I loved the farting noise the ship would make when died on scramble. The vectrex homebrew scene has come on leaps and bounds now right down to being able to run some arcade games like star wars and donkey Kong on it.
Love the inclusion of the Tomytronic. I had loads of things like those as a child, I remember the Grandstand Star Force was particularly cool. I’ve still got my Tomytronic 3D games somewhere, I must try and find them.
That Tomytronic version reminds me that I had a similar early version of Scramble which was portable with a black and white LCD screen; as with the version shown the landscape was made up of blocks and played very similar. I also remember clocking the original and all the stages, etc. seem to be present. But a quick Google search tells me that mine was a Grandstand pocket Scramble. Man I loved that game and was very chuffed when I finally beat it!
Amazing how much this game inspired other side scrolling shooters. Konami's devs were always so ahead of the curve. Goodness, those computer ports though...Bootleg looking stuff.
This is one of my favorites. It's another one of those that I loved in the arcade but never got good at back then. Was so dissapointed that it didn't get any ports, that I was aware of at the time, other than to the Vectrex, which I didn't have then. I thought for sure there would be one for the 2600 but they decided to go with it's sequel, Super Cobra. Of course now, thanks to brilliant AtariAge homebrewers there are magnificent ports for both the 2600 and the 7800. I did get the Entex Super Cobra game for xmas one year and really did enjoy it a lot. I still play it occasionally.
A brilliant mixed bag battle thanks Mark, you just made my day showing the tomy version, I haven't seen it since the early 80's when i got it for Xmas, my mother took me to a place called Atcost in Hull and they had a big cage were all the electrical games were kept, it was either Galaga or Scarmble, scramble was the choice and I never got to play the table top galaga so I've never known if it was the better game.
I guess it was one of those retailer outlets as I remember walking down aisles full of sweets in the shop containers, a place of wonder for a child as I recall lol. And the name "Atcost" is the spin on the non retail pricing, never thought about it until now tbh.
I'm surprised this didn't get a port to the MSX1 or SG-1000, because this is from that era and would have been relatively easy to convert to those systems. The PC-8801 port could have been better though, it almost looks like a ZX Spectrum game, with only two colors being used at any given time, and obnoxious beeps for sound effects. But at least it plays better than the actual ZX Spectrum port.
Man the Vectrex was an amazing machine. Only ever seen one in real life (at the Cambridge Centre for Computing History) but they were testing their old consoles for a Gaming Night they were doing and man it’s screen is beautiful, less beautiful was the Amstrad GX4000 that was next to it running Burnin' Rubber.
I have one. I played the death out of it in the 80s, then I gave it away. I managed to pick one up cheap on eBay back in the early 2000s. Now they are crazy prices but I would still say they are worth especially with the homebrew scene that is going on right now.
It is so cool to see the roots of so many popular shooters right here, especially Konami's own Gradius series, but also games like Defender and I'm sure every other side-scrolling shooter owes a little something at least
loved this game. recently, last year or such, im at Rusty Pixels did a unofficial port of this game to Spectrum Next, which is a acruate port as well (of course), since that version was a adaption of the original code (arcade roms required). only sound is changed to been playable with ay. Was a lots of fun to do. So nice to see this game.
@@RetroCore hehe I'm did the sound and "tunes" for that port quite new port.. Actually that game did not uses arcade roms, but a port. Spectrum Next is not a real Spectrum, but a evolution of it.... We also did few arcade ports for it requires the roms to run the z80 code.
I never had a computer, my system ownership went Atari - Master System - SNES but I thought everyone knew that the standard keyboard control set up was QA OP for direction and space for fire or if you were a bit strange AZ and NM for direction. Those Speccie controls are the weirdest set up I've ever seen. Some of the handhelds back then were fantastic. Grandstand's BMX Flyer and Amidar were great and Tomy's Kingman was a wonderful little platformer.
I never knew about Scramble until years later strangely, but I had Harrier Attack on the Amstrad which was a total knock off. Speaking of which, "The Spectrum Show" on RUclips did a video featuring all the Scramble knock-offs made for the ZX Spectrum alone, and there was a good 10-15 of the things!!!
Indeed. Them C64 and Speccy had a crap load of Scramble clones. I'm not a follower of those systems so many I'm unaware of. I still find it funny that some actually had the cheek to release a clone and still call it scramble.
There's a NES version of the game built inside the Konami Collector's Series Arcade Advanced PnP unit. It was released by Majesco in 2004 and is playable in most recent builds of MAME, although it is pretty likely that someone did split it from the main ROM already.
PC8801 port looks like ZX Spectrum... and ZX Spectrum game looks like a QBasic for MS-DOS game. I remember knowing of Scramble for the first time in Gradius Advance/Generation intro ^^
It's crazy to me how so many of those little table top VDF games somehow managed to be pretty faithful to their source material. I even had the occasional LCD handheld that surprised me, like the one for 1943. Go figure, one of the best things Acclaim ever made was one of those janky little "You can't afford a Game Boy" handhelds.
While I never played this game growing up, there was a more-or-less clone of it on the Apple ][ called "Neptune", written by Nasir Gebelli (the same guy who did the coding for the 8-bit Final Fantasy games).
Great video!! 👍 out of all those versions besides the arcade and PS1. The Vectrex is the best especially when playing on the actual hardware. Luckily i have one in my collection.
I seem to remember a different version for the bbc that was more authentic , not sure if that’s my memory failing me or not though but I have strong nostalgic feelings for scramble as a result
That Tomytronic version is an interesting curio! Also the Vectrex port is looking good, sound not so much. There are at least 4 better Scramble/Skramble clones on the C64 than the one shown here but it would probably be an hour long video if you wanted to show all the homebrews/clones for all systems!
Good job as always Mark. Back in the day I of course saw and played the arcade game. But the game I saw first, probably around 82' or so,was Exidy's Cosmic Avenger. I wonder what cane first? Probably Scramble but Exidy was pretty cutting edge for third time with games like Venture,very original game,and Mousetrap which was one of the better Pac Man clones. Cosmic Avenger certainly looks and plays better.
as i said cosmic avenger was a way better game and I think the colecovision was the only port I know of infact I think the CV was the only system that had exidy ports as far as I know
@@MrNightshade2010 You are right. Even if it didn't come first it really improved on the formula. And yes ,the Colecovision port was quite good. A lot of good ports for that system,Venture,Mousetrap ECT. Still have two of them with around 60 games and accessories,driving wheel ECT. Actually have it hooked up to a nice Sony 27" CRT TV in a separate game room for older systems and light gun games.
I would have loved the Tomy version as a kid for long car trips before I had gotten a SEGA Game Gear, as I had the Coleco VFD table top PacMan, along with a few various Konami, Radio Shack, and Tiger LCD games.
Needless to say, the PS and GBA ports are the closest to the Arcade, but the fuel's depleting speed seems as if the developers thought that a) by the time of these releases the game won't entertain the player for long and they wanted a session to end fast so gamers move on to the next title on the collection, or b) the original version was too easy and this was their way to increase the difficulty. The Vectrex port looks very sharp and "HD" thanks to those vector graphics, too bad the sound is not up to par. The Tomytronic version is definitely a product of its day and age, through and through, and taking the medium into account, it has aged reasonably well, with a high dose of nostalgia to boot.
Almost all the 8bit "coversions" were hastily cobbled together before anyone noticed and it shows. A really good (ahem) homage for the c64 at least was Penetrator (lol) by Beam software (lol).
@@RetroCore apparently you can now play star wars on your vectrex but I think you need a cartridge and a raspberry pi(vecpi? Or something like that). There is videos of it on you tube.
As great as Scramble is, the VIC20 had an awesome knockoff called Bomber where you were a red jet shooting down missiles and fuel tanks with your guns and bombs if anyone remembers that game.
I see You couldn't resist bombing the Konami logo at 2:12. I always associate Scramble with small takeaways, I don't think I ever saw it in an arcade, the likes of R-Type, Salamander and Vulcan Venture were ruling the roost at that point so poor old Scramble had to earn whatever coin it could off bored customers waiting for their orders, the fact it held out in those sorts of roles in Newsagents, cinemas and chip shops for so long is testament to it's status as a classic.
Excellent work as always, Mark. We had the 2600 port of Super Cobra at home, but I didn't play Scramble until I got the GBA Konami collection (which I mainly wanted for Rush'n Attack and Time Pilot because I grew up loving the NES and 2600 versions, respectively, of those two). Sometime after that I finally checked it out on MAME (though I had been using MAME since the late 90s, Scramble wasn't on my radar). I also bought the DS Konami arcade hits game, and I liked that version better than the GBA port because of the cramped vertical real estate (the DS is definitely the version of Scramble I've played the most, though I imagine that's emulation and not a port). Mind you, I enjoyed what I played of the GBA port, but I just had a tough time with it. I have a lot more nostalgia for Super Cobra (at least the 2600 version), so I haven't re-visited Scramble in a fair few years. It's fun, but to be honest, if we are talking pre-Gradius I'd rather play Time Pilot or, especially, Juno First (I really wish it had got more ports back in the day). I enjoy Super Cobra and Scramble, but not as much as those two (but, much more than Gyruss...I'm not a big fan of it). I have to say, I think the fact that you can shoot yourself like that is somehow fitting for how janky that Speccy version seems to be.
While you're on the subject of the 2600, you should take a look at the homebrew of Scramble that Champ Games released a few years ago, as well as their version of Super Cobra (now called Super Cobra Arcade.) They're quite good for 2600 versions.
@@SNARC15 Oh, I certainly wholeheartedly recommend any of John Champeau's ports. I have a boxed copy of Galagon and just a cart version of Mappy. They are amazing ports for the hardware. I played tons of the shareware Champ Galagon, Champ Kong, and Champ Pac-em off of one of those huge WIndows 95 shareware discs back in the mid-90s, so I just had to give back a little to John and Champ Games when Galagon for 2600 hit the Atari Age store. I haven't played the Scramble or Super Cobra ports, but if there's a demo I'll probably check them out. I'm sure I've seen footage before but just don't remember. I really want to get a copy of Gorf and Robotron sometime too, especially Gorf.
The first Arcade game I ever played. And still love it to this day. Though, as you suggest, more a game that was copied than technically ported :) I still have my Tomy VFD game, and the Vectrex version is great. The biggest mystery for me is.. why did Konami never do an MSX port, when they backed the platform so hard?
I knew that you weren't going to feature a lot of Scramble Clones, but I noticed that the first port of Scramble you showed after the arcade is actually the NEC PC-8001 version. Maybe the reason why you didn't feature the Tomy Tutor version is because you didn't know how to get an emulator or games for the Tomy Tutor. And I'm thinking that you might get comments saying, "You missed the Amstrad CPC Homebrew version, TI-99 4A Homebrew Version, and Atari Console Homebrews!", well I think they were aftermarket games so maybe that's why you didn't feature them, it's fine though because you tried your best on this video. I'm pretty glad you had fun with the Tomytronic Handheld version of Scramble when you were a kid!
I do actually have a Tomy Tutor emulator or for the Japanese version of the machine but getting the games was the problem 😥 Stuff like the TI-99 I knew about and the Tandy Coco version too but I had a hell of a hard time getting the Coco version to load and couldn't even find the TI version. Such a shame. There's loads of better clones out there too but sadly I'm not aware of them by name so I just went with the ones which were called Scramble. After making the video I found out there was an arcade perfect port for the Amstrad CPC as well as a much better C64 version called Skramble. Oh well...
@@RetroCore Oh, it's a very old arcade game from Sega. I used to play it on my brother's Atari 800XL, around 1988. There are other ports as well. Here, take a look. ruclips.net/video/3LmQB1-yRLo/видео.html
The only official ports as im is aware for is only for the Vectrex (love the style for this game) and Tomy Tutor (newer heard about it). rest is release to later systems (which not allways emulation of course). Im must say im also loved this game too. There was many clones to C64 and Spectrum, so its pretty much impossible to show them all here or should do.
They're all different games Im afraid. Yes, there are a few scrolling fighters but they aren't the same game and all are pretty bad beside the Arcade one.
Something I think you’ve missed a couple of times from the GBA Konami Arcade Advanced is that many of the games have new versions you can access using (I believe) the Konami code. Scramble has a completely overhauled remake with new graphics!
I know the Acornsoft arcade clones weren’t official but they were (from my rose tinted spectacles) surprisingly good and Rocket Raid was infinitely better than the BBC version you’ve shown here.
Among the contemporary systems, the Vectrex and VDF are the only ones worth playing for a version of the arcade game, with the Vectrex being the obvious winner. Also, holy shit were the 8801 and Spectrum versions nauseating to look at. Motion sickness on a floppy, that shit. While not a good game in the strictest sense, the VDF version is very much a noble effort, especially when compared to the pathetic efforts of Tiger Electronics LCD games of the day. If Tiger had put THIS much effort into their LCD games, they may have been more than a passing fad.
I swear I had an Atari 2600 third party game called "Rocket Jockey" or something that was either a complete knockoff or at least inspired by this game. I haven't played it since I was really little and I wasn't good with it at all, but I remember it being similar to this. Only, of course, not nearly as polished or good.
So you're not mentioning the enhanced mode in the Game Boy Advance version of Scramble? The graphics are improved, and they give you three different ships! Three different ships, man! Anyway. I think software manufacturers decided to hold off and wait for the sequel, Super Cobra, which is somehow even harder than Scramble. Did anyone really WANT this harder?
I owned and played the heck out of the GBA cart. Easily my most played cart on the system. And only learned about the alternative Konami-code modes about a year ago. Amazing how much work they put into those modes only to hide them.
@@RetroCore It might have been like the hidden Battlezone game in Battlezone for the Lynx? Change things too much, and you upset the purists. Lock the changes behind a hidden code, and suddenly, it's buried treasure.
Wasn't there really a port to the Atari 2600? I could have sworn I saw that cartridge for atari, but maybe age is playing with my memory, or maybe it wasn't official. by the way, excellent video as always.
There is a new version of Scramble for Amiga 500: Scramble 500. You can find and play the beta. I'm awaiting for the final release: ruclips.net/video/3rE0b9EmlpI/видео.html&ab_channel=Saberman
lol scramble is also known becuase every early-mid 80s bootleg arcade game was ran on scramble hardware tho I liked and thought cosmic avenger was better tho
I had a version on the C64 that was VERY close to the arcade version. I never saw the one that you posted here. Interesting. It was just called Scramble, but not sure if it was an official port or not. I always love Scrable and Cosmic Avenger. Nice video! Found it: ruclips.net/video/HfQ55Zvq7Vw/видео.html The scrolling isn't great, but overall better port.
Coin op is a legendary game. PC8801 is a mixed bag. BBC Micro is shit. C64 is underwhelming alright. ZX Spectrum has an another broken piece of shit port. PS1 is near identical to the coin op. GBA is ideal to play on the road. Vectrex is surprisingly playable. Tomytronic is halfway decent.
Probably just lazy cash ins. I doubt any of the home ports besides the Vectrex, GBA and PSX are even licensed. Apparently the PC8801 version is licensed as are the Sharp MZ series and Tomy Tutor ports. Sadly two of them I couldn't find.
![Spelunker [1983] - Atari 8bit - Max Score Walkthrough](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-3HiRQOkD3s/mqdefault.jpg)
Early video game logic: Refuel your ship by blowing up fuel tanks on the ground.
Lol, yeah, I'd doesn't make much sense does it.
The exact opposite of a River Raid, where you had to fly your ship over fuel tanks in order to refuel.
I always love when the Vectrex makes an appearance!
I loved the farting noise the ship would make when died on scramble. The vectrex homebrew scene has come on leaps and bounds now right down to being able to run some arcade games like star wars and donkey Kong on it.
The 2018 Atari 800 port of Scramble is brilliant. Was hoping it would also be featured.
That's some really nice intro music there. Great job on this one!
Scramble on the Vectrex was jaw-droppping. Those vector graphics on that thing were so smooth, and it played like a dream back then.
Scramble is one of my first arcade experiences - still a classic!
I played this game on arcades. The grandfather of Nemesis.
Love the inclusion of the Tomytronic. I had loads of things like those as a child, I remember the Grandstand Star Force was particularly cool. I’ve still got my Tomytronic 3D games somewhere, I must try and find them.
That Tomytronic version reminds me that I had a similar early version of Scramble which was portable with a black and white LCD screen; as with the version shown the landscape was made up of blocks and played very similar. I also remember clocking the original and all the stages, etc. seem to be present. But a quick Google search tells me that mine was a Grandstand pocket Scramble. Man I loved that game and was very chuffed when I finally beat it!
I think I have seen that version.
Granddaddy of side scrolling shooters
Amazing how much this game inspired other side scrolling shooters. Konami's devs were always so ahead of the curve. Goodness, those computer ports though...Bootleg looking stuff.
This is one of my favorites. It's another one of those that I loved in the arcade but never got good at back then. Was so dissapointed that it didn't get any ports, that I was aware of at the time, other than to the Vectrex, which I didn't have then. I thought for sure there would be one for the 2600 but they decided to go with it's sequel, Super Cobra. Of course now, thanks to brilliant AtariAge homebrewers there are magnificent ports for both the 2600 and the 7800.
I did get the Entex Super Cobra game for xmas one year and really did enjoy it a lot. I still play it occasionally.
I remember Rocket Raid on the BBC being a nice version.
A brilliant mixed bag battle thanks Mark, you just made my day showing the tomy version, I haven't seen it since the early 80's when i got it for Xmas, my mother took me to a place called Atcost in Hull and they had a big cage were all the electrical games were kept, it was either Galaga or Scarmble, scramble was the choice and I never got to play the table top galaga so I've never known if it was the better game.
Glad to bring back the memories.
I'm not familiar with Atcost. Was that a local store?
I guess it was one of those retailer outlets as I remember walking down aisles full of sweets in the shop containers, a place of wonder for a child as I recall lol. And the name "Atcost" is the spin on the non retail pricing, never thought about it until now tbh.
I’m old enough that I grew up playing scramble in the arcades as a kid and still go back to it every now and then.
Wasn't the BBC micro version called rocket Raid? I am sure I remember that and planetoid the excellent defender clone
There were a few clones on the BBC and pretty much every other system too under a variety of names.
I'm surprised this didn't get a port to the MSX1 or SG-1000, because this is from that era and would have been relatively easy to convert to those systems. The PC-8801 port could have been better though, it almost looks like a ZX Spectrum game, with only two colors being used at any given time, and obnoxious beeps for sound effects. But at least it plays better than the actual ZX Spectrum port.
Man the Vectrex was an amazing machine. Only ever seen one in real life (at the Cambridge Centre for Computing History) but they were testing their old consoles for a Gaming Night they were doing and man it’s screen is beautiful, less beautiful was the Amstrad GX4000 that was next to it running Burnin' Rubber.
100% agree. It's also a shame you don't really get to see how amazing it looks when emulating it!
I have one. I played the death out of it in the 80s, then I gave it away. I managed to pick one up cheap on eBay back in the early 2000s. Now they are crazy prices but I would still say they are worth especially with the homebrew scene that is going on right now.
lol, seeing an Amstrad GX4000 next to a Vectrex certainly isn't going to do it any favours ;)
Kid: Mom, can we get Scramble at home?
Mom: We already have Scrabble at home.
Kid: SCRAMBLE NOT SCRABBLE!
It is so cool to see the roots of so many popular shooters right here, especially Konami's own Gradius series, but also games like Defender and I'm sure every other side-scrolling shooter owes a little something at least
A old classic, many ports and old and non-mainstream systems, a great episode :)
Thanks. I'm not sure how this episode will go down due the the game being 42 years old.
@@RetroCore 42 makes it perfect. Fingers crossed.
The Amstrad CPC port made in 2019 is arcade perfect. It puts every conversion you show in your video to shame.
@@RetroCore But those are the best ones. I'd love to see more BOTP episodes on the early era games.
loved this game. recently, last year or such, im at Rusty Pixels did a unofficial port of this game to Spectrum Next, which is a acruate port as well (of course), since that version was a adaption of the original code (arcade roms required). only sound is changed to been playable with ay. Was a lots of fun to do. So nice to see this game.
Wish I had known about that much better Speccy version.
@@RetroCore hehe I'm did the sound and "tunes" for that port quite new port.. Actually that game did not uses arcade roms, but a port. Spectrum Next is not a real Spectrum, but a evolution of it.... We also did few arcade ports for it requires the roms to run the z80 code.
Vectrex version crushes the other microcomputers ports. Amazing! That's a pity there isn't a Famicom port.
I've been subbed for years and i only just noticed how low your sub count it is. You honestly deserve way more.
I know. It's terrible how "Hidden Gem" people or people who cover the most common stuff seem to get way more subs. :(
Love this game.
CPC, C64, Amiga and 2600 got their releases too the last decade.
To be fair, there was a better version of scramble called "penetrator" on the zx spectrum. It even came with a level editor
No doubt there was. sadly, knowing about such unofficial ports it tough unless you are a fan of the system./
Penetrator was a vastly superior version that the one featured in the video.
I never had a computer, my system ownership went Atari - Master System - SNES but I thought everyone knew that the standard keyboard control set up was QA OP for direction and space for fire or if you were a bit strange AZ and NM for direction. Those Speccie controls are the weirdest set up I've ever seen. Some of the handhelds back then were fantastic. Grandstand's BMX Flyer and Amidar were great and Tomy's Kingman was a wonderful little platformer.
I never knew about Scramble until years later strangely, but I had Harrier Attack on the Amstrad which was a total knock off.
Speaking of which, "The Spectrum Show" on RUclips did a video featuring all the Scramble knock-offs made for the ZX Spectrum alone, and there was a good 10-15 of the things!!!
And most of them were pretty miserable. Well except Penetrator. Which btw has to be the best game title ever.
@@custardo playing penetrator on "hard" 😂😂😂
Indeed. Them C64 and Speccy had a crap load of Scramble clones. I'm not a follower of those systems so many I'm unaware of. I still find it funny that some actually had the cheek to release a clone and still call it scramble.
Great work, as always.
Thank you! Cheers!
There's a NES version of the game built inside the Konami Collector's Series Arcade Advanced PnP unit. It was released by Majesco in 2004 and is playable in most recent builds of MAME, although it is pretty likely that someone did split it from the main ROM already.
PC8801 port looks like ZX Spectrum... and ZX Spectrum game looks like a QBasic for MS-DOS game.
I remember knowing of Scramble for the first time in Gradius Advance/Generation intro ^^
It's crazy to me how so many of those little table top VDF games somehow managed to be pretty faithful to their source material. I even had the occasional LCD handheld that surprised me, like the one for 1943. Go figure, one of the best things Acclaim ever made was one of those janky little "You can't afford a Game Boy" handhelds.
Yeah, I agree. Some of them were very well done. Especially when considering the limitation of the hardware.
@@RetroCore I had a couple of the Coleco ones that were modeled after the arcade cabinets.
I never really liked the arcade game much, but loved it on the Vectrex, and the C64 unofficial port is great too.
Since I was a child, I think the Scramble arcade ship looks like the SSSP Jet VTOL from Ultraman
2:38 You're right, it certainly looks like a scramble! lol
Yep :)
While I never played this game growing up, there was a more-or-less clone of it on the Apple ][ called "Neptune", written by Nasir Gebelli (the same guy who did the coding for the 8-bit Final Fantasy games).
Great video!! 👍 out of all those versions besides the arcade and PS1. The Vectrex is the best especially when playing on the actual hardware. Luckily i have one in my collection.
I'd love a Vectrex but here in Japan they are even more rare than the west.
On today's episode: Battle of the Unlicensed Ports... mmmhhh I would love to watch more of this in popular games TBH
Mostly only the really old games have the bulk of unlicensed ports.
I love this game. I'm glad to have Konami Arcade Classics on the PS1. Excellent video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Theres a good remake for the BBC micro that came out a couple of years ago. And an arcade version for the Spectrum Next
Would have been nice if you included the new ports to the C64 & Amiga as both are excellent.
I don't follow home computers so I'm unaware of any homebrew that tends to be released without some major fanfare.
I seem to remember a different version for the bbc that was more authentic , not sure if that’s my memory failing me or not though but I have strong nostalgic feelings for scramble as a result
I expect you were playing Rocket Raid by Acornsoft. Pretty spot on conversion, albeit it ran maybe too fast. At least thats how I remember it!
That Tomytronic version is an interesting curio! Also the Vectrex port is looking good, sound not so much. There are at least 4 better Scramble/Skramble clones on the C64 than the one shown here but it would probably be an hour long video if you wanted to show all the homebrews/clones for all systems!
Good job as always Mark. Back in the day I of course saw and played the arcade game. But the game I saw first, probably around 82' or so,was Exidy's Cosmic Avenger. I wonder what cane first? Probably Scramble but Exidy was pretty cutting edge for third time with games like Venture,very original game,and Mousetrap which was one of the better Pac Man clones. Cosmic Avenger certainly looks and plays better.
as i said cosmic avenger was a way better game and I think the colecovision was the only port I know of infact I think the CV was the only system that had exidy ports as far as I know
@@MrNightshade2010 You are right. Even if it didn't come first it really improved on the formula. And yes ,the Colecovision port was quite good. A lot of good ports for that system,Venture,Mousetrap ECT. Still have two of them with around 60 games and accessories,driving wheel ECT. Actually have it hooked up to a nice Sony 27" CRT TV in a separate game room for older systems and light gun games.
I swore there was a Colecovision port but looking through the catalog on wiki, I must be thinking of Cosmic Avenger.
It wouldn't surprise if there was a clone on the Colecovision.
That's not the C64 version I had. It was rather good, or is this unofficial ports only?
I'm sure there are countless unofficial ports of this game on the C64.
I would have loved the Tomy version as a kid for long car trips before I had gotten a SEGA Game Gear, as I had the Coleco VFD table top PacMan, along with a few various Konami, Radio Shack, and Tiger LCD games.
Nice. The best thing about the VDF units is that they could be played in the dark 😎
I had a Tabletop GrandStand Scramble bitd... was similar to the Tomy version.
I wonder if it was the same game but under license?
@@RetroCore not sure, but think the display was a little different to the Tomy one?...
Needless to say, the PS and GBA ports are the closest to the Arcade, but the fuel's depleting speed seems as if the developers thought that a) by the time of these releases the game won't entertain the player for long and they wanted a session to end fast so gamers move on to the next title on the collection, or b) the original version was too easy and this was their way to increase the difficulty. The Vectrex port looks very sharp and "HD" thanks to those vector graphics, too bad the sound is not up to par. The Tomytronic version is definitely a product of its day and age, through and through, and taking the medium into account, it has aged reasonably well, with a high dose of nostalgia to boot.
Almost all the 8bit "coversions" were hastily cobbled together before anyone noticed and it shows. A really good (ahem) homage for the c64 at least was Penetrator (lol) by Beam software (lol).
I love the Vectrex version the most Mark. I still have mine after all thee years. 8^)
Anthony...
The Vectrex is Awsome. I'll never get to own one though. They're super rare and expensive in Japan.
I love the Vectrex version, I'm just a sucker for vector graphics! It's the one game permanently in my Vectrex
Same here. Real vectors look so cool. As a kid I was always memorised by the Atari Start Wars game.
@@RetroCore apparently you can now play star wars on your vectrex but I think you need a cartridge and a raspberry pi(vecpi? Or something like that). There is videos of it on you tube.
I love that Tomy Electronic version! I'm a bit sad you didn't include the excellent Amiga 500 port though.
Sorry! Didn't know about that one.
Wasn't there also a version for the DS, from a Konami Compilation?
Quite possibly.
As great as Scramble is, the VIC20 had an awesome knockoff called Bomber where you were a red jet shooting down missiles and fuel tanks with your guns and bombs if anyone remembers that game.
Yep, I do remember that one. There was another knock off too called Wirlybird from what I remember.
I see You couldn't resist bombing the Konami logo at 2:12.
I always associate Scramble with small takeaways, I don't think I ever saw it in an arcade, the likes of R-Type, Salamander and Vulcan Venture were ruling the roost at that point so poor old Scramble had to earn whatever coin it could off bored customers waiting for their orders, the fact it held out in those sorts of roles in Newsagents, cinemas and chip shops for so long is testament to it's status as a classic.
yep, Scramble was in our village Fish and Chip shop!!
It's punishment for all the crap they did to beloved IPs since the 2000's.
^2:11 😉
Excellent work as always, Mark. We had the 2600 port of Super Cobra at home, but I didn't play Scramble until I got the GBA Konami collection (which I mainly wanted for Rush'n Attack and Time Pilot because I grew up loving the NES and 2600 versions, respectively, of those two). Sometime after that I finally checked it out on MAME (though I had been using MAME since the late 90s, Scramble wasn't on my radar). I also bought the DS Konami arcade hits game, and I liked that version better than the GBA port because of the cramped vertical real estate (the DS is definitely the version of Scramble I've played the most, though I imagine that's emulation and not a port). Mind you, I enjoyed what I played of the GBA port, but I just had a tough time with it. I have a lot more nostalgia for Super Cobra (at least the 2600 version), so I haven't re-visited Scramble in a fair few years. It's fun, but to be honest, if we are talking pre-Gradius I'd rather play Time Pilot or, especially, Juno First (I really wish it had got more ports back in the day). I enjoy Super Cobra and Scramble, but not as much as those two (but, much more than Gyruss...I'm not a big fan of it). I have to say, I think the fact that you can shoot yourself like that is somehow fitting for how janky that Speccy version seems to be.
While you're on the subject of the 2600, you should take a look at the homebrew of Scramble that Champ Games released a few years ago, as well as their version of Super Cobra (now called Super Cobra Arcade.) They're quite good for 2600 versions.
@@SNARC15 Oh, I certainly wholeheartedly recommend any of John Champeau's ports. I have a boxed copy of Galagon and just a cart version of Mappy. They are amazing ports for the hardware. I played tons of the shareware Champ Galagon, Champ Kong, and Champ Pac-em off of one of those huge WIndows 95 shareware discs back in the mid-90s, so I just had to give back a little to John and Champ Games when Galagon for 2600 hit the Atari Age store. I haven't played the Scramble or Super Cobra ports, but if there's a demo I'll probably check them out. I'm sure I've seen footage before but just don't remember. I really want to get a copy of Gorf and Robotron sometime too, especially Gorf.
Rush'n Attack was one of my favourite Konami games from back in the day.
I was surprised to see a Tomytronic VDF tabletop emulator. Which one did you use?
Its part of a collection under the MESS emulator.
Classic❤❤
Great to see you back! Have a great weekend Mark!
Thanks, you too!
The first Arcade game I ever played. And still love it to this day. Though, as you suggest, more a game that was copied than technically ported :) I still have my Tomy VFD game, and the Vectrex version is great. The biggest mystery for me is.. why did Konami never do an MSX port, when they backed the platform so hard?
I guess by the time the MSX was wide spread, Scramble was a pretty old game. Maybe that's why it was never ported?
Scramble Infinity on C64 in 2021 is a unofficial port, much better than the old 80's one. CSDb website has several others as well.
I knew that you weren't going to feature a lot of Scramble Clones, but I noticed that the first port of Scramble you showed after the arcade is actually the NEC PC-8001 version. Maybe the reason why you didn't feature the Tomy Tutor version is because you didn't know how to get an emulator or games for the Tomy Tutor. And I'm thinking that you might get comments saying, "You missed the Amstrad CPC Homebrew version, TI-99 4A Homebrew Version, and Atari Console Homebrews!", well I think they were aftermarket games so maybe that's why you didn't feature them, it's fine though because you tried your best on this video. I'm pretty glad you had fun with the Tomytronic Handheld version of Scramble when you were a kid!
I do actually have a Tomy Tutor emulator or for the Japanese version of the machine but getting the games was the problem 😥
Stuff like the TI-99 I knew about and the Tandy Coco version too but I had a hell of a hard time getting the Coco version to load and couldn't even find the TI version. Such a shame.
There's loads of better clones out there too but sadly I'm not aware of them by name so I just went with the ones which were called Scramble.
After making the video I found out there was an arcade perfect port for the Amstrad CPC as well as a much better C64 version called Skramble. Oh well...
Yeah, I can see that you had a hard time getting some of the versions to work, but at least you tried your best on the video! Good job! 👍🏻
How about s Battle of the Ports episode featuring Ixion? I loved that game as a kid.
I don't know what Ixion is. I'll add it to the list for a future show.
@@RetroCore Oh, it's a very old arcade game from Sega. I used to play it on my brother's Atari 800XL, around 1988. There are other ports as well. Here, take a look.
ruclips.net/video/3LmQB1-yRLo/видео.html
I think there is a version for the DS konami classics series arcade hits
Thanks for uploading greetings from Croatia it was my request and everyone game fimilar one of the best Konami spaceship shooting games
You're very welcome. I wish I could have featured even more versions of the game.
The only official ports as im is aware for is only for the Vectrex (love the style for this game) and Tomy Tutor (newer heard about it). rest is release to later systems (which not allways emulation of course). Im must say im also loved this game too. There was many clones to C64 and Spectrum, so its pretty much impossible to show them all here or should do.
Can you check out the Sailor Moon Game and it’s ports for SNES/Super Famicom, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive & Arcade versions
They're all different games Im afraid. Yes, there are a few scrolling fighters but they aren't the same game and all are pretty bad beside the Arcade one.
I always preffered Super Cobra myself . And a great Atari 2600 port as well.
When I first learned to drive in tried refuelling by throwing bombs at petrol pumps......how was it to know
😀
lol, makes more sense than blowing up the fuel to actually re-fuel.
Something I think you’ve missed a couple of times from the GBA Konami Arcade Advanced is that many of the games have new versions you can access using (I believe) the Konami code. Scramble has a completely overhauled remake with new graphics!
Yeah, I didn't know about that since it's a hidden feature.
No Atari 800 port?
I'm surprised this didn't get ports for the usual suspects in the 80's, specially the Famicom and MSX.
I know. Very odd but maybe because the game was a few years old by the time those systems were released.
I know the Acornsoft arcade clones weren’t official but they were (from my rose tinted spectacles) surprisingly good and Rocket Raid was infinitely better than the BBC version you’ve shown here.
I wish I had known about that one. I could have featured it instead of the version I did feature.
The only computer game I played when young was version of this on the ZX81. It played better than some of these😮
Skramble for the C64 was better though (than the c64 port you showed 😊)
Super Cobra on Battle of the Ports, next? And Galaxian and Galaga after that?
Nope, next is a Midway game and it's a 3D polygon title. I wonder what it will be?
@@RetroCore Ehh, let me think. Is it Ready 2 Rumble Boxing?
Among the contemporary systems, the Vectrex and VDF are the only ones worth playing for a version of the arcade game, with the Vectrex being the obvious winner. Also, holy shit were the 8801 and Spectrum versions nauseating to look at. Motion sickness on a floppy, that shit.
While not a good game in the strictest sense, the VDF version is very much a noble effort, especially when compared to the pathetic efforts of Tiger Electronics LCD games of the day. If Tiger had put THIS much effort into their LCD games, they may have been more than a passing fad.
The Tomytronic VFD game was amazing back in the day. I loved playing it as a kid.
I swear I had an Atari 2600 third party game called "Rocket Jockey" or something that was either a complete knockoff or at least inspired by this game. I haven't played it since I was really little and I wasn't good with it at all, but I remember it being similar to this. Only, of course, not nearly as polished or good.
It wouldn't surprise me. There were a lot of clones out there.
So you're not mentioning the enhanced mode in the Game Boy Advance version of Scramble? The graphics are improved, and they give you three different ships! Three different ships, man!
Anyway. I think software manufacturers decided to hold off and wait for the sequel, Super Cobra, which is somehow even harder than Scramble. Did anyone really WANT this harder?
I owned and played the heck out of the GBA cart. Easily my most played cart on the system. And only learned about the alternative Konami-code modes about a year ago. Amazing how much work they put into those modes only to hide them.
That explains why I didn't know about them. Why go to all that effort only to hide it.
@@RetroCore
It might have been like the hidden Battlezone game in Battlezone for the Lynx?
Change things too much, and you upset the purists. Lock the changes behind a hidden code, and suddenly, it's buried treasure.
Wasn't there really a port to the Atari 2600? I could have sworn I saw that cartridge for atari, but maybe age is playing with my memory, or maybe it wasn't official.
by the way, excellent video as always.
There is a relatively new homebrew port by Champ Games that's really impressive, but the game didn't receive a port back in the 80s.
İf my memory serves me right, only Vectrex port is offical.
There is a new version of Scramble for Amiga 500: Scramble 500. You can find and play the beta. I'm awaiting for the final release: ruclips.net/video/3rE0b9EmlpI/видео.html&ab_channel=Saberman
Where was the funky tune at the start of the arcade game? Ah....the playstation...there it is!
Nah, it's some random tracks from the RUclips audio library.
@@RetroCore lol....and very funky it is!!
so is this why Contra Arcade version use screen in tate mode ? or Konami already lazy developer even back then ?
Well, lots of arcade games were in that aspect ratio back then. The early 80s is pretty much dominated by vertical aspect games like that.
And yet I remember a much MUCH better version of Scramble for the C64. I am not sure it was called Scramble, but it was almost arcade perfect.
It was probably the versions spelt with a K.
@@RetroCore OMFG! YES! That was it!
lol scramble is also known becuase every early-mid 80s bootleg arcade game was ran on scramble hardware tho I liked and thought cosmic avenger was better tho
A version for the Amstrad CPC was released in 2019 and it's very nice: ruclips.net/video/F61zisYMGcU/видео.html
For the c64 you can check out Skramble, which is a much better game than the one you featured here
I had a version on the C64 that was VERY close to the arcade version. I never saw the one that you posted here. Interesting. It was just called Scramble, but not sure if it was an official port or not. I always love Scrable and Cosmic Avenger. Nice video!
Found it: ruclips.net/video/HfQ55Zvq7Vw/видео.html
The scrolling isn't great, but overall better port.
The BBC Micro had an excellent version of Scramble in the form of Acornsoft's "Rocket Raid".
ruclips.net/video/2_DvnCXaHvE/видео.html
If we are going to unlicensed territory, the Atari 2600 version by Champ Games is the best port ever.
Sadly I didn't know about that.
Another great video Mark, there was an unofficial port to the Amstrad shown here in one of my earlier videos.
ruclips.net/video/tadHPJG0zUw/видео.html
That's a very impressive version. Looks very much like the arcade game.
@@RetroCore it's near arcade perfect 👌
The beginning
Coin op is a legendary game. PC8801 is a mixed bag. BBC Micro is shit. C64 is underwhelming alright. ZX Spectrum has an another broken piece of shit port. PS1 is near identical to the coin op. GBA is ideal to play on the road. Vectrex is surprisingly playable. Tomytronic is halfway decent.
My god the Spectrum version is atrocious, not even on a Sharp MZ 700 would come out worse.
Why are some of these ports so bad ?
Probably just lazy cash ins. I doubt any of the home ports besides the Vectrex, GBA and PSX are even licensed. Apparently the PC8801 version is licensed as are the Sharp MZ series and Tomy Tutor ports. Sadly two of them I couldn't find.
@@RetroCore The VDF one might have been licensed as well. Pretty good effort as far as "LCD games" are concerned.