitch heaven for the video :(
I wonder if this game inspired the Savatage tune "Hall Of The Mountain King".
I don't know if I got this on the cheap at the thrift store or as a hand-me down with another console. But, yeah you need to RTFM; until the internet I didn't know how to get the treasure. I may have won once by climbing and jumping to the top, but don't remember. Not a good game.
This list gives me some new games to try out. Most of the random ones I try are bad.
As always, Kevin, great video! I really appreciate your attention to detail with the charts for release dates by month! It really helps to illustrate the problems that led to the "Crash of '83". Granted, it would have been nice to get a few more quality titles during the earlier years of the console, but given the oversaturation of Pong consoles at the time the VCS came out, I understand that it was still a little cagey of a market for Atari early on.
Yes. I count 17 games released in 1981, 117 in 1982, and 141 (30 just by Atari) in 1983. Why pay full price for a new game in 2nd half of 1983 (or 1984) when there were so many games, including good ones to get on the cheap?
But someone said the number of games wasn't the only thing, since there might be more than that number of NES and SNES games out there. I suspect if they could have doubled the number of people buying games, on whatever format, consoles or computers, then things would have worked out.
Gotta remember that back then really the only way to know about games was word of mouth - no Internet, no gaming magazines, just your friends and relatives. I remember going to Toys R Us and there being a literal wall of games, and the only thing helping us pick out something was the cover art and whatever was on the back of the box.
Did some game trading as well(borrow, not permanent), but yeah, game covers were a biggie.
There were video game magazines, but most kids didn't read them so often got screwed with bad games they hadn't played before buying (or more likely asking for) or their parents just bought cheap carts for them without asking.
I remember going to a store at night with my folks to buy a couple Atari games (probably after Christmas since we got Space Invaders). I think there was someone in charge of the sample console who would trade out cartridges for us to test. I liked Dodge 'Em so we got that too. Last year, I finally learned patterns well enough to beat game 1 with both difficulty switches on A.
J.C. Penney's had a special Atari console where you could play game 1 of various games in the Atari library. Not so helpful for 3rd party games. Pretty much the only good one I DIDN'T get from 1977-1981 was Circus Atari. I had played it at a friend's home, but didn't get it until years later. Instead I got Clowns for the VIC-20 in the early '80s.
So glad you mentioned Tunnel Runner. Great game!
Tunnel Runner rules
To the best of my knowledge it's the only 2600 game that utilized 3d graphics. I ended up getting a copy for $3 out of a bargain bin in 1984. Totally worth it
Very solid list
Great video, well done
What a great trip down memory lane! I remember most of those.
At my peak, I think I had 115 cartridges. But I was outdone by Dwayne the guy who ran the Teen Room at the city rec center -- he would buy everything that was released. So. Many. Cartridges!
I loved Solar Fox! Totally forgot about that gem. Played it so much!
Now, I don't know if they were "underrated" or not, but I do recall enjoying Demon Attack, and absolutely being addicted to Activision's Megamania.
Thanks for the great video.
Big fan of Dark Cavern and Mountain King from back in the day. We used to see how high we could climb in "glitch heaven" before falling. Good times. :)
1:31 - I remember playing that one when I was like 4 or 5. Didn't know the name. It's kinda bizarre seeing it so clearly for the first time, because I only remember those rotating balls in an old very shitty CRT. My favorite game on the System was a racing game called Enduro.
I never see anyone talk about Archon, but that was one of my favorite games to play with friends. Wizard of Wor was a blast too.
Was Archon on the 2600? I can't find any mention of it.
@@GamingTheSystems1 I remember it being a Commodore 64 game. It was really good. I believe it was a trilogy.
@@GamingTheSystems1 It was released for the Atari 8 bit and ported to other systems, but not the 2600.
Great video and an interesting list. The more games I play from the Atari the more I'm impressed with the overall quality of the game library. In my view there are far more great and interesting games than not. The think a big cause of the crash was just too many games at once, the public just wasn't ready to absorb so much at the time - regardless of other high profile duds like Pac Man and ET.
Fast Food was among the games my grandmother had for the VCS at her house. She must've bought a bunch of them cheap when the video game crash occured; these are great.
I remember brand new old stock 2600 games still being sold new in Circus World around 1989-90. They were in a bargain bin near the entrance, priced something like $5-10 each
@@cubey They may have; it's possible I saw them as well as a kid but of course I had no money then. Such an underrated system.
The numbers... Simple, yet brilliant!
So sad not to see Moonsweeper on this list. Such a great game.
Please take me back playing Jawbreaker obsessively at my buddy’s house in 4th grade!
Quality list. Hard to top it apart from looking at newer homebrew games. Solar Fox is a highly impressive and accurate arcade port.
I remember back when the Atari 2600 came out. Actually I remember Pong, yes I had Pong, and believe it or not, at the time it was a really big deal. If I can remember correctly the Pong game that we had was the Sears Tele-Games Model. I had a few different games, not just the standard "Tennis" type game. Granted they were all basically a version of the same game, but back then, like with most toys and games you had to use your imagination. But when the Atari came out it was a really special time. Now compared to the systems, games, and even handheld games that would follow, the Atari was not remotely close to the technological advancements that systems would later have, but again for us back then it was really really REALLY cool. There were a lot of games that came out that set the bar high.
"Deadly Duck"... worth owning for the title. Retro Gaming Lore.
I was one of the lucky ones that discovered Turmoil when it was released. The game was thrilling and involved quick reflexes and precision under pressure.
I like what you did with the chapter titles lol
This is a really solid list. I'm fortunate to have a number of these, but a couple I do not. Turmoil is one I didn't have as a kid, but got it later and it's fantastic. Laser Gates is quite expensive, and not easy to find. That looks like a good one. Also, I forgot about Mountain King--haven't played that one.
Great list. I had many of them. Finish everyone that had a ending. One that should be on list is Lock n' Chase. Solatis was a late release, a great game to. Oh and Air Raiders was a awesome game.
Greatest hidden gem was Pitfall 2. The original was so iconic but no one ever talks about 2 and it was a hundred times better. And deeper.
Pitfall 2 was fantastic. It had background music which was unheard of back then.
I remember wrecking shop on this game. A lot of fun since it did a little bit of everything
People talk about Pitfall 2 all the time. The problem was that hardly anyone was buying full-priced new games in 1984 for Atari, when they could buy good games on sale from 1982-3, and older kids had computers they could buy games for, or program from code in magazines. So not many sold. Same with H.E.R.O.
Frostbite being just an honorable mention is criminal. Reactor being absent is too.
Spent many hours playing Wizard of Wor. Loved that game.
I was expecting to see Turmoil somewhere on this list and I'm NOT disappointed that it took the top spot. 20th Century Fox put out some amazing twitch-style 2600 games besides this one also check out Flash Gordon, Fantastic Voyage, Earth Dies Screaming and Spacemaster X-7!
Was so hoping Rescue Terra 1 was on this list. Great game but unfortunately rare.
It ALMOST made the cut.
Out of curiosity which system are you using to record the footage for this one? I know you'll use the hdmi clones for the better image quality so I'm curious if it's hyperkins, the 2600+, or 7800+.
For footage capture I use the Stella emulator on PC. For personal use I use an actual Atari on a CRT. Also have a Retro77 with Stella on it, but it stopped working.
Yeah, in terms of gameplay, Solar Fox is one of the best games on the system -perhaps THE SINGLE BEST game on the system.
Star Raider, Frogs and flys, Adventure, and Atlantis were my favorite games.
Really glad to see Dark Cavern on the list. It doesn't look great on the surface, but if you really give it a chance, it's surprisingly fun. Depending on my mood, sometimes I prefer it over Berzerk.
I would have suggested games like Solaris and Secret Quest, but I thought most collectors already knew about those. ^^;
I used to like Solar Fox, only one of these i played
comment for engagement. all of these games are cool and i dont think i had heard of any of them. this video is very useful thanks. (ok i think i heard of 3 of them)
I liked Tutankamun, River Raid, HERO, Solaris, all seemed to be not well known but great games
Check out a game called Breakdown AKA Capture (Dynamics Goliath). The game is an absolute gem and would be probably my favorite game of all time if it had 2 player co-op action. I wonder if anyone could mod the game for this
My favorite personal gem is spacemaster x-7. A more straightforward version of star castle.
You should have thrown in Blueprint, Gorf, and Omega Race so you could have every game by CBS Electronics on the list.
I actually do feel Omega Race is a hidden gem, but Gorf is probably too well known to be considered hidden.
Just to be clear, I can't throw games in there because I want to. It's all based on mentions from other people. Those games did come up a lot though, just not as much as the others.
I got most of the CBS games out of the literal bargain bin of a regional department store that was closing in 1984. That was a great day.
Air Raiders was one of my favorites.
I really love # 8 and just recently got #2
I never hear anybody talking about any of the Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger games, especially my favorite, Escape from the Mindmaster. It even had a port to the Colecovision (that never got published). Definitely an underrated game.
Those were mentioned by some of the respondents, but not enough to get into the list. Frogger came close. They are just TOO hidden, but maybe as more people play them on emulator they will become more known.
Don't forget dragon stomper. It was another supercharger game that kinda opened the door to future RPG... like Zelda and crystalis.
You know I've always wondered why 2600 games still look so good till this day, and I think one big reason is the resolution 162x192 which is quite high for such old hardware.
Good point. I think the high contrast colors also make the games stand out.
the name mountainking refers to the music score that underlies the fgame "in the hole of the mountain king"
My aunt had Fast Food - it rocked!
How is Wizard of Wor underrated??
You'll have to ask the many people who mentioned it as an underrated game.
i noticed that you had the e.t. sound track lol
Have you ever played Crackpots? It was one of my favorites.
Lost Luggage is another under rated hidden gem for the Atari 2600
Activision was a 3rd party developer who made some of the best Atari games. 🐊Pitfall🐊 was one of my all-time favorite games. 🧨💥💣💥💣Ka-Boom💣💥💣💥🧨 was another great game. One of the older games, Adventure, also was a pretty good game. It wasn't graphically impressive, but what it lacked in looks it made up for in story and uniqueness. On the flip side there were some real 💩terds💩 as well. I'll never forget about one particular game. It had just come out and our local Toys"R"Us had it. It was also the first time that my Mom allowed me to take the 🚍🚏City🚍Bus🚏🚍 without a "parent" with me. My friend came with me though. I was really REALLY EXCITED about this game. I loved the Arcade version of it, and I couldn't wait to be able to have a home version of it. I remember the 🚌 bus🚏stopped🚍 right on the corner of 27th Street and Howard Avenue. Which was where Toys"R"Us was. I ran across the parking lot to the entrance. I grabbed my Ticket, scanned a few other games, looking for any other new releases. Normally I'd spend a LOT OF TIME looking at toys, action figures, Hot Wheels, ⚾️🧢Baseball⚾️Gloves🧢⚾️, and basically anything and everything inside of Toys"R"Us. This time however I was in and our in maybe 10 minutes. We caught the🚏🚍City🚏Bus🚍🚏 across the street and took the 10-15 minute ride home. When bus dropped us I RAN to our house. I popped in the game and 💩💩(big fart!)💩💩 The game was Donkey Kong. I had hoped that it would be a close replica to the Arcade game, but being a little kid I didn't or wasn't very realistic about my expectations. Looking back now however, considering when it came out, it wasn't a horrible game. But when your a little kid who's hopes were that you'd have a close representation of an arcade game at home. Ooops it didn't happen. One other arcade game was somewhat of a "letdown". The classic and Iconic Pac-Man 😶 -- -- -- -- -- ■ 👻-- -- -- --🍒-- -- --■ -- -- 👻 -- -- ■ -- -- --👻 Instead of dots and circles you got wafers and squares and a really bad flicker. However Ms.Pac-Man turned out to be one of my ALL-TIME FAVORITE GAMES! Atari was the Grandfather of home video games. They were the ones to introduce us to the possibility of having an arcade in your home, and since then WOW has the technological advancements exploded! 3-D, Virtual Reality, sports games that look like your actually controlling an actual player, in a actual 🏟Stadium🏟 complete with announcers, crowd noise that fluctuates depending on the games score and with what's occurring on the field. Statistics like never before. League leaders, records, all-time records, single season records, single game records? Its all there for the most part. But back in the day Atari Football, 3 players pretty much all moving in sync of each other. But boy were those games a LOT OF FUN!!!!!
Is “bruh” the new Ouya?
wizard of wor! Nothing's really missing from this version, they did the best they could.
Jawbreaker is reminding me of that Stephen King movie called The Langoliers.
How about sky skippier?
It’s a well underated game.
Not only that but it was a nintendo game wich only got ported to the atari 2600.
Althrough many of those games you mentioned are indeed great as well😁
Montezuma's Revenge seems to be "heavily inspired" by my favorite Apple ][ game, Aztec.
I'll add a couple. Adventures of Tron and Infiltrate.
Moonsweeper was my favorite of 1983
In 1984-85 because of the game crash every store (even drug stores) had a bin of 2600 games of all sorts selling for $2 each. My mom wouldn't mind at all getting a game for that price. Most of them were terrible shovelware. And that's why the crash happened, NOT because of ET which was was a decent game. Of this list I had I had Beamrider and fast food, which I did play on a black and white TV because that's what we had.
1st: Loss of investor confidence when Atari said its increase in profit would only be 15% instead of 50% (probably due to the unforeseen competition). 2nd: Loss of retailer confidence when stores that never sold video games got in on it, but didn't know what to stock, and couldn't return games that didn't sell. 3rd: Loss of consumer confidence when they bought carts that weren't very good even with the Atari name on it. So many little kids couldn't play E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (and were too young to read the manual) that parents took back who knows how many carts to the store after Christmas 1982?
Atari released 9 games in 1981, 15 in 1982 and 30 in 1983! Clearly they were shoveling something too!
I liked dark cavern. The difficulty ramps up HARD.
What about Jungle hunt, moon patrol?
Alien is a decent Pac-Man clone that is fun to play.
Little did I know when I was playing Jawbreaker that in 2025 I would actually have those same teeth in my mouth. ugh
Was Beamrider ever a stand-up arcade game? I feel like I've played that, but not on the Atari
It was in the arcade. If my memory serves me well, it was called Juno First, and I think it was a Gottlieb game
@mentallymad7714 Thank you. One thing I love about retro game channels is being reminded of games I've long forgot about, and probably never would have thought about again. I recently got recommended a bunch of videos about old electromechanical arcade games. The first arcade I used to go to in the 70s had some, and back then, I didn't realize that some of them WEREN'T computerized video games, because the lights, mirrors, screens and reflections were so impressive to a kid my age
Tunnel Runner looks like Atari Backrooms
I almost didn't click on this video because I hate the term "underrated." It's the most over-used term in TH-cam comments. Who's rating or under-rating it? Nobody ever says. Is it true? Almost never. When talking about movies or actors and actresses, they always point to ones that made money, or won awards, which is the opposite of underrated.
Nevertheless, I like watching reviews of old Atari games to see if there's some "gem" that I missed that would have been worth playing. For instance CBS/20th Century Fox seemed like a lame 3rd party publisher and I don't ever remember seeing TV or print ads. But several of its games are considered good, like Wizard of War (I disagree that Mountain King is good, even after finding the rules on the internet).
For instance, some of the Starpath Supercharger games are considered really good. But you had to pay a lot for the add-on and its game before buying the others. I can guess how long it took to load games from tape after having a VIC-20 so that would be another downer. They did come out with a CD-ROM years later with all the games. Finally, no one seems to have converted these games to any of those throwback machines where you can play many of the old Atari carts from the leading publishers without having to buy the carts.
Towering Inferno!
What? No Math Gran Prix? Unsubscribed!
Worst comment ever.
Awww poor baby
@@alkohallick2901No I think your comment takes that 🏆🥇award🥇🏆 hands down! Yes you definitely win that🏆🥇award🥇🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆! Congratulations!
Mark Turmell, not Mike.
Thanks. Let's keep the mistake a secret. :)
honestly nvr heard of any of them
Joust, legendary wings... freaking pitfall didn't even make the list. Weird.
River raid!!! I almost forgot that one, and it was a favorite for many years.
Legendary Wings on the 2600? That didn't happen LOL.
@GamingTheSystems1 lol... Oops. You are right. That was a Nintendo thing. Still... joust and river raid were outstanding and pitfall was just epic for the era.
@@GamingTheSystems1 and... joust was a 5200 game. At least that wasn't as bad as confusing a Nintendo game, I had both the 2600 and 5200 at the same time as a kid.
Joust was also a 2600 game and I loved it. They had to compromise some stuff from the arcade, but it still had the same spirit.
Atari hidden gems... that is a thing... just kidding
lying not laying
Huh?
@@GamingTheSystems1 sorry being a grammar nazi. everyone uses lying and laying incorrectly. Cool video I was 10 in 1978 and Atari was the most amazing thing. don't mind me
As always, Kevin, great video! I really appreciate your attention to detail with the charts for release dates by month! It really helps to illustrate the problems that led to the "Crash of '83". Granted, it would have been nice to get a few more quality titles during the earlier years of the console, but given the oversaturation of Pong consoles at the time the VCS came out, I understand that it was still a little cagey of a market for Atari early on.
Atari released theirs in 1977, and Magnavox released the Odyssey² in 1978. It had a computer keyboard on it, but I don't know how many games that was useful for. Had they released it with a two-button joystick, maybe that would have been a selling point since there's only so much you can do with one button. Most of their games were atrocious with only Baseball! and Football! beating Atari's Home Run and Football in quality, until M-Network and Realsports releases in 1982. They say one programmer designed over half their games, which explains why you didn't see improvement until 1983 when Imagic and Parker Bros. finally released games for the system (in Europe and Brazil).
Supposedly the Intellivision was the better-looking system, but it was D.O.A. since Atari got Space Invaders in 1980, a must-have game that doubled its sales of consoles and gave them over 70% of market share. Sports games using their multi-button controller (with no A.I. for 1-player) wasn't enough to compete, nor was saying "we have space games too" which is my paraphrase of their "I didn't know" TV ad.
Still with 80% of market share after Pac-Man, the console market was theirs to lose. And good 3rd-party games did as much to hurt them (by taking away sales) as bad 3rd-party games, plus their own bad games that did and didn't sell.