The sad fact is, in many ways, the Atari was the superior hardware. But Atari was dumb initially, the first few years of its life, the documentation wasn't available to devs, so they just did the best they could. It wasn't until much later that really great games came out for it from third parties. The c64 just sold much more because it was far cheaper overall to get. Didn't help that Atari 8bits (and 16bits too) had this weird 'lowest common denominator' issue, where many games only used the 16 or 48k of ram from the 400/800 so that more people could play the game. The c64 cs c128 had that issue too, but it didn't seem like the Amiga did as much. People would code to take advantage of the later hardware a lot more...
@@slaapliedje Me gusta el Atari por la paleta de 256 colores, pero el sonido de C64 me parece increible y viendo demos hoy dia que puede usar muestras de alta calidad, siempre que tenga bastante memoria claro. Como bien dices, el problema de hacer compatibles con modelos inferiores es que programaban pensando en los mas bajos, con Amiga paso algo parecido pero con el Atari ST que siendo peor hacian ports casi directamente sin aprovechar el Blitter ni mas colores, etc. esto fue asi porque aunque el Amiga se lanzo en 1985, hasta el 87 no sacaron el 500 que es el que de verdad se vendia y competia, dejando esos dos años con ventaja para Atari.
@@Elbas_Tardo The ol' Pokey vs SID argument. Both of these can be made to make some seriously epic music / sounds. But POKEY can do samples as well. It's more or less Paula's (from the Amiga) mom.
I remember being so excited for Fight Night (Atari version) as a kid but feeling disappointed once I put it on. It was so slow and repetitive. That all said, I still played the heck out of it. Just goes to show what you’ll put up with when you don’t have many games.
Wow! F-15 Strike Eagle may be one of the first million sellers for computer games, reaching 1 million sales in 1989 for several platforms combined! Great video!
It’s incredible to think that F-15 Strike Eagle achieved that level of success back in the day! Hitting 1 million in sales in 1989 was a huge milestone, especially for a computer game spread across multiple platforms. Glad you enjoyed the video-thanks for watching!
Nice reviews, I was a C64 user in the 80's till I met up with some USAF guys when we did a cross service visit (I served in the Royal Air Force). I was taken to their weekly 'Computer Club' and made a good few friends. This was my first introduction to Atari Computers. I got an 800XL (later upgraded to a 130XE) and one of the kind guys there got me a 'Happy' Drive! I was very happy with that. Have loved both machines since then (still own several of each). I love Fort Apocalypse too but prefer it on Atari. I totally love Zeppelin on Atari too. Take care from England!
Thanks for sharing that story! Sounds like an awesome introduction to the Atari world, and the Happy drive was such a game-changer for the 800XL and 130XE. I’m with you on Fort Apocalypse-it’s a blast on both systems, but Atari’s version has its charm! Zeppelin is another classic; they just don’t make games like that anymore. Take care, and greetings back to England!
I think Fort Apocalypse is practically the same, but Forbidden Forest certainly suffers from being ported from the C64 when it was plainly designed for the C64's capabilities and limitations.
Wow, I won the Tshirt. I'm so grateful man as I genuinely love your channel. I think the Commodore has slightly sharper graphics overall but of course that all depends on the games. Still it's great to see the comparisons between the systems and how much they differ, or I guess not so much in some cases. Truly fantastic content as always
Ha, Atari, in their infinite wisdom, didn't solder up one of the lines required for S-Video (luma or chroma, I can't recall which) on the 800XL. Connecting that up and using it on both will greatly improve the output.
I must have skipped 'F' in my local game store back in the day, as I've only ever played 3 of these. From your selection I' too would put Fort Apocalypse mighty high on a list of must-have's. Similar to Choplifter or M.A.S.H., placing the helicopter in caverns that include semi-destructable environments was a stroke of genuis. Watching your video taught me something I never realized... to save the men, I've always set-down on a landing pad and waited for them to run to helicopter. In all thse years I had no idea you could just fly over and touch them à la Defender or Protector II. Seems I still learn something new every day, even in retirement. I could never get into F-15 Strike Eagle although I usually enjoyed Microprose titles and this one was HUGE for the company. I think the problem is the entire 8-bit era for flight simulators and 3D driving games. They just weren't there yet and I lacked the patience (Still do). I'm going to go out on a limb with Frogger and say that my favourite Frogger (and in this case, I've actually played it on all 3 machines), is the TI-99 release from Parker Brothers. Frogger (and Qbert) are both subjectively better on the 4A than the C64 OR the Atari). One can't say that about alot of games but Parker Brothers did a bang-up job squeezing these two into 8K cartrideges (to bypass TI's GRom licensing restrictions) and putting the TI's sprite capabilities to good use. (although yes, the 'Home' row is just stunning on the Atari and beats all competition, the cars/trucks/tanks are cleaner and more colourful on the TI. IMO). That's it. I've never played any of the other 'F's' featured (although I will be downloading Floyd of the Jungle & Flip Flop as soon as I'm done typing this. My love of platformers leaves me no choice.) Your alphabet is hitting my landing-page feed in random order so my comments will be bouncing around your series. (as you've now learned, verbosity on the subject of 80's gaming, is not a problem for me.)
Glad you enjoyed the video and learned something new about Fort Apocalypse! It’s amazing how games can still surprise us after all these years. I agree, the semi-destructible environments were ahead of their time. As for F-15 Strike Eagle, I hear you-early flight sims could be a challenge to get into, and patience was definitely key. The 8-bit era did have its limits with flight and driving sims, but they paved the way for what came later. Appreciate the thoughtful comment! Frogger on the TI-99? That’s a bold but interesting choice! I haven’t spent much time with the TI-99 version, but I’ll have to check it out, especially if it beats out the C64 and Atari. It sounds like Parker Brothers really did an excellent job maximizing the TI’s hardware. I’m with you on the love of platformers-once you’re hooked, there’s no going back! Let me know what you think of Floyd of the Jungle and Flip Flop once you give them a try. Thanks for the insightful comments as always!
I came specifically for the Sierra Frogger comparison… I love both games! When push comes to shove I give the slight edge to the C64 version because the music & sound effects are just perfect…. I actually might like it better than the arcade!
Great to hear you enjoyed the Sierra Frogger comparison! I totally agree, the C64 version's music and sound effects really add a special touch to the experience. I think it's awesome that you might even prefer it to the arcade version! Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
I owned and programed assembly language on the Atari 8bit computers (I had a 400, 800, 600XL and 800XL.). Always wanted a 130XE and 1250XL but they were pretty much going out of business by the time I had the money to buy those. I always loved my Atari computers and their games, but I must say... I have recently started using a Commodore 64/128 Emulator and have thousands of tape and disk images and was blown away by not only the number of games that system had, but the quality in many games was higher than what I had on the Atari. I wish I had at least one '64 back then. I could have got into that just as much as my beloved Ataris.
My understanding of the library issues were that Atari users supposedly had a massive issue with piracy. But the way I remember it was that we pirated stuff because there weren't stores in the mid 80s that even sold Atari stuff... plenty sold c64 stuff.
@@slaapliedje Lots of piracy. I had one of those 3rd party disc drives that could copy discs with bad sectors and other anti-piracy tricks on them. The coolest hack was the dongle you had to use in their popular golf game by Access Software. They just shorted the up and down pins on a controller cable. Once you cut the cable off an old controller that was broken, you could make one by simply twisting 2 wires together. LOL.
It wasn’t a competition back in the day though. In the uk, it was so hard to get software for the 400/800xl… I had both…. And we ended up actually playing so many type-in games. The C64 had all the games.
both machines could do much better at this game but still the result is equally good. I am an Atari 8bit user for life but I know when a game is limited by the programmers not the hardware.
Was about to say exactly this until I found your comment! Frogger looked nicer on the Atari for sure. Would be cool for kicks to remake the game today on C64 with all the tricks in the book which has been found/used... Then again you could probably do some fancy stuff on the Atari 800XL also...
Some very fun games in this episode. I'm not going to touch on differences in this round except to say that both look and sound awesome for that time, and always! Great commentary as always Tom!
Another great comparison between two fantastic systems. I had F15 Strike Eagle on DOS and played it a lot... great game. I wonder how many of these games were taking advantage of the 800XL's extra features, and how many were maintaining compatibility with the 400.
Great memories of playing F-15 Strike Eagle on the C-64. Having only seen an Atari 400 with the membrane keyboard BITD, I started really appreciating the 8 bit Ataris after I picked up an 800XL a few years ago. Very capable machine with an extensive software library. BITD, though, you couldn't beat the bang for the buck of the C-64.
A big problem for the Atari was the FCC regulations at the time cause the cost of the 400/800 to be way too high, the C64 came out at just the right time when they could sell it for a lot cheaper. The 800xl was kind of the reaction to that one. But due to the 48k max for the 800, most games were coded for that and didn't take advantage of the 64k.
@@slaapliedje I didn't know that about the FCC regulations. I know that Atari's products were usually built like tanks. Commodore, not so much. Commodore's ultimate weapon at the time was owning their own chip fab. Nobody could build anything near the same for the same money. I'm just glad there's still a community of people that want to keep the spirits of all the machines alive.
@GDLarcade Yeah, they were built like tanks because there was a requirement for anything connected to a TV to have shielding to prevent interference. Apple got away with it because they didn't include an RF modulator. The stopped requiring it in the early 80s, before the c64 was made. Essentially, the XL series was a cost reduced / style change. For sure, it is awesome to look at Moby games and see there are still new releases coming out every year for the old platforms.
F-15 Strike Eagle - The C64 version of this game (at least the pirated copy I had) had an interesting bug: You could fly the plane off the map screen in the lower left and over parts of the console. If you then flew over the text at the bottom of the screen, each character would show up as a standard triangular target on the ground in the 3D view and you could bomb them. The text characters wouldn't disappear like the targets on the map screen, but there would be an explosion as you scored a hit.
A mi me parecen los dos muy buenas maquinas para su epoca, me hubiese gustado que el C64 tuviese paleta de 256 colores y mas canales de sonido, y su cpu de 1Mhz era realmente muy poco, debieron sacarlo 3 veces mas rapido al menos. En general los juegos de C64 son mas y mejores, pero pienso que el 800XL seria igual de capaz, supongo que no vender tantos y ademas programar para modelos Atari menos potentes fue la causa de estar desaprovechado, podria haber sido un gran competidor en los 8bits. Como habria sido un Turrican para 800XL? Los sprites y el scroll de los dos son igual o cual es mejor?
Tienes toda la razón, ambas máquinas eran impresionantes para su tiempo. La paleta de colores y los canales de sonido adicionales habrían sido geniales en el C64, y su CPU de 1Mhz definitivamente se quedó un poco corta. En cuanto a los juegos, el C64 tuvo una ventaja, pero estoy de acuerdo en que el 800XL tenía un gran potencial que no fue del todo aprovechado. ¡Turrican en el 800XL habría sido increíble! En cuanto a los sprites y el scroll, creo que el C64 tenía una ligera ventaja en suavidad y capacidad, pero ambos eran competidores fuertes en los 8 bits. ¡Gracias por tu comentario!
So,simply put, both systems and it’s showed games here are just similar in quality and capabilities wich is no surprise since both systems are 6502 cpu based along with similar graphical and audio capabilities.
I know that the Atari XL was the competitor of the Commodore 64 in the early 80s. Many Lucasfilm Games were better on the Atari because of its faster cpu. But in 1987 there were no games available to buy in Germany in the stores for Atari XL. For 8bit computers only Commodore 64 and Amstrad/Schneider CPC software and hardware. Unfortunately i haven't seen any ZX Spectrum games in German stores. But for the 16bit market the Atari ST was a strong competitor for the Commodore Amiga. Software and Hardware were very long available for both systems. I always prefer the Commodore 64 because every average kid had it. There was no escape from Commodore in Germany because all the schools had Commodore 64. In the fifth class i learned Logo programming in school.
got a quick question, have you ever played Star Raiders on the Atari, and if so, what did you think of it? if you havent , you really should, its probably one of the best games on the Atari 8-bits.
@@FloppyDeepDive No worries, but, mate, I wish you have picked games such as International Karate, Milk Race, Green Beret, Feud, Rescue on Fractalus (Behind Jaggi Lines) and Zybex. The games mentioned in this video are basic ones. Maybe next time? 🥰
Being in the UK i first had a spectrum, despite the C64 being strongly sold in the UK unlike the Atari, I got an Atari as it was better for programming and also had lot more wargames, SSI than the C64.
I was surprised by your claim about SSI supporting Atari better than C64. I looked, and AtariMania has 57 titles listed for Atari by SSI, while GameBase64 has 87 titles listed for C64 by SSI. Of course SSI published RPGs as well as war games, but I saw a lot of the same RPG names on the Atari as the C64, so I don't really see any evidence to support your position.
LOL at the end there. haha. Well once again I pretty much agree with your picks 100%. We had such similar retro backgrounds it is really funny and no surprise. Floyd of the jungle! I have not played that in years. Time to dig through my disks. Love the shirt too! It is in my closet as we speak. 🙂
@@FloppyDeepDive hi good video and you are on my favorit youtuber list. nice to see c64 games vs atari xl games a-z .do you know the news there is the400 mini (atari400) console. i have question can you make video about amiga games, atari st games . my favorit are c64 games, atari st games, amiga games
I had an Atari 800 XL but always wanted a C64 as it had more games, more games available in the stores here where I lived (Atari had a poor selection available) and games always came out before on C64.
@FloppyDeepDive Games Workshop was the only place that stocked Atari games in Sheffield. Back then they used to stock all sorts, including computer games. I got most of mine from there. They changed in the 90s, became mostly Warhammer stuff.
@@mortimore4030 El problema del Atari 800XL es que el sonido es de peor calidad, pero sobre todo fue que al ser mas caro y ademas tener que ser compatible con modelos de Atari peores, sus juegos fueron pocos y con menos calidad de la que podrian haber tenido, una lastima y mas con esa paleta de 256 colores, no se si los sprites y el scroll serian similares, lo desconozco. Con Amiga y Atari paso algo similar, Amiga era muy superior, pero se hacian ports de Atari porque llevaba 2 años vendiendolo mucho mas barato y hasta el 87 no se lanzo el Amiga500 y los programadores no sabian aprovechar aun las capacidades del Amiga y se hicieron juegos muy feos igual que el Atari, hasta unos años despues como con el Shadow of the Beast etc. Yo he visto conversiones de arcade en Amiga increiblemente buenas como el Toki , silkworm, Turrican , Gods sobre todo con el sonido.
Frogger, the C64's scrolling of the "sea" creatures, logs and Frog is not fluid like on the Atari port. That's strange since the cars are scrolling really smooth. The f-15 Strike Eagle is equally good on both platforms. On PAL systems the horizon line is slightly faster on the 800XL but to be fair it doesn't add to the game-play. The forbidden forest is hands down better on the C64 even if in the PAL version the Atari port is colorful (not grey as shown). I never liked the graphics of this game. Fort Apocalypse is equally good on both platforms. I grew up with the Atari version but I could easily be happy playing the c64 version. Frogger ii ports are trading blows . C64's frog and roaming turtle are larger and have more colorful while on the 800xl the seabed and top two "fish" rows are more colorful plus there is a more detailed frog spite when reaching the goal (log). I prefer the Pal version of the Atari vs the Pal of the C64. Fight night looks better on the C64. I never played this game so I can't say anything about the gameplay. Flip and Flop and Floyd of the Jungle feel the same. I could play both versions and have the same experience.
Another video to enjoy 🙂. I think that Frogger and Floyd of the Jungle are the perfect example: FOTJ looks way better on the Atari, Frogger also is more detailed than the C64 version. Both games came out when the C64 was a "new thing", while Atari was already known to all the games developers. Frogger II looks, and sound, better on the C64, indeed. Odd how are similar both versions of F15! Thank Tom 🙂👍- Tony
"while Atari was already known to all the games developers. " -That's not true. Atari, being a game company, sued most software houses that tried to write software for their machines. De Re Atari was published only 3-4 years after the first release of the Atari 8bit line, so no one (except Atari ) really knew how to program the custom chipset of the platform. Frogger II, pixel by pixel, is graphically better on the Atari platform (PAL) with more colors on the seabed, an additional "Frog" sprite in berths and more colors in top two "fish" rows. The C64 has a better frog and turtle spite. To be fair the PAL version is always against the C64 since most games appear as purple or grey.
@@nickolasgaspar9660 Hi Nickolas 🙂! I understand , but indeed Atari went out years before the C64. So, developers knew it (Atari devs firsts) when the C64 became available. That, to explain the "quality growth" in the Commodore 64 games, so well shown in this video.
@@mondo8bit The quality growth in the Atari games came years later (if not a decade) mainly in the early 90s in Eastern Europe which evolved in the modern Homebrew community we currently enjoy. Before that we can count games that use the special features of the custom silicon on the fingers of our two hands. Just knowing the machine or knowing how to program the 6502 did n't really give an edge to the Atari machine. We only know the true potential of the platform, not because of the contemporary games but from Jay Miner's talk and the later community which took advantage of the architecture.
@@nickolasgaspar9660 Yep, I agree with you. (Maybe we didn't understand each other, mine wasn't a point on "C64 is better than atari " 🙂 ). The same could be said about the Commodore Plus/4, look at what we have today , compared to 80's games.
Haha... he's just so over the top ridiculous. How could I not love ol' Jim? Honestly though, I had no idea who he was until a few days ago when I saw a video Jon Tron did on him. Look it up on here if you are interested.
I notice that Commodore 64 users never compare load time or how long it takes a commodore to load from a floppy disk as compared to the Atari. In our Atari group we used to say that by the time the Commodore has downloaded the same game, we've already finished it and gone on to another.
At the time most C64 users used a speed loader cartridge and many games also had a speed loader build in. Loading times were not as a big issue as you might think.
Atari didn't need this speed load cartridge. Our drives loaded very fast. And I'm taking about the old 810 drives. We also didn't have to rely on a speed driver built into the game. I had a buddy that had both the Atari 800 and a commodore 64. When we got together we played games on the Atari, so that we wouldn't be sitting around twirlingour thumbs waiting for a game to download.
The Atari 800 and 400 were released in 1979, and are the basis for all Atari 8 bit computers including the XEGS game system which came out in in 1987. Between 90 and 95% of Atari software runs on the original Atari 800. The 800Xl came out in 1983. The Atari 8 bit line is considered by some to be the first gaming pc as it had hardware such as the Antic, Pokey, CTIA, and GTIA. Fun fact Jay Miner and Larry Kaplan cut their teeth designing the Atari 800 hardware and moved on to design the Amiga.
It just shows how far ahead of its time the Atari 8 bit line really was. Sound is obviously not up to the 64’s level but a lot of other stuff was superior despite being a 5 year older basic design.
I recently bought an Atari 400 mini so these videos are really helpful
Awesome, glad you found them helpful!
I had an A800 XL. C64 had so many more great games, but I still loved my Atari and some of the great unique games it had.
Star Raiders. That one alone made the Atari worth having.
Both great systems from our past. Thanks for Watching!
The sad fact is, in many ways, the Atari was the superior hardware. But Atari was dumb initially, the first few years of its life, the documentation wasn't available to devs, so they just did the best they could. It wasn't until much later that really great games came out for it from third parties. The c64 just sold much more because it was far cheaper overall to get. Didn't help that Atari 8bits (and 16bits too) had this weird 'lowest common denominator' issue, where many games only used the 16 or 48k of ram from the 400/800 so that more people could play the game. The c64 cs c128 had that issue too, but it didn't seem like the Amiga did as much. People would code to take advantage of the later hardware a lot more...
@@slaapliedje Me gusta el Atari por la paleta de 256 colores, pero el sonido de C64 me parece increible y viendo demos hoy dia que puede usar muestras de alta calidad, siempre que tenga bastante memoria claro. Como bien dices, el problema de hacer compatibles con modelos inferiores es que programaban pensando en los mas bajos, con Amiga paso algo parecido pero con el Atari ST que siendo peor hacian ports casi directamente sin aprovechar el Blitter ni mas colores, etc. esto fue asi porque aunque el Amiga se lanzo en 1985, hasta el 87 no sacaron el 500 que es el que de verdad se vendia y competia, dejando esos dos años con ventaja para Atari.
@@Elbas_Tardo The ol' Pokey vs SID argument. Both of these can be made to make some seriously epic music / sounds. But POKEY can do samples as well. It's more or less Paula's (from the Amiga) mom.
I remember being so excited for Fight Night (Atari version) as a kid but feeling disappointed once I put it on. It was so slow and repetitive. That all said, I still played the heck out of it. Just goes to show what you’ll put up with when you don’t have many games.
Agree, I played it a lot too. I wasn't going to let a Birthday gift go to waste.
Wow! F-15 Strike Eagle may be one of the first million sellers for computer games, reaching 1 million sales in 1989 for several platforms combined! Great video!
It’s incredible to think that F-15 Strike Eagle achieved that level of success back in the day! Hitting 1 million in sales in 1989 was a huge milestone, especially for a computer game spread across multiple platforms. Glad you enjoyed the video-thanks for watching!
My favorite (along with Ultima 2 & 4) on my 800xl….or was Ultima 4 on my ST(?). Soo long ago
Nice reviews, I was a C64 user in the 80's till I met up with some USAF guys when we did a cross service visit (I served in the Royal Air Force). I was taken to their weekly 'Computer Club' and made a good few friends. This was my first introduction to Atari Computers. I got an 800XL (later upgraded to a 130XE) and one of the kind guys there got me a 'Happy' Drive! I was very happy with that. Have loved both machines since then (still own several of each). I love Fort Apocalypse too but prefer it on Atari. I totally love Zeppelin on Atari too. Take care from England!
Thanks for sharing that story! Sounds like an awesome introduction to the Atari world, and the Happy drive was such a game-changer for the 800XL and 130XE. I’m with you on Fort Apocalypse-it’s a blast on both systems, but Atari’s version has its charm! Zeppelin is another classic; they just don’t make games like that anymore. Take care, and greetings back to England!
I think Fort Apocalypse is practically the same, but Forbidden Forest certainly suffers from being ported from the C64 when it was plainly designed for the C64's capabilities and limitations.
Also good insights! Thanks for Watching!
Wow, I won the Tshirt. I'm so grateful man as I genuinely love your channel.
I think the Commodore has slightly sharper graphics overall but of course that all depends on the games. Still it's great to see the comparisons between the systems and how much they differ, or I guess not so much in some cases.
Truly fantastic content as always
T-shirt is on it way! Enjoy and thanks for
Supporting the channel.
Ha, Atari, in their infinite wisdom, didn't solder up one of the lines required for S-Video (luma or chroma, I can't recall which) on the 800XL. Connecting that up and using it on both will greatly improve the output.
I must have skipped 'F' in my local game store back in the day, as I've only ever played 3 of these. From your selection I' too would put Fort Apocalypse mighty high on a list of must-have's. Similar to Choplifter or M.A.S.H., placing the helicopter in caverns that include semi-destructable environments was a stroke of genuis. Watching your video taught me something I never realized... to save the men, I've always set-down on a landing pad and waited for them to run to helicopter. In all thse years I had no idea you could just fly over and touch them à la Defender or Protector II. Seems I still learn something new every day, even in retirement.
I could never get into F-15 Strike Eagle although I usually enjoyed Microprose titles and this one was HUGE for the company. I think the problem is the entire 8-bit era for flight simulators and 3D driving games. They just weren't there yet and I lacked the patience (Still do).
I'm going to go out on a limb with Frogger and say that my favourite Frogger (and in this case, I've actually played it on all 3 machines), is the TI-99 release from Parker Brothers. Frogger (and Qbert) are both subjectively better on the 4A than the C64 OR the Atari). One can't say that about alot of games but Parker Brothers did a bang-up job squeezing these two into 8K cartrideges (to bypass TI's GRom licensing restrictions) and putting the TI's sprite capabilities to good use. (although yes, the 'Home' row is just stunning on the Atari and beats all competition, the cars/trucks/tanks are cleaner and more colourful on the TI. IMO).
That's it. I've never played any of the other 'F's' featured (although I will be downloading Floyd of the Jungle & Flip Flop as soon as I'm done typing this. My love of platformers leaves me no choice.)
Your alphabet is hitting my landing-page feed in random order so my comments will be bouncing around your series. (as you've now learned, verbosity on the subject of 80's gaming, is not a problem for me.)
Glad you enjoyed the video and learned something new about Fort Apocalypse! It’s amazing how games can still surprise us after all these years. I agree, the semi-destructible environments were ahead of their time. As for F-15 Strike Eagle, I hear you-early flight sims could be a challenge to get into, and patience was definitely key. The 8-bit era did have its limits with flight and driving sims, but they paved the way for what came later. Appreciate the thoughtful comment!
Frogger on the TI-99? That’s a bold but interesting choice! I haven’t spent much time with the TI-99 version, but I’ll have to check it out, especially if it beats out the C64 and Atari. It sounds like Parker Brothers really did an excellent job maximizing the TI’s hardware. I’m with you on the love of platformers-once you’re hooked, there’s no going back! Let me know what you think of Floyd of the Jungle and Flip Flop once you give them a try. Thanks for the insightful comments as always!
I played many hours of F-15 Strike Eagle on my Atari 800.
👍
I came specifically for the Sierra Frogger comparison… I love both games! When push comes to shove I give the slight edge to the C64 version because the music & sound effects are just perfect…. I actually might like it better than the arcade!
Great to hear you enjoyed the Sierra Frogger comparison! I totally agree, the C64 version's music and sound effects really add a special touch to the experience. I think it's awesome that you might even prefer it to the arcade version! Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
I’ve always preferred the 8 bit Atari (XL / XE) to the C64.
Atari has its fans, great system. Died too soon!
I owned and programed assembly language on the Atari 8bit computers (I had a 400, 800, 600XL and 800XL.). Always wanted a 130XE and 1250XL but they were pretty much going out of business by the time I had the money to buy those. I always loved my Atari computers and their games, but I must say... I have recently started using a Commodore 64/128 Emulator and have thousands of tape and disk images and was blown away by not only the number of games that system had, but the quality in many games was higher than what I had on the Atari. I wish I had at least one '64 back then. I could have got into that just as much as my beloved Ataris.
Both are great systems! Thanks for Watching!
My understanding of the library issues were that Atari users supposedly had a massive issue with piracy. But the way I remember it was that we pirated stuff because there weren't stores in the mid 80s that even sold Atari stuff... plenty sold c64 stuff.
@@slaapliedje Lots of piracy. I had one of those 3rd party disc drives that could copy discs with bad sectors and other anti-piracy tricks on them. The coolest hack was the dongle you had to use in their popular golf game by Access Software. They just shorted the up and down pins on a controller cable. Once you cut the cable off an old controller that was broken, you could make one by simply twisting 2 wires together. LOL.
@@AudioGuyBrian Happy drive ftw.
@@slaapliedje That wasn't the name of the drive. But yeah, it was pretty cool. Faster than the 1050 drive too.
It wasn’t a competition back in the day though. In the uk, it was so hard to get software for the 400/800xl… I had both…. And we ended up actually playing so many type-in games. The C64 had all the games.
Yep! Thanks for Watching!
i had both, but I loved the 800 xl with its ten year load time lol.
Good pick
Good stuff as always. This round looks like an overall tie, IMHO.
Keep 'em coming my friend. 👍
Will do!! Thanks for Watching!
I am a diehard for life c64 owner but the Atari's version of graphics for Frogger is richer than Commodore's.
both machines could do much better at this game but still the result is equally good. I am an Atari 8bit user for life but I know when a game is limited by the programmers not the hardware.
Was about to say exactly this until I found your comment! Frogger looked nicer on the Atari for sure. Would be cool for kicks to remake the game today on C64 with all the tricks in the book which has been found/used... Then again you could probably do some fancy stuff on the Atari 800XL also...
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Some very fun games in this episode. I'm not going to touch on differences in this round except to say that both look and sound awesome for that time, and always! Great commentary as always Tom!
Thanks, buddy!!
Another great comparison between two fantastic systems. I had F15 Strike Eagle on DOS and played it a lot... great game. I wonder how many of these games were taking advantage of the 800XL's extra features, and how many were maintaining compatibility with the 400.
The only difference between those two systems is memory. The custom chipset is identical. Some difference can be found in the logic.
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Loved the show content, really good audio and video quality.
I appreciate the feedback! Thanks for Watching!
Great memories of playing F-15 Strike Eagle on the C-64. Having only seen an Atari 400 with the membrane keyboard BITD, I started really appreciating the 8 bit Ataris after I picked up an 800XL a few years ago. Very capable machine with an extensive software library. BITD, though, you couldn't beat the bang for the buck of the C-64.
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A big problem for the Atari was the FCC regulations at the time cause the cost of the 400/800 to be way too high, the C64 came out at just the right time when they could sell it for a lot cheaper. The 800xl was kind of the reaction to that one. But due to the 48k max for the 800, most games were coded for that and didn't take advantage of the 64k.
@@slaapliedje I didn't know that about the FCC regulations. I know that Atari's products were usually built like tanks. Commodore, not so much. Commodore's ultimate weapon at the time was owning their own chip fab. Nobody could build anything near the same for the same money.
I'm just glad there's still a community of people that want to keep the spirits of all the machines alive.
@GDLarcade Yeah, they were built like tanks because there was a requirement for anything connected to a TV to have shielding to prevent interference. Apple got away with it because they didn't include an RF modulator. The stopped requiring it in the early 80s, before the c64 was made. Essentially, the XL series was a cost reduced / style change.
For sure, it is awesome to look at Moby games and see there are still new releases coming out every year for the old platforms.
F-15 Strike Eagle - The C64 version of this game (at least the pirated copy I had) had an interesting bug: You could fly the plane off the map screen in the lower left and over parts of the console. If you then flew over the text at the bottom of the screen, each character would show up as a standard triangular target on the ground in the 3D view and you could bomb them. The text characters wouldn't disappear like the targets on the map screen, but there would be an explosion as you scored a hit.
Will have to try it!
I absolutely love all this retro.takes me back to my childhood and thinking these games cant any better lol.i thank you my man ❤
Glad you enjoying it, that's why I do it! Thanks for Watching!
I'd never heard of frogger 2! Thanks!
You are welcome!
Apart from frogger I don't think I've ever seen any of the other games.
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12:35 That's the tune from Jan Beta's channel :)
Cool 👍🏻
Haven’t thought of Fort Apocalypse in forever. Or Forbidden Forest either. C-64 of course. Thanks for the memories!
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A mi me parecen los dos muy buenas maquinas para su epoca, me hubiese gustado que el C64 tuviese paleta de 256 colores y mas canales de sonido, y su cpu de 1Mhz era realmente muy poco, debieron sacarlo 3 veces mas rapido al menos. En general los juegos de C64 son mas y mejores, pero pienso que el 800XL seria igual de capaz, supongo que no vender tantos y ademas programar para modelos Atari menos potentes fue la causa de estar desaprovechado, podria haber sido un gran competidor en los 8bits.
Como habria sido un Turrican para 800XL?
Los sprites y el scroll de los dos son igual o cual es mejor?
Tienes toda la razón, ambas máquinas eran impresionantes para su tiempo. La paleta de colores y los canales de sonido adicionales habrían sido geniales en el C64, y su CPU de 1Mhz definitivamente se quedó un poco corta. En cuanto a los juegos, el C64 tuvo una ventaja, pero estoy de acuerdo en que el 800XL tenía un gran potencial que no fue del todo aprovechado. ¡Turrican en el 800XL habría sido increíble! En cuanto a los sprites y el scroll, creo que el C64 tenía una ligera ventaja en suavidad y capacidad, pero ambos eran competidores fuertes en los 8 bits. ¡Gracias por tu comentario!
So,simply put, both systems and it’s showed games here are just similar in quality and capabilities wich is no surprise since both systems are 6502 cpu based along with similar graphical and audio capabilities.
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I know that the Atari XL was the competitor of the Commodore 64 in the early 80s. Many Lucasfilm Games were better on the Atari because of its faster cpu. But in 1987 there were no games available to buy in Germany in the stores for Atari XL. For 8bit computers only Commodore 64 and Amstrad/Schneider CPC software and hardware. Unfortunately i haven't seen any ZX Spectrum games in German stores. But for the 16bit market the Atari ST was a strong competitor for the Commodore Amiga. Software and Hardware were very long available for both systems. I always prefer the Commodore 64 because every average kid had it. There was no escape from Commodore in Germany because all the schools had Commodore 64. In the fifth class i learned Logo programming in school.
Great story, thanks for sharing! I wish my school had the C64.
Fair assessment of the games. I'm an Atari boy, but appreciate C64 and all retro things!
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got a quick question, have you ever played Star Raiders on the Atari, and if so, what did you think of it?
if you havent , you really should, its probably one of the best games on the Atari 8-bits.
Yes, I have it. I am a fan.
I was expecting such a video for a very long time. Atari 800XL was my first computer and I adore it. C64 is second and I love them both so much! ❤️❤️
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@@FloppyDeepDive No worries, but, mate, I wish you have picked games such as International Karate, Milk Race, Green Beret, Feud, Rescue on Fractalus (Behind Jaggi Lines) and Zybex. The games mentioned in this video are basic ones. Maybe next time? 🥰
These are just games starting with the letter F that are on the C64 and Atari. I will get to more games as I go through the Alphabet.
@@FloppyDeepDive Ah! I see. Thanks, mate. 😊👍🏻
Being in the UK i first had a spectrum, despite the C64 being strongly sold in the UK unlike the Atari, I got an Atari as it was better for programming and also had lot more wargames, SSI than the C64.
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I was surprised by your claim about SSI supporting Atari better than C64. I looked, and AtariMania has 57 titles listed for Atari by SSI, while GameBase64 has 87 titles listed for C64 by SSI. Of course SSI published RPGs as well as war games, but I saw a lot of the same RPG names on the Atari as the C64, so I don't really see any evidence to support your position.
LOL at the end there. haha. Well once again I pretty much agree with your picks 100%. We had such similar retro backgrounds it is really funny and no surprise. Floyd of the jungle! I have not played that in years. Time to dig through my disks. Love the shirt too! It is in my closet as we speak. 🙂
Thanks! It's my new favorite T-shirt. You stuck around until the end, appreciate it. I wondered if anyone would see it. Lol
@@FloppyDeepDive hi good video and you are on my favorit youtuber list. nice to see c64 games vs atari xl games a-z .do you know the news there is the400 mini (atari400) console. i have question can you make video about amiga games, atari st games . my favorit are c64 games, atari st games, amiga games
I'm glad I made your list my friend! Thanks for Watching!
@@FloppyDeepDive i have question can you make video about amiga games and atari st games . my openion atari xl vs c64 , c64 games looks better
I think there was another version of Frogger for the C-64. The one you featured may be the superior version, though.
Yep, there were two. Thanks for Watching!
I had an Atari 800 XL but always wanted a C64 as it had more games, more games available in the stores here where I lived (Atari had a poor selection available) and games always came out before on C64.
Yep, C64 had a lot of games!!
@FloppyDeepDive Games Workshop was the only place that stocked Atari games in Sheffield. Back then they used to stock all sorts, including computer games. I got most of mine from there. They changed in the 90s, became mostly Warhammer stuff.
Commodore 64 > Atari 8-bit
Amiga > Atari ST
That's all you need to know.
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@@Great-Documentaries You got the C64 and Atari 8-bit the wrong way around, but you’re right about the ST and the Amiga.
@@mortimore4030 El problema del Atari 800XL es que el sonido es de peor calidad, pero sobre todo fue que al ser mas caro y ademas tener que ser compatible con modelos de Atari peores, sus juegos fueron pocos y con menos calidad de la que podrian haber tenido, una lastima y mas con esa paleta de 256 colores, no se si los sprites y el scroll serian similares, lo desconozco.
Con Amiga y Atari paso algo similar, Amiga era muy superior, pero se hacian ports de Atari porque llevaba 2 años vendiendolo mucho mas barato y hasta el 87 no se lanzo el Amiga500 y los programadores no sabian aprovechar aun las capacidades del Amiga y se hicieron juegos muy feos igual que el Atari, hasta unos años despues como con el Shadow of the Beast etc. Yo he visto conversiones de arcade en Amiga increiblemente buenas como el Toki , silkworm, Turrican , Gods sobre todo con el sonido.
I think they are both great Computers and if the jungle had of been black i think it would be a tie
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Frogger, the C64's scrolling of the "sea" creatures, logs and Frog is not fluid like on the Atari port. That's strange since the cars are scrolling really smooth.
The f-15 Strike Eagle is equally good on both platforms. On PAL systems the horizon line is slightly faster on the 800XL but to be fair it doesn't add to the game-play.
The forbidden forest is hands down better on the C64 even if in the PAL version the Atari port is colorful (not grey as shown). I never liked the graphics of this game.
Fort Apocalypse is equally good on both platforms. I grew up with the Atari version but I could easily be happy playing the c64 version.
Frogger ii ports are trading blows . C64's frog and roaming turtle are larger and have more colorful while on the 800xl the seabed and top two "fish" rows are more colorful plus there is a more detailed frog spite when reaching the goal (log). I prefer the Pal version of the Atari vs the Pal of the C64.
Fight night looks better on the C64. I never played this game so I can't say anything about the gameplay.
Flip and Flop and Floyd of the Jungle feel the same. I could play both versions and have the same experience.
Always great to get your insights!! Thanks for Watching!
i have frogger for my atari 2600. i wanted it for my apple iie but i didnt want to pay the price. maybe some day i will come across a good deal.
Or just download it. Thanks for Watching!
Would love a snes vs megadrive (genesis)
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Another video to enjoy 🙂. I think that Frogger and Floyd of the Jungle are the perfect example: FOTJ looks way better on the Atari, Frogger also is more detailed than the C64 version. Both games came out when the C64 was a "new thing", while Atari was already known to all the games developers. Frogger II looks, and sound, better on the C64, indeed. Odd how are similar both versions of F15!
Thank Tom 🙂👍- Tony
Excellent points on both of those games. C64 was just getting started with many classics to come!
"while Atari was already known to all the games developers. "
-That's not true. Atari, being a game company, sued most software houses that tried to write software for their machines. De Re Atari was published only 3-4 years after the first release of the Atari 8bit line, so no one (except Atari ) really knew how to program the custom chipset of the platform.
Frogger II, pixel by pixel, is graphically better on the Atari platform (PAL) with more colors on the seabed, an additional "Frog" sprite in berths and more colors in top two "fish" rows. The C64 has a better frog and turtle spite. To be fair the PAL version is always against the C64 since most games appear as purple or grey.
@@nickolasgaspar9660 Hi Nickolas 🙂!
I understand , but indeed Atari went out years before the C64. So, developers knew it (Atari devs firsts) when the C64 became available. That, to explain the "quality growth" in the Commodore 64 games, so well shown in this video.
@@mondo8bit The quality growth in the Atari games came years later (if not a decade) mainly in the early 90s in Eastern Europe which evolved in the modern Homebrew community we currently enjoy. Before that we can count games that use the special features of the custom silicon on the fingers of our two hands.
Just knowing the machine or knowing how to program the 6502 did n't really give an edge to the Atari machine. We only know the true potential of the platform, not because of the contemporary games but from Jay Miner's talk and the later community which took advantage of the architecture.
@@nickolasgaspar9660 Yep, I agree with you. (Maybe we didn't understand each other, mine wasn't a point on "C64 is better than atari " 🙂 ). The same could be said about the Commodore Plus/4, look at what we have today , compared to 80's games.
Had both. Loved the 64, Hated the Atari.
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3 level parallax in Forbidden Forest for the C64 ? You must be kidding me ! Anyway C64 forever
I was just playing this game only a couple days ago! I was extra amused to see it featured here. :-) Dumb coincidence.
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Nice how things work out like that.
No t-shirt?!?!? I feel that I've been cheated! I'm suing!! I'm hiring Jim Adler - THE TEXAS HAMMER to represent me. You've been duly warned, Tom!
Lol, your obsession with Jim Adler is hilarious! Maybe next time you will be the winner
Haha... he's just so over the top ridiculous. How could I not love ol' Jim? Honestly though, I had no idea who he was until a few days ago when I saw a video Jon Tron did on him. Look it up on here if you are interested.
Content awesome.
Thanks!
Muy bueno!!👌
Gracias!
atari
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Find these reviews very biased towards the C64.
Can you be specific? Which ones do you disagree with and why?
Yo lo veo justo lo contrario, porque no hay un Turrican y muchos mas, para Atari.
I notice that Commodore 64 users never compare load time or how long it takes a commodore to load from a floppy disk as compared to the Atari. In our Atari group we used to say that by the time the Commodore has downloaded the same game, we've already finished it and gone on to another.
I would be comparing Fujinet on the Atari vs the Ultimate II+ on the C64.
At the time most C64 users used a speed loader cartridge and many games also had a speed loader build in. Loading times were not as a big issue as you might think.
Loved my FastLoad Cartridge!
Atari didn't need this speed load cartridge. Our drives loaded very fast. And I'm taking about the old 810 drives. We also didn't have to rely on a speed driver built into the game. I had a buddy that had both the Atari 800 and a commodore 64. When we got together we played games on the Atari, so that we wouldn't be sitting around twirlingour thumbs waiting for a game to download.
With a 64 I'm sure you did.
Before hosting the program, you should shave as a sign of respect to the viewers
Nope, this is me, take it or leave it.
@@FloppyDeepDive Fair enough, I respect your choice. However, shaving might be advisable as it gives a more polished appearance.
Appreciate the feedback. My girlfriend would probably agree. Lol 😆
It’s almost unfair to compare a 70s era system to an 80s system.
What year did the 800xl come out?
The Atari 800 and 400 were released in 1979, and are the basis for all Atari 8 bit computers including the XEGS game system which came out in in 1987.
Between 90 and 95% of Atari software runs on the original Atari 800.
The 800Xl came out in 1983.
The Atari 8 bit line is considered by some to be the first gaming pc as it had hardware such as the Antic, Pokey, CTIA, and GTIA.
Fun fact Jay Miner and Larry Kaplan cut their teeth designing the Atari 800 hardware and moved on to design the Amiga.
The Atari 800xl and c64 came out same time it was the Atari 800 that came out in 79' at same time Intellevision came out
It was amazing how the Atari 800 was competitive with the C64 even though it came out years earlier.
It just shows how far ahead of its time the Atari 8 bit line really was. Sound is obviously not up to the 64’s level but a lot of other stuff was superior despite being a 5 year older basic design.