My first computer came to my home in 85 after a long struggle to convince my parents . My first games were cartridges . Timeless classics like pac man Galaxian and a brillant track & field with a special arcade controller . Living in France with very little games available I enjoyed so much going to England and fetch 1£99 or 2£99 games in stores likes Woolworth or WhSmith. The Silica Shop in Kent had the most incredible catalogue of games . I was amazed by International Karaté (specially the disc version with all the sceneries ). So many amazing memories and I haven’t played it in decades I still have it in mint condition with all the accessories . Some of my favorite games ( I ll be forgetting some ) Zybex is probably the only arcade game quality like game on the machine. At a bargain price of 2£99 it’s arguably the slickest and coolest game . Bmx simulator was great fun . From US realease. I had last ninja Robocop and Op Wolf! Pole position, jet set willy, footballer of the year, trailblazer and so much more to be rembarrée. Thanks man for this great video. By the way I was born in 1975.
Dropzone on the Atari 800 is impressive. The programmer himself (who also wrote International Karate you played) says it is best on the Atari vs C64. Dropzone should be featuring I think on these best Atari 800 games videos.
The 800xl was my first computer also had all tape games no carts. Some favs inc - Alleycat, International Karate, Mr Dig, Preppie, Scooter, Ollies Follies and dropzone to name a few. 😀👌
I think the 800xl and 65xe we're identical from a specs perspective and I'd quite like an 800xl for my collection whilst they're still reasonably affordable 👍😎 And you've mentioned a lot of great games, I've played some of them in recent years but didn't own them as a kid 😎.. I played dropzone recently and was very impressed, it's really smooth on the Atari 👍
The 800xl was my first, and still sentimental favorite. So many great memories of games on that thing: Alley Cat, Boulder Dash, Quasimodo, Bruce Lee, Donkey Kong, DK Jr, Ultima III and IV, Stealth, Rescue on Fractalis, Ghostbusters, Ms Pac-Man, Dropzone, Championship Karate, Lode Runner, Spelunker, Pharoh's Curse, The Gauntlet (shooter game from Donald Lebeau), Gyruss, Defender, JOUST!, Popeye...I could go on and on....
I played Archon, Archon II, Chomper, Ninja, Zorro, Bruce Lee, H.E.R.O., International Karate, Pitfall, Pitfall II, Boulder Dash, Encounter, Elektra Glide, Super Cobra, Los Angeles SWAT, Keystone Kapers, The Last Starfighter, Pitstop, Pole Position, Moon Patrol, Football Manager, Stealth, Buck Rogers, Joust, Outlaw, Enduro, Space Invaders, River Raid.
I've just purchased an atari 65xe as I sold my 800xl probably 10 years ago now. I want to rediscover some of these old games . Simple but addictive games back then . Can't think of any current gen game that excites me anymore . I've got a gaming pc and new xbox but I still play retro games more
The Amiga was developed by the same guy, Jay Miner, who developed the Atari 8-Bits, like the 65XE, so they're both awesome at different numbers of bits. Even the graphics have a certain similarity to them.
Joe Blade reminds me of Spy Vs Spy. In 1983, in Canada, my dad bought for me a 600xl with data cassette instead of a C64 with floppy drive, for I was an Atari fan. Back then who knew that Jay Miner was the father of the original Atari 2600, 8 bit computer and Amiga chipsets. All three are my favourite gaming systems/ computers of all time until Commodore went under in 1994. I currently own many models of each, but back then I went from my 600xl with cassette to 800xl with 1050 drive to 130xe with 1050 drive with happy conversion. I also owned a 520stfm until I discovered Amiga in 1988. I loved my Amiga 500 and later Amiga 1200. Very fond memories. For the low price point you were paying for games I am surprised you did not also list Caverns of Kafka. Not the best graphic title, but loads of fun to play. Also, Goonies was a very memorable title. When I originally received my 600xl the only game I owned for months was Frogger on cassette that I bought from a classmate for 5 bucks.
Similar story this end, I started with a 2600 then my parents got me a 65xe (when everyone else had a c64 or Speccy), then I had an Amiga 500 before moving onto pc's 👍😎 And the games in this list are meant to represent the best of what's available for the 8 bit Atari's, they're just some of the games I had back in the 80s and still own now! Some are good, some are really bad! 😎
I had the Donkey cartridge for my Atari 800 .The game on my Atari 800 was the other way round with Kong rolling the barrels to the right .I would have hated playing it the way that this version is ,with Kong rolling the barrels to the left.
Had Lode Runner on cart as well. I started with a 1010 cassette recorder w/ just a few games: Preppie, Temple Of Apshai, & whatever I typed in from ANTIC or COMPUTE! magazines. Luckily soon graduated to a 1050 drive
Doing these videos has made me realise just how many great Atari 8 bit games I've missed, people including yourself keep mentioning games I haven't played yet 👍😎
nice video, I had a 65XE, loved that great machine, as for the games I had the following and loved them, played them all the time, Ninja, LA Swat and Donkey Kong, had Lode Runner also but didn't really care that much for it
I still have functioning Atari 800XL with cassette peripherals, for me best games were: 1-Karateka 2-Bruce Lee 3-International Karate 4-Ninja 5-Montezumas Revenge
Hey mate! I managed to finish it on 800XL but never on any other system . The origins of the next to come Prince of Persia . I miss these kind of games…
Wow Zybex! I spent hours on that game. completed it a few times too. I remember the first time I loaded Ghost Busters, I couldn't believe the voice saying Ghost Busters. That was the first time my Atari 800xl spoke! Great video thanks.
👍😎.. same here re Ghostbusters, it blew my mind at the time! And I still load up Zybex on a regular basis, I don't seem to get any better at it though 🤔😂
The arcade version of Donkey Kong actually had four levels: The first one with the slanted girders, one with elevators, one with conveyor belts and one with plugs that disappear when you cross over them. To be honest, I'm not sure of the order, since every home version seems to have them in a different order or even omit some of them. I loved Lode Runner on the C64. It had built in cheats to give yourself extra lives and jump to any level you wanted. I used those to finish all 150 levels. I don't consider that cheating really as each level still has to be finished with a single life. Extra lives just meant that I could keep trying and the level jump was used so that I didn't have to do them all in one sitting.
Understood re Donkey Kong 👍😎.. still a great port on the Atari, I think that was the one main advantage of Atari at the time, lots of official ports.. but like you say I think the c64 also got a lot of decent ports 👍😎 And Lode Runner.. such a great game, it even holds up today, a lot of retro games haven't aged well but Lode Runner is still very enjoyable 😎
@@RetroTechHQ I started playing through Championship Lode Runner, which had 50 harder levels, but I got the Amiga right in the middle of it and kind of migrated away from the C64. CLR had a save feature, but every time you loaded a save, it would alter the disk to subtract one, so after a while, you wouldn't have any more saves. It got to be a pain copying the disk (pirated copy) every time. And I discovered a bug: On one of the levels, you needed to move immediately to get out of a sort of box made of bricks that was full of ladders (no digging allowed), or you'd get caught by the guards. When I loaded a save for that level, it changed the timing ever so slightly so that you couldn't make it out no matter what you did. At first I thought I would just use the disk as a data disk for the original and use the cheats, but the levels didn't work. After creating some test levels in the editor, I figured out the format of the levels stored on disk by the original game. Each hex byte represented two blocks of the level. For example, F might stand for a brick and E might be a ladder, so FE would a brick next to a ladder. Armed with that knowledge, I looked at the CLR disk and discovered that they simply used different bytes to represent the elements of the level. I then wrote a program that would read each level off the disk, convert it to the old format and write it back to disk. In effect making it a data disk for the original game. I played through a bunch of levels and there didn't seem to be any issues using the original game engine to play the championship levels, not even any timing issues with that one level. :)
Similar story here.. I went straight from my 65xe to an Amiga 500 which felt like a huge upgrade at the time. I remember the first time I loaded Batman the Movie on the Amiga, I was blown away! 👍😎 Cool story re CLR, I think that initiative is something kids lack nowadays, we didn't just play the games, we tried to understand the code and system they ran on. We were all bedroom coders, some better than others but we had a go. 👍😎
@@RetroTechHQ One of these days, I hope to find the copy of my converter program and preserve it. I have an interface to plug my 1541 drive into my computer (older, parallel port model), but I had a bad habit of not labeling my C64 disks. Don't ask me why, I honestly don't know why I didn't, but the bulk of my disks aren't labeled. At the time I knew what box everything was in and could find the disk I wanted within 2-3 disks just by checking the directories (Super Snapshot cartridge, just type $). Now of course, I have no idea where anything is. I also used to have a neat little program that would draw simple, 3D landscapes, that I've never seen anywhere else. As I recall, they were kind of like the ones in Captain Blood, just a series of lines, but closer together so it created the illusion of 3D shapes. I just never have the ambition to do it.
Brilliant video Chris. Excellent editing. Well done mate. Here's one for you.... How about a video on the English software titles like Jet Boot jack etc? They had some good games back then. Keep up the good work mate.
Thanks Grant 👍.. I'm still very much a learner but appreciate the encouragement 😎 And a video on English Software is a good idea, only problem is that I don't own many of them! I've got loads of other Atari 8 bit games though.. a box full of cassettes! I miss £1.99 games 🤔😂
my favourites: Lode Runner, Jumpman and Jumpman Jr (the best platformer of all time), Popeye, Montezuma's Revenge, the Great American Cross Country Road Race, and Captain Beeble (rarely found on anyone's top ten, which is really sad because it is such a fun game) My friends and I were so addicted to Jumpman that even though the two sided cassette would often crash during loading (usually after about 40 minutes) we would just keep trying to load it until it worked...sometimes wasting most of the evening just loading (and failing, and loading and failing, and loading) the game. but it was worth it. To this day it is my favourite game on any system and one of the few games I still play at least once a week. The cassette loading screen included an animation of Jumpman climbing a ladder rather than a standard counter. Nice touch...especially considering how often we would sit there watching it and praying. Moon Patrol would be my favourite XE/XL arcade port (although no home port beats the homebrew Vextrex version). Good video, more than a few memories there.
I have to admit that I've never played the Jumpman game's, I'll have to check them out 👍.. and I know what you mean about waiting for games to load! It felt like an eternity! Captain Beeble is another game I'd never heard of until you mentioned it, I had to look it up on RUclips.. looks like good fun though 👍😎
2:40 I had the diskette version of NINJA!!! Awesome game & great music Yeah you gotta be careful attacking the enemy ninjas, they're the strongest of the game's 3 enemies. They're best handled with shuriken & throwing knives (the knife tip has to hit to count) Also, leaving & re-entering a screen "regenerates" throwing weapons on the floor (if you're not holding any) so you can get 3 shuriken which will take down any enemy
@@RetroTechHQ i actually happen to have a full walkthrough here: watch?v=di30OzZdj5k Funny bit of trivia - Swat loading screen mentions Randy Platt as the author, and the same name is shown when Defender of the Crown is loading on Atari ST as one of the authors, wonder if it is the same person. The amount of time spent my 800XE loading stuff like International Karate from the tape, 322 blocks remaining... My most played titles (in no special order) would be: River Raid Wizard of Wor Survivor International Karate Ninja Ghostbusters Fighter Pilot II Solo Flight Great American Cross Country Road Race New York City Raid over Moscow Bruce Lee Rescue on Fractalus Spy vs Spy Hacker Silent Service Pit Stop Pole Position One on One Wargames Star Raiders I'm sure I forgot some, it's been well over 30 years now :)
I bought Ninja on disk by MasterTronic in the U.S. and had edited all the English into Japanese. L.A. Swat was another I bought on disk by MasterTronic. I also had BMX Simulator, again a MasterTronic disk. Even Ghostbusters from Activision.
Disks.. I could only dream of disks! I spent a lot of time waiting for games to load back then 😂.. I remember a game call asylum, the disk version had graphics but the tape version was text only.. I was sooo jealous and badly wanted the disk version!! 👍😎
👍😎.. they're definitely underestimated machines, in some instances they actually beat the c64.. take a look at Rescue On Fractalus and you'll see what I mean 👍
Yes, video game companies had their games on many platforms... Like Donkey Kong, licensed by Nintendo... made by Coleco and played on my Intellivsion. lol
Played and owned Ninja, BMX sim, SWAT and Joe Blade. Can't remember every game I had but some were; Dropzone Bruce Lee Leaper Warhawk Kick start Such fond memories.
If you are going to play Loderunner on an emulator, turn on the TV artifacting. Makes the game full colour as the weird design of the graphics is to take advantage of this technique for full colour.
I started out with an Atari 400 in ‘83 and then the 130XE in ‘86. I bought Ghostbusters at full price (£9.99) so you did well getting the £2.99 re-release a few years later. Some of the later games had better speech (check out Mirax Force). I enjoyed Ninja and LA SWAT… some of the £1.99 games were ok. Games I recommend… Fidget, Drelbs, Fort Apocalypse, International Karate, Miner 2049er, Ollie’s Follies, Hardball, Donkey Kong Jnr, Fight Night, Goonies, Bruce Lee, Zorro, Popeye, Green Beret, Missile Command, Druid, Beer Belly Burt’s Brew Biz… the list is endless. Happy days… I went 16-bit in ‘88 with the ST, and have been making games for the last 32 years. 😊
My 65xe has been upgraded to 128k so is essentially a 130xe 👍 And I didn't own many full price games.. a few cartridges, donkey Kong, lode runner, fight knight, blue max but that's about it. Full price games were reserved for birthdays and Xmas, I had to buy the rest with my pocket money which didn't go far! Some great games in your list 👍 I also went 16-bit but onto the Amiga 500 in my case. I did have a few goes on an ST though, my cousin had one, I loved the original xenon game and remember being really impressed by Star Wars on the ST! 😎
@@RetroTechHQ Yeah, Star Wars was awesome on the ST. Amiga was better though - by ‘93 we were largely making games for Amiga only. Great to see the old 8-bit Atari getting some love, so thanks for that! 😊 Did you ever play Leaderboard? That was a great game for its time.
There is a purity and crispness and speed in these old Atari computers that seems unique vs c64, or Apple ][, or the later 16 bit machines. Did the Atari machines use double wide pixels and have more colors available?
I'm not sure about double wide pixels, I find that c64 ports tend to have more colour but often run slower. The Atari's have a faster CPU, games like Ballblazer and Rescue On Fractalus demonstrate this as the faster CPU really helps with 3d 👍.. I've always thought that it's a shame the Atari wasn't better supported into the late 80's, it was certainly capable of running the games of this period 😎
Damn I wish we had £1.99 cassette games in the US, I don't remember them being any cheaper than $10.00. Because of that I was "forced" to get a 1050 5.25 disk drive and copy the hell out of cracked games. I had hundreds and my only cost was the disks themselves, from what I remember you could fit about 5 or 6 standard games on each side :)
On the flip side, in the UK we had to wait ages for tapes to load! But all the games I had are originals, can't say the same about 90% of the games I had on the Amiga though!! 👍😎
@@RetroTechHQ Oh I had just the cassette with the 800XL for a year before I finally got the disk drive, the loading was painful lol! Amiga's were nice machines wish I had one.
That's good.. you're not a proper 8-bit gamer unless you've loaded games off a cassette! The worst thing was when something would go wrong when the cassette was 90% loaded!! And yeh I love my Amiga.. I've still got it now 👍😎
I know exactly what you mean.. the xe lineup was right at the end of the Atari 8 bit life cycle so when I had mine everyone in the playground was already talking about the c64 v Spectrum. But I still had fun with the Atari, I just missed out on a lot of the games other people were talking about at the time.. e.g the Renegade series 😎
Nice vid. Had a 65xe myself and also Ghostbusters and Ninja, 2 of the better games. My favourite though, probably a later title, was Henry's House, a great platformer with good graphics. A couple of other faves were feud, amaurote (both had good graphics) and spy Vs spy (terrible graphics but great gameplay).
I loved spy v spy 👍.. I had the trilogy pack, my favourite was the second one on the island 👍 I also had feud but couldn't figure out how to play it as a kid!
@@RetroTechHQ yeah, had the trilogy pack too but there was some sort of issue with 2&3 which meant you had to reload after each game and it took, like, 40 mins so didn't play them often.
I have never played any of these games nor Atari game pre Jaguar unless you include Tengen stuff on the Nes. You see, I started gaming in 1986 on the Nes and Master System. I missed all of the micro's living in the states they weren't very big. However, that doesn't mean I do not want to see more.. keep them coming!
It's interesting because I'm in the UK and don't remember any of my friends owning a NES, I remember seeing them in the shops but didn't actually play on one until I picked one up many years later as an adult 😎
Exactly 👍😎.. I didn't have a NES but I remember a family holiday to the states in 1988 and seeing NES stuff everywhere, I really wanted R.O.B the robot!! 👍
I remember Zybex. Great game. Had 20 levels but only the first 16 levels are available until you complete them then levels 17 to 20 become available. Never did finish the game. Mine looked different to yours though(the cassette label design I mean).
Didn't own any of the other games. I had awful boring games like 180, One Man and his Droid and Attack of the Mutant Camels. I was more into text adventure games though I sucked at them. Used to buy the magazine Atari User and used to type in the game code for weeks on end only to find out there was a misprint in the magazine and I had wasted my damn time. I had an Atari 65XE too. I had the Curries version that came with ten games on two cassettes, mostly old Atari games like Missile Command, Centipede, Star Raiders and the like. Only £99.99 at Xmas 1987. By 1992 when I sold it all to my downs uncle I had built up quite a library of games and educational titles.
I had the same bundle 👍, but I think mine came from Dixon's, I might be wrong though 🤔. I've got one man and his droid and don't remember anything about it which is normally a sign that a game isn't very good! I think it's a shame the Atari 8 bits weren't better supported into the late 80s, this meant I was jealous of friends with speccys and c64s because they could get the latest games like barbarian, renegade, the last ninja games etc
@@RetroTechHQ I bought 180 because I have seen the game on a Spectrum and it looked good and then remembered being disappointed by the Atari 8-bit version. It might have been Dixons. They are really the same company. I don't think Atari 8-bit was ever that supported. The range for C64 and Spectrum was always larger. I remembered looking at games for other systems at the market stall and they were never ported to Atari. I had to buy a lot of games from Silica Shop instead or hope to come across second hand games on a Saturday at the flea market. That is how I was able to build up my Atari 2600 library back in the day. The only other thing I hated about the Atari 8-bit computers was the long cassette loading times. Zybex took around 25 minutes to load. They all took that long. I think I spent more time waiting than actually playing the games lol.
I picked up an Atari 800XL with a 1050 floppy drive, a cassette drive(the old 400/800 version which was faulty) and a load of floppy and tape games for about 25 quid about 20 years ago from the flea market. I found a lot of the tape games no longer worked though. Either they had gone bad or had been exposed to powerful magnets at some time. Amazed me how quickly games load from floppy though, just a few seconds compared to nearly 30 minutes for a tape game and the floppy disks hold so much more space than a cassette can.
To this day, I still haven't loaded an Atari 8 bit game from a floppy disk! Back in the 80s I had everything on cassette and by the time I rediscovered my Atari in recent years, SD card cartridge loaders were available, so whilst I still collect the cassettes I tend to load the games from an SD card. I'm too impatient to wait 25 minutes for a game to load nowadays! 😂 And like yourself, I had an Atari 2600 before my 65xe, my dad would take me to Western international market and I'd buy games from there 👍
How about Grand Prix Simulator? Many, many years before Codemaster got the F1 franchise. I thought of it as it was endorsed by Johnny Dumfries, who passed away a week ago.
Ive got some of these, never played them though (either didnt appeal or perhaps didn't load) but maybe I might some day! I always ended up on 'The Great American Cross Country Road Race' which is awesome! I've got quite a few cassettes but havent had Atari out in years (800xl) due to moaning wife! Another firm favourite, though better on Commodore +4, was/is Dizzy Dice fruit machine/casino simulator.
Good to hear I'm not the only person with some of these old cassettes 👍😎, they're not all great but it's good fun loading them up again.. get that 800xl loaded up! Just make sure the wife's out! 😯😂
No need to go,fancy on a good game. Also: I believe this was one of those games that used artifactimg to get some colour on hi-res graphics modes, which simply wouldn’t work on PAL systems.
@@atariandre5014 Having nice, controlled colors would've been trivial on the Atari - even in "NTSC land" - and would've made a good game even better. Other Atari games/ports also used artifacting like for example Ultima IV but there the Apple graphics were used to display the "old style" hi-res font (for the shops etc.). So there was at least "some" advantage of using artifacting. But Lode Runner didn't have any advantage like this. It was, like James wrote above, a lazy port. It was truly a quick cash grab.
Yeah I had on my spectrum 128k + 2 Fruit Machine Simulator Formula One Simulator BMX Simulator Pro Ski Simulator Pro Jet Boat Simulator Pro Jet Ski Simulator and Pro Jet Ski Simulator 2 and BMX Simulator 2
My first computer came to my home in 85 after a long struggle to convince my parents .
My first games were cartridges . Timeless classics like pac man Galaxian and a brillant track & field with a special arcade controller . Living in France with very little games available I enjoyed so much going to England and fetch 1£99 or 2£99 games in stores likes Woolworth or WhSmith. The Silica Shop in Kent had the most incredible catalogue of games . I was amazed by International Karaté (specially the disc version with all the sceneries ). So many amazing memories and I haven’t played it in decades I still have it in mint condition with all the accessories .
Some of my favorite games ( I ll be forgetting some ) Zybex is probably the only arcade game quality like game on the machine. At a bargain price of 2£99 it’s arguably the slickest and coolest game . Bmx simulator was great fun . From US realease. I had last ninja Robocop and Op Wolf! Pole position, jet set willy, footballer of the year, trailblazer and so much more to be rembarrée.
Thanks man for this great video.
By the way I was born in 1975.
Dropzone on the Atari 800 is impressive. The programmer himself (who also wrote International Karate you played) says it is best on the Atari vs C64. Dropzone should be featuring I think on these best Atari 800 games videos.
Zybex was my favourite game. I still remember the brilliant music
The 800xl was my first computer also had all tape games no carts. Some favs inc - Alleycat, International Karate, Mr Dig, Preppie, Scooter, Ollies Follies and dropzone to name a few. 😀👌
I think the 800xl and 65xe we're identical from a specs perspective and I'd quite like an 800xl for my collection whilst they're still reasonably affordable 👍😎
And you've mentioned a lot of great games, I've played some of them in recent years but didn't own them as a kid 😎.. I played dropzone recently and was very impressed, it's really smooth on the Atari 👍
The 800xl was my first, and still sentimental favorite. So many great memories of games on that thing: Alley Cat, Boulder Dash, Quasimodo, Bruce Lee, Donkey Kong, DK Jr, Ultima III and IV, Stealth, Rescue on Fractalis, Ghostbusters, Ms Pac-Man, Dropzone, Championship Karate, Lode Runner, Spelunker, Pharoh's Curse, The Gauntlet (shooter game from Donald Lebeau), Gyruss, Defender, JOUST!, Popeye...I could go on and on....
👍😎.. I think I need to do a video where I play some of the great games you've mentioned, I feel like I missed out on a lot of the best games 🤔
@@RetroTechHQ I’d LOVE for you to do that!!
I played Archon, Archon II, Chomper, Ninja, Zorro, Bruce Lee, H.E.R.O., International Karate, Pitfall, Pitfall II, Boulder Dash, Encounter, Elektra Glide, Super Cobra, Los Angeles SWAT, Keystone Kapers, The Last Starfighter, Pitstop, Pole Position, Moon Patrol, Football Manager, Stealth, Buck Rogers, Joust, Outlaw, Enduro, Space Invaders, River Raid.
@@playermmorpg1657 how could I forget the Archon games?!? The Last Starfighter and Stealth were also some of my favorites
I've just purchased an atari 65xe as I sold my 800xl probably 10 years ago now. I want to rediscover some of these old games . Simple but addictive games back then . Can't think of any current gen game that excites me anymore . I've got a gaming pc and new xbox but I still play retro games more
Games industry ended in 2004...at least for me.
The Amiga was developed by the same guy, Jay Miner, who developed the Atari 8-Bits, like the 65XE, so they're both awesome at different numbers of bits. Even the graphics have a certain similarity to them.
My first computer was Atari 800XL , 1989 - Cheers mate
👍😎
Been looking for Dawn raider for years, couldn't remember it's name!
Keep up the good work pal 👍🏻👍🏻
Joe Blade reminds me of Spy Vs Spy. In 1983, in Canada, my dad bought for me a 600xl with data cassette instead of a C64 with floppy drive, for I was an Atari fan. Back then who knew that Jay Miner was the father of the original Atari 2600, 8 bit computer and Amiga chipsets. All three are my favourite gaming systems/ computers of all time until Commodore went under in 1994. I currently own many models of each, but back then I went from my 600xl with cassette to 800xl with 1050 drive to 130xe with 1050 drive with happy conversion. I also owned a 520stfm until I discovered Amiga in 1988. I loved my Amiga 500 and later Amiga 1200. Very fond memories. For the low price point you were paying for games I am surprised you did not also list Caverns of Kafka. Not the best graphic title, but loads of fun to play. Also, Goonies was a very memorable title. When I originally received my 600xl the only game I owned for months was Frogger on cassette that I bought from a classmate for 5 bucks.
Similar story this end, I started with a 2600 then my parents got me a 65xe (when everyone else had a c64 or Speccy), then I had an Amiga 500 before moving onto pc's 👍😎
And the games in this list are meant to represent the best of what's available for the 8 bit Atari's, they're just some of the games I had back in the 80s and still own now! Some are good, some are really bad! 😎
Loved goonies still remember that game to this day
Donkey Kong arcade has 4 levels, the Atari cartridge version has all 4
My mistake 👍
Lode Runner is a fantastic game! It stands the test of time and is still very playable today.
I completely agree 👍
I had the Donkey cartridge for my Atari 800 .The game on my Atari 800 was the other way round with Kong rolling the barrels to the right .I would have hated playing it the way that this version is ,with Kong rolling the barrels to the left.
Had Lode Runner on cart as well.
I started with a 1010 cassette recorder w/ just a few games: Preppie, Temple Of Apshai, & whatever I typed in from ANTIC or COMPUTE! magazines. Luckily soon graduated to a 1050 drive
Doing these videos has made me realise just how many great Atari 8 bit games I've missed, people including yourself keep mentioning games I haven't played yet 👍😎
I also went this pathway. It would be a nightmare to load all the games by cassette, but we would have done it. We typed in the ANTIC games. :)
nice video, I had a 65XE, loved that great machine, as for the games I had the following and loved them, played them all the time, Ninja, LA Swat and Donkey Kong, had Lode Runner also but didn't really care that much for it
I still have functioning Atari 800XL with cassette peripherals, for me best games were:
1-Karateka
2-Bruce Lee
3-International Karate
4-Ninja
5-Montezumas Revenge
Jordan Mechner’s Karatéka ! Brøderbund masterpiece !
@@tomfrommontmartre never managed to finish it tho on original system.
Hey mate! I managed to finish it on 800XL but never on any other system . The origins of the next to come Prince of Persia . I miss these kind of games…
Wow Zybex! I spent hours on that game. completed it a few times too. I remember the first time I loaded Ghost Busters, I couldn't believe the voice saying Ghost Busters. That was the first time my Atari 800xl spoke! Great video thanks.
👍😎.. same here re Ghostbusters, it blew my mind at the time! And I still load up Zybex on a regular basis, I don't seem to get any better at it though 🤔😂
I can't count how many hours I spent playing with S.A.M. listening to my Atari speak....
The arcade version of Donkey Kong actually had four levels: The first one with the slanted girders, one with elevators, one with conveyor belts and one with plugs that disappear when you cross over them. To be honest, I'm not sure of the order, since every home version seems to have them in a different order or even omit some of them.
I loved Lode Runner on the C64. It had built in cheats to give yourself extra lives and jump to any level you wanted. I used those to finish all 150 levels. I don't consider that cheating really as each level still has to be finished with a single life. Extra lives just meant that I could keep trying and the level jump was used so that I didn't have to do them all in one sitting.
Understood re Donkey Kong 👍😎.. still a great port on the Atari, I think that was the one main advantage of Atari at the time, lots of official ports.. but like you say I think the c64 also got a lot of decent ports 👍😎
And Lode Runner.. such a great game, it even holds up today, a lot of retro games haven't aged well but Lode Runner is still very enjoyable 😎
@@RetroTechHQ I started playing through Championship Lode Runner, which had 50 harder levels, but I got the Amiga right in the middle of it and kind of migrated away from the C64.
CLR had a save feature, but every time you loaded a save, it would alter the disk to subtract one, so after a while, you wouldn't have any more saves. It got to be a pain copying the disk (pirated copy) every time. And I discovered a bug: On one of the levels, you needed to move immediately to get out of a sort of box made of bricks that was full of ladders (no digging allowed), or you'd get caught by the guards. When I loaded a save for that level, it changed the timing ever so slightly so that you couldn't make it out no matter what you did.
At first I thought I would just use the disk as a data disk for the original and use the cheats, but the levels didn't work. After creating some test levels in the editor, I figured out the format of the levels stored on disk by the original game. Each hex byte represented two blocks of the level. For example, F might stand for a brick and E might be a ladder, so FE would a brick next to a ladder. Armed with that knowledge, I looked at the CLR disk and discovered that they simply used different bytes to represent the elements of the level. I then wrote a program that would read each level off the disk, convert it to the old format and write it back to disk. In effect making it a data disk for the original game. I played through a bunch of levels and there didn't seem to be any issues using the original game engine to play the championship levels, not even any timing issues with that one level. :)
Similar story here.. I went straight from my 65xe to an Amiga 500 which felt like a huge upgrade at the time. I remember the first time I loaded Batman the Movie on the Amiga, I was blown away! 👍😎
Cool story re CLR, I think that initiative is something kids lack nowadays, we didn't just play the games, we tried to understand the code and system they ran on. We were all bedroom coders, some better than others but we had a go. 👍😎
@@RetroTechHQ One of these days, I hope to find the copy of my converter program and preserve it. I have an interface to plug my 1541 drive into my computer (older, parallel port model), but I had a bad habit of not labeling my C64 disks. Don't ask me why, I honestly don't know why I didn't, but the bulk of my disks aren't labeled. At the time I knew what box everything was in and could find the disk I wanted within 2-3 disks just by checking the directories (Super Snapshot cartridge, just type $). Now of course, I have no idea where anything is.
I also used to have a neat little program that would draw simple, 3D landscapes, that I've never seen anywhere else. As I recall, they were kind of like the ones in Captain Blood, just a series of lines, but closer together so it created the illusion of 3D shapes.
I just never have the ambition to do it.
Brilliant video Chris. Excellent editing. Well done mate. Here's one for you.... How about a video on the English software titles like Jet Boot jack etc? They had some good games back then. Keep up the good work mate.
Thanks Grant 👍.. I'm still very much a learner but appreciate the encouragement 😎
And a video on English Software is a good idea, only problem is that I don't own many of them! I've got loads of other Atari 8 bit games though.. a box full of cassettes! I miss £1.99 games 🤔😂
my favourites: Lode Runner, Jumpman and Jumpman Jr (the best platformer of all time), Popeye, Montezuma's Revenge, the Great American Cross Country Road Race, and Captain Beeble (rarely found on anyone's top ten, which is really sad because it is such a fun game)
My friends and I were so addicted to Jumpman that even though the two sided cassette would often crash during loading (usually after about 40 minutes) we would just keep trying to load it until it worked...sometimes wasting most of the evening just loading (and failing, and loading and failing, and loading) the game. but it was worth it. To this day it is my favourite game on any system and one of the few games I still play at least once a week. The cassette loading screen included an animation of Jumpman climbing a ladder rather than a standard counter. Nice touch...especially considering how often we would sit there watching it and praying.
Moon Patrol would be my favourite XE/XL arcade port (although no home port beats the homebrew Vextrex version).
Good video, more than a few memories there.
I have to admit that I've never played the Jumpman game's, I'll have to check them out 👍.. and I know what you mean about waiting for games to load! It felt like an eternity!
Captain Beeble is another game I'd never heard of until you mentioned it, I had to look it up on RUclips.. looks like good fun though 👍😎
I was playing Chomper, all lists are missing this nice game. my favorite 800 xl games were Archon, Chomper, Ninja, Keystone Kapers :)
I don't think I've played Chomper, I'll check it out 👍😎
2:40 I had the diskette version of NINJA!!! Awesome game & great music
Yeah you gotta be careful attacking the enemy ninjas, they're the strongest of the game's 3 enemies. They're best handled with shuriken & throwing knives (the knife tip has to hit to count) Also, leaving & re-entering a screen "regenerates" throwing weapons on the floor (if you're not holding any) so you can get 3 shuriken which will take down any enemy
You obviously got a lot further in ninja than I did! And you were lucky to have it on disk 👍😎
@@RetroTechHQ i actually happen to have a full walkthrough here:
watch?v=di30OzZdj5k
Funny bit of trivia - Swat loading screen mentions Randy Platt as the author, and the same name is shown when Defender of the Crown is loading on Atari ST as one of the authors, wonder if it is the same person.
The amount of time spent my 800XE loading stuff like International Karate from the tape, 322 blocks remaining...
My most played titles (in no special order) would be:
River Raid
Wizard of Wor
Survivor
International Karate
Ninja
Ghostbusters
Fighter Pilot II
Solo Flight
Great American Cross Country Road Race
New York City
Raid over Moscow
Bruce Lee
Rescue on Fractalus
Spy vs Spy
Hacker
Silent Service
Pit Stop
Pole Position
One on One
Wargames
Star Raiders
I'm sure I forgot some, it's been well over 30 years now :)
I bought Ninja on disk by MasterTronic in the U.S. and had edited all the English into Japanese.
L.A. Swat was another I bought on disk by MasterTronic.
I also had BMX Simulator, again a MasterTronic disk.
Even Ghostbusters from Activision.
Disks.. I could only dream of disks! I spent a lot of time waiting for games to load back then 😂.. I remember a game call asylum, the disk version had graphics but the tape version was text only.. I was sooo jealous and badly wanted the disk version!! 👍😎
Asylum. Ah. Don't look up. I remember the wacky entomologist.
👍.. yep, didn't a piano fall on your head if you looked up? And your memory must be better than mine.. I don't remember the entomologist? 🤔
Wow, as a C64 owner I'm actually impressed with what the Atari could do!
👍😎.. they're definitely underestimated machines, in some instances they actually beat the c64.. take a look at Rescue On Fractalus and you'll see what I mean 👍
My first computer to! Back in 86?87?
2 more Nintendo games were released on the Atari 8bit platform Donkey Kong Jr
And Mario Bros!
Yes, video game companies had their games on many platforms... Like Donkey Kong, licensed by Nintendo... made by Coleco and played on my Intellivsion. lol
La swat. Remember playing that. Forgot all about it. Immediately put on my shield tv and played that. 😀. Thanks for the memory recaps
👍😎
Played and owned Ninja, BMX sim, SWAT and Joe Blade. Can't remember every game I had but some were;
Dropzone
Bruce Lee
Leaper
Warhawk
Kick start
Such fond memories.
I've not played the games you mentioned other than Dropzone.. I'll check them out 👍😎
If you are going to play Loderunner on an emulator, turn on the TV artifacting. Makes the game full colour as the weird design of the graphics is to take advantage of this technique for full colour.
Great video! All of these are great game to play on the A8
I completed Zybex a few times on Atari, as I recall.
You're a better player than I am then!! :-)
IMHO, The Atari 8 bit Donkey Kong plays better than all versions, including the arcade.
Great job on the video! Works on all levels here. Please keep doing these, even if you only cover the A8 platform =)
Thanks.. I've had a lot of work to do recently but will get back to making more of these videos in the new year 👍😎
I remember SWAT, ninja, Ghostbusters, donkey Kong.
My favourites were rescue on fractaculous and eidolon. I think that's what they were called.
👍😎.. Rescue on fractalus I've heard of, not sure about Eidolon.. I'll check it out 👍
LA Swat was abysmal.
I had LA SWAT too, it was on the same side of the disk as Panther
I started out with an Atari 400 in ‘83 and then the 130XE in ‘86. I bought Ghostbusters at full price (£9.99) so you did well getting the £2.99 re-release a few years later. Some of the later games had better speech (check out Mirax Force). I enjoyed Ninja and LA SWAT… some of the £1.99 games were ok.
Games I recommend… Fidget, Drelbs, Fort Apocalypse, International Karate, Miner 2049er, Ollie’s Follies, Hardball, Donkey Kong Jnr, Fight Night, Goonies, Bruce Lee, Zorro, Popeye, Green Beret, Missile Command, Druid, Beer Belly Burt’s Brew Biz… the list is endless. Happy days… I went 16-bit in ‘88 with the ST, and have been making games for the last 32 years. 😊
My 65xe has been upgraded to 128k so is essentially a 130xe 👍
And I didn't own many full price games.. a few cartridges, donkey Kong, lode runner, fight knight, blue max but that's about it. Full price games were reserved for birthdays and Xmas, I had to buy the rest with my pocket money which didn't go far!
Some great games in your list 👍
I also went 16-bit but onto the Amiga 500 in my case. I did have a few goes on an ST though, my cousin had one, I loved the original xenon game and remember being really impressed by Star Wars on the ST! 😎
@@RetroTechHQ Yeah, Star Wars was awesome on the ST. Amiga was better though - by ‘93 we were largely making games for Amiga only. Great to see the old 8-bit Atari getting some love, so thanks for that! 😊
Did you ever play Leaderboard? That was a great game for its time.
There is a purity and crispness and speed in these old Atari computers that seems unique vs c64, or Apple ][, or the later 16 bit machines. Did the Atari machines use double wide pixels and have more colors available?
I'm not sure about double wide pixels, I find that c64 ports tend to have more colour but often run slower. The Atari's have a faster CPU, games like Ballblazer and Rescue On Fractalus demonstrate this as the faster CPU really helps with 3d 👍.. I've always thought that it's a shame the Atari wasn't better supported into the late 80's, it was certainly capable of running the games of this period 😎
Damn I wish we had £1.99 cassette games in the US, I don't remember them being any cheaper than $10.00. Because of that I was "forced" to get a 1050 5.25 disk drive and copy the hell out of cracked games. I had hundreds and my only cost was the disks themselves, from what I remember you could fit about 5 or 6 standard games on each side :)
On the flip side, in the UK we had to wait ages for tapes to load! But all the games I had are originals, can't say the same about 90% of the games I had on the Amiga though!! 👍😎
@@RetroTechHQ Oh I had just the cassette with the 800XL for a year before I finally got the disk drive, the loading was painful lol! Amiga's were nice machines wish I had one.
That's good.. you're not a proper 8-bit gamer unless you've loaded games off a cassette! The worst thing was when something would go wrong when the cassette was 90% loaded!! And yeh I love my Amiga.. I've still got it now 👍😎
I thought I was the only kid in the UK that had ab Atari 8 bit (800xl), everybody had a c64
I know exactly what you mean.. the xe lineup was right at the end of the Atari 8 bit life cycle so when I had mine everyone in the playground was already talking about the c64 v Spectrum. But I still had fun with the Atari, I just missed out on a lot of the games other people were talking about at the time.. e.g the Renegade series 😎
I had a 130XE.
Nice vid. Had a 65xe myself and also Ghostbusters and Ninja, 2 of the better games. My favourite though, probably a later title, was Henry's House, a great platformer with good graphics. A couple of other faves were feud, amaurote (both had good graphics) and spy Vs spy (terrible graphics but great gameplay).
I loved spy v spy 👍.. I had the trilogy pack, my favourite was the second one on the island 👍
I also had feud but couldn't figure out how to play it as a kid!
@@RetroTechHQ yeah, had the trilogy pack too but there was some sort of issue with 2&3 which meant you had to reload after each game and it took, like, 40 mins so didn't play them often.
I have never played any of these games nor Atari game pre Jaguar unless you include Tengen stuff on the Nes. You see, I started gaming in 1986 on the Nes and Master System. I missed all of the micro's living in the states they weren't very big. However, that doesn't mean I do not want to see more.. keep them coming!
It's interesting because I'm in the UK and don't remember any of my friends owning a NES, I remember seeing them in the shops but didn't actually play on one until I picked one up many years later as an adult 😎
@@RetroTechHQ
Aah it's like the exact opposite and that's pretty cool.
Exactly 👍😎.. I didn't have a NES but I remember a family holiday to the states in 1988 and seeing NES stuff everywhere, I really wanted R.O.B the robot!! 👍
Crystal Raider the B-side of Rockford was a great game. We spent hours on it
Now you mention it, I do remember loading the b side a lot, I'll load it up 👍😎
I remember Zybex. Great game. Had 20 levels but only the first 16 levels are available until you complete them then levels 17 to 20 become available. Never did finish the game. Mine looked different to yours though(the cassette label design I mean).
Didn't own any of the other games. I had awful boring games like 180, One Man and his Droid and Attack of the Mutant Camels. I was more into text adventure games though I sucked at them. Used to buy the magazine Atari User and used to type in the game code for weeks on end only to find out there was a misprint in the magazine and I had wasted my damn time. I had an Atari 65XE too. I had the Curries version that came with ten games on two cassettes, mostly old Atari games like Missile Command, Centipede, Star Raiders and the like. Only £99.99 at Xmas 1987. By 1992 when I sold it all to my downs uncle I had built up quite a library of games and educational titles.
I had the same bundle 👍, but I think mine came from Dixon's, I might be wrong though 🤔. I've got one man and his droid and don't remember anything about it which is normally a sign that a game isn't very good!
I think it's a shame the Atari 8 bits weren't better supported into the late 80s, this meant I was jealous of friends with speccys and c64s because they could get the latest games like barbarian, renegade, the last ninja games etc
@@RetroTechHQ I bought 180 because I have seen the game on a Spectrum and it looked good and then remembered being disappointed by the Atari 8-bit version.
It might have been Dixons. They are really the same company.
I don't think Atari 8-bit was ever that supported. The range for C64 and Spectrum was always larger. I remembered looking at games for other systems at the market stall and they were never ported to Atari. I had to buy a lot of games from Silica Shop instead or hope to come across second hand games on a Saturday at the flea market. That is how I was able to build up my Atari 2600 library back in the day.
The only other thing I hated about the Atari 8-bit computers was the long cassette loading times. Zybex took around 25 minutes to load. They all took that long. I think I spent more time waiting than actually playing the games lol.
I picked up an Atari 800XL with a 1050 floppy drive, a cassette drive(the old 400/800 version which was faulty) and a load of floppy and tape games for about 25 quid about 20 years ago from the flea market. I found a lot of the tape games no longer worked though. Either they had gone bad or had been exposed to powerful magnets at some time. Amazed me how quickly games load from floppy though, just a few seconds compared to nearly 30 minutes for a tape game and the floppy disks hold so much more space than a cassette can.
To this day, I still haven't loaded an Atari 8 bit game from a floppy disk! Back in the 80s I had everything on cassette and by the time I rediscovered my Atari in recent years, SD card cartridge loaders were available, so whilst I still collect the cassettes I tend to load the games from an SD card. I'm too impatient to wait 25 minutes for a game to load nowadays! 😂
And like yourself, I had an Atari 2600 before my 65xe, my dad would take me to Western international market and I'd buy games from there 👍
👍🍺 That was amazing time...
How about Grand Prix Simulator? Many, many years before Codemaster got the F1 franchise. I thought of it as it was endorsed by Johnny Dumfries, who passed away a week ago.
That's a game I've not actually played yet.. I'll see if I can get a copy to include in a later video 👍😎
@@RetroTechHQ It's essentially two rectangles racing Super Sprint style....not brilliant but kinda fun for a bit.
Ive got some of these, never played them though (either didnt appeal or perhaps didn't load) but maybe I might some day! I always ended up on 'The Great American Cross Country Road Race' which is awesome! I've got quite a few cassettes but havent had Atari out in years (800xl) due to moaning wife!
Another firm favourite, though better on Commodore +4, was/is Dizzy Dice fruit machine/casino simulator.
Good to hear I'm not the only person with some of these old cassettes 👍😎, they're not all great but it's good fun loading them up again.. get that 800xl loaded up! Just make sure the wife's out! 😯😂
Zybex игра супер... щас бы вернуться в те 88-93 гг
That Lode Runner is a very lazy port of the Apple 2 version.
It still plays great though 👍😎
No need to go,fancy on a good game. Also: I believe this was one of those games that used artifactimg to get some colour on hi-res graphics modes, which simply wouldn’t work on PAL systems.
@@atariandre5014 Having nice, controlled colors would've been trivial on the Atari - even in "NTSC land" - and would've made a good game even better.
Other Atari games/ports also used artifacting like for example Ultima IV but there the Apple graphics were used to display the "old style" hi-res font (for the shops etc.). So there was at least "some" advantage of using artifacting.
But Lode Runner didn't have any advantage like this. It was, like James wrote above, a lazy port. It was truly a quick cash grab.
ha. there are 4 levels on the arcade donkey kong. ya gotta try some other ports or mame it.
Ah ok.. my mistake 👍😎
Yeah I had on my spectrum 128k + 2 Fruit Machine Simulator Formula One Simulator BMX Simulator Pro Ski Simulator Pro Jet Boat Simulator Pro Jet Ski Simulator and Pro Jet Ski Simulator 2 and BMX Simulator 2
That's a lot of simulators!! 👍😎