I got my systems late in their life cycle. We were poor, but I do remember Frogs n Flies and while yes, the depth of ANY of these games wasn't there, making a high score was way more fun.
M Network really gave it a good try with the 2600. The baseball game was my favorite, as I was able to get a handle of controlling the player. I once pitched a 1-hittter in that game. And I loved Space Attack...I used to play it saying "It's just like Beggars Canyon back home!"
Super Challenge Baseball looked and played pretty well. The "super challenge" was to find an opponent who either had the game or was willing to learn the controls. Too bad it came out the same year as Realsports, which probably split the audience, so to speak (and its baseball and football games had glitches). I just rewatched his video on Imagic, which included Pete Rose Baseball, which had a glitch so you couldn't use certain fielders to get the ball if it was out of their location. Bad programming. The only problem I could see with M-Network's is that there's no shortstop. But what are you going to do with only one fire button?
My friend and I played the heck out of M Network Baseball. We had rosters, used an official baseball scoring book and kept stats. Total nerds, but it was a blast. Why were Al Bumbry (Orioles) and Kent Hrbek (Twins) so good "in" this game? This deserves a homebrew with a CPU player.
That's awesome! I've often said that any game, with the right second player, can be elevated to S Tier in that instance because of the fun it delivers!
That was the "Super Challenge:" to find a worthy opponent willing to learn the controls. Sadly, it didn't have a 1-player option. I found out the Intellivision games didn't either. So if I'd gotten an Intellivision, I probably would have been disappointed in their line of games, since they didn't get Atari conversions or many 3rd-party games, or their licensed Burger Time until really late in 1983.
Given your exhaustive and methodically accurate descriptions, Im surprised you didn't clarify that Dark Cavern is a rename of Night Stalker. Do you happen to know why they renamed it for the VCS version?
I opted not to call out every rename (i.e. Astrosmash/Astroblast) -- I had it in the script early on but felt it didn't add anything to the discussion for this video's purposes. From what I've read, Mattel renamed their VCS ports to keep them at a distance. Then you could say, "Night Stalker - ONLY on Intellivision" without blocking the M Network division from creating a port. 😀 Thanks for watching!
A lot of these are best-effort ports with slight name changes. Astro Blast is Astro Smash, Frogs and Flies is Frog Bog, Space Attack is Space Battle, Star Strike is... Star Strike. I bet they renamed most of them because of missing features--like in Night Stalker, there's a progression of different robots with extra capabilities. I don't think those made it to Dark Cavern.
Super Challenge Baseball was infinitely more frustrating on well-used (and less sensitive) joysticks. On new joysticks (or any third-party joystick of decent quality) it became much easier to select fielders and throw to the right place. It didn't stop my brother (3 years older) from being a poor winner though!
A follow up video to this would be to compare the actual Intellvision games these were modeled off of. Tron Deadly Discs is awesome on the Intellivision.
I used to love frogs and flies graphics. Not only they look like The things they try to represent, but it even has a day and night cicle. At least, until sunset. I loved Atari games that do that, like the Voleyball one.
Space Attack remains one of my all time favorite 2600 cartridges! I first played it at a friend's house, and while we were playing his older brother commented "that's about as close to a real space battle as you'll ever want to get." Since I play Elite Dangerous, that's comical nowadays, but at the time it felt like he was right. By the way, Frogs and Flies is an adaptation of the arcade game Frogs.
Thanks for the info. I figured it was an original concept; oh well, at least it was playtested with kids' quarters at the arcade. Though that's no guarantee of a hit or successful conversion.
Loved all of it an whole heartedly agree. Even when you gave Baseball a D. I agree with the D because the control is wonky. But I played this with my brother for decades. As a two player game you both deal with the frustrating controls and struggling with getting the right player to run after the ball became the best part of playing. And like you we didn’t read the manual so we never knew how to hit a home run. For decades!!! So infield hits added to the urgency to get to the ball quick. It gets an S for some of my favorite gaming memories.
I like to hear stories like this, because the Atari initially was a two-player machine, like some Arcade games were in the 1970s and the previous generation 1 consoles that only had one or a few games in the circuit board. However, by 1982 the one-player games were the thing, and M-Network missed out not having a computer player. I'm told the Intellivision games these were based on didn't either for some reason (limitations of the system?).
IIRC you can only hit a home run right down center field. I could be wrong about that. I only managed it once and I gave up on it really quickly. Easily one of the worst games on 2600.
@@jamierose9095. I think it as easy as pressing up on the joystick as the batter. More speed in theory. Can launch it consistently out of the park. Made the two player experience less about skill or composure.
It's too bad they didn't release a version of the 4-stage Tron Arcade game that had shoot-the-spiders, shoot-the-bricks, tank maze and light cycles levels. I loved that Arcade game. I had Surround (1977) but it wasn't cutting it.
Lock and Chase is noteworthy as the Pac-Man clone on the 2600 with rock solid, flicker-free graphics. They used clever tricks to do it. Nobody else figured those tricks out.
@@stevehastings2010 Yeah, I'm looking forward to a video on that. I think Wizard of Wor had even more enemies than Pac-Man, but really bad flicker. They should have learned from this.
Lock N Chase is a very underrated game. It's one of the better Pac-Man inspired games which actually deviated enough from the formula to not be just a bad copy. The graphics are surprisingly smooth for the 2600, too. Dark Cavern is very good as well - almost like a roguelike game for the 2600. I never owned Super Action Football, but it looks surprisingly playable relative to the other football games of the day.
I like Lock 'N' Chase and Dark Cavern, both of which solved the flicker problem somehow (but I hate the word "underrated"). I think the Super Challenge Baseball and Football games may be better than Atari's Realsports versions, but they didn't have a 1-player option and came out at the same time. I don't think any of the M-Network games sold 1 million or more copies, despite TV and comic book advertisements. So if people agree that these games rate C to B, this may be why.
I played it at a friend's home and it was OK. But would I have wanted to play it hours on end by myself? Maybe not. I like to joke of all the dogfood kids had to eat for proof-of-purchases to get "Chase the Chuckwagon" one of the worst games made for Atari, and I'm told in about 3-5 days, and didn't involve chasing anything.
TRON: Deadly Discs is awesome! Incredibly addictive and always keeps you on your toes. My younger brother and I vastly preferred playing it over similar (and more boring) games like Berzerk.
As someone who owns the Atari version of "Football", I would have been ecstatic having the M-Network 's title on the same platform. While I had some idea of memory and resource limitations at the time, I had no concept of generational consoles. What we had was what we ever will have. I loved both baseball and football so much I was a naive early adopter of both Atari titles. Thank goodness for competition from Activision and M Network.
I felt Atari's Home Run and Football (why didn't they call it "Touchdown"?) from the '70s were so bad, I didn't want to have them in my collection when I could have gotten them at the thrift store for $1-2.
Frogs and Flies was the number one game in my house that my sister and I played together. I have such great memories of that game, especially with the difficulty switch flipped so you can land in the water or make small jumps on the pads. What a fun game! I loved both Tron games. I still play both of them on my Anbernic RG-352, along with Astroblast. My dad was obsessed with Air Raiders and Star Strike. I also loved Lock and Chase and Armor Ambush. Fun fact about the M Network games: My family grew up kinda low to middle income and games were expensive, but a lot of these games started showing up on closeout at Odd Lot in Brooklyn, usually for less than $5.00. My dad and mom got me a ton of games that way; closeouts, used, second hand... Whatever they could, and my collection, while it wasn't huge, was definitely interesting and a lot of times I'll see titles on a list that I felt like only I had or knew about. Also MOTU was literally the worst game I owned. Period. End of story. LOL
Agreed. MOTU, while a fun game on the Intellivision, was completely & utterly butchered on the 2600. Astroblast, lock & chase, & the tron games are my fav from mattel.
I'm a Xennial who had a NES, but is now going back to learn aboutgames from late 70s/early 80s consoles and 80s microcomputers. Lots of games to discover for the first time! Thanks for the vid.
Growing up , I had one friend who had an Intellivision. He was always trying to get us to come over to play it. And while the graphics were definitely superior, the controller was a nightmare. It had a 9 digit number pad that you would slide a plastic cover over indicating which button did what. But that also destroyed the tactile recognition of which button you were pressing. For games like baseball, each button indicated a player you could switch to, but inevitably you had to look down at the controller to figure out where you thumbs were, and why you kept selecting the right fielder instead of the first baseman. Also the controller was the first to use a digital pad, except it was a large disc that was difficult for small hands to control. My friend also neglected to tell us about the "running off the screen" trick in football and soccer, which was great for him, but frustrating for us. Strangely enough I never had an issue with the ColecoVision's number pad because the buttons were big and separated by plastic walls. And you have to remember, this was also a time when kids still might choose to play outside over playing video games. We still had games like lawn darts, and slip-n-slide that had much more potential for bloodshed than any video game. Hey we were kids. We were invincible.
I had a similar experience with Intellivision. I was fascinated by it, but each time I got my hands on one, it just felt so unintuitive compared to the simplicty of the VCS. Thanks for watching, Mike! 😁
Super Challenge Football to be so simple really is a fun to play. I have always wished that someone would do an updated hack to somehow add punts and FG's.
Dark Cavern deserves a second look. Those different color robots give different point values and really influence your strategy. Those green and yellow ones are not only really high point values, they are only that color for a short period after they spawn. So you want to get to them fast as soon as they appear. And they can only shoot in the direction they are looking. So that influences your strategy for tracking them. Some of them are always looking around, some only look ahead. And the ammo appearing at random spots forces you to run around the maze instead of camping out in a good spot.
Adventures of Tron, Air Raiders, and Discs of Tron were my favorites. Star Strike - When I saw screenshots of this, I loved the 3D effect, but when i actually played it, I thought the game was kind of boring. Coincidentally, I once saw a small, fake screenshot for the Intellivision version of Zaxxon, and it looked a lot like this game. I was very disappointed to later find out that the Intellivision version looked about the same as the Atari 2600 version, rather than this. BurgerTime - The reason most of the enemies look like flapping squares is that rather than being programmed sprites, those are built-in missile graphics, which were basically just rectangles. Programmers could control their size and color, but not their shape. The developers did this because using sprites for all the enemies would have lead to the dreaded flicker problem that plagued Pac-Man, especially if there was a whole row of enemies chasing the player. I'm not sure I agree with their decision, but there was an actual reason for it, it wasn't just them being lazy.
🤘👍👍👍🎥💥 Being big fan of all Atari products, including for sure Atari 2600, and also having few videos about Atari, I'm highly interested what other "competitive" channels present about this iconic console! Do you remember how much this console was wanted by children in the 70s and 80s? ❤😏
I remember wanting a better system like _Intellivision,_ or _ColecoVision_ which were advertised on TV showing better graphics. But once you had one, parents wouldn't get you another, and Atari was the cheapest and playable, unless you got stuck with _Odyssey²_ or something. Some kids were able to get around that by getting a better system through a computer like _Atari 400/800_ or _Commodore 64._ Since my computer, the _Commodore VIC-20_ didn't have sprites, it wasn't any better than Atari. Also screenshots of video games in ads in comic books looked the worst for _Atari VCS_ and dissuaded me from getting ones that are said to be good, like Popeye, Joust and Mario Bros. However, upon seeing recent reviews of old Intellivision games, I probably came out ahead as I got to play Space Invaders, Missile Command, Asteroids 1980-1 and more games that came out in 1982-3.
@@sandal_thong8631 Nice memories... However from time perspective, we can see that difference between Atari 2600 and other consoles at that time was quite minor... more marketing than real difference. Perhaps sprites were there a key difference...?
@@ITGuyinaction Oops. I must have lost or deleted my comment. Probably it was about watching the ads of Atari vs. Intellivsion (and VIC-20). First Mattel said their Intellivision had the better sports games (true). Then Atari countered saying it had games people wanted like Asteroids, Missile Command and Warlords while the competition, not so much. Then Intellivision said they also had space games, which seemed weak, though from comments people here liked the M-Network space conversions. Finally William Shatner showed up saying the VIC-20 was a computer that can play games too.
The reality of He Man hurts...but your list is respectable. One thing I want to point out. Tron's Deadly Discs. Press the fire after releasing the disc at ANY time, and you can call the disc back.
I had lots of these M-Network games, they were cheap at my local Ames (old-timey Walmart) so I loaded up and was generally not disappointed. Frogs & Flies was adorable and endlessly fun, an infinite range of angles and speeds you can jump at, and you could never master it because you could never predict the flies. Loved how it ended when it became nighttime. Adventures of Tron took practice but ultimately was the most challenging game on the Atari, it got harder and harder and was very playable, one of the few Atari games that held up to actual arcade games for pure fun. And finally I loved that baseball game! It was so good! Yes it took practice, but baseball is a complex game w/ 9 players and 4 bases, the video here proves you didn't get good at it. You would never run your 2B out to the outfield like that. A quick double right-tap-click and your right fielder is activated, field the ball and then click-up throws to 2B, just amazing how you had full command of an entire baseball field with just one lousy joystick/button. Cmon, keep trying and grade it again. OK that's enough from me, all 3 of these games get an A from me.
I never owned an Intellivision system and these ports were pretty much as close to playing these on our Atari back in the day. I did play Intellivision games like Astrosmash, Night Stalker and Space Battle when I could play them in stores like Sears or Kmart. I was thrilled to actually play the Atari counterparts of each of those games and a few others I never played before. Oh and those three Intellivsion games that I loved to play were Astroblast, Dark Cavern and Space Attack on the Atari. Oh and incidentally I remember a kid's show like Captain Kangaroo that utilized the Space Battle game to shoot the UFOs when the kid said the word "pow," I believe. I think that was on the Bozo the Clown show, but I could be wrong.
I only played their auto racing game at a store. Sadly it didn't make it to an M-Network conversion, probably because it would have required the Steering Controllers which only came with Indy 500. I got Indy 500 from the initial launch in 1977 in 1981, and it was still good. But because only a few people had the controllers that was a disincentive to make any more games like that. Too bad.
Still the craziest box cover art in the history of: only 25% of the surface of the cover has anything to do with the particular game. But hey: at least the customer is clearly informed that this is a game (1) by M Network and (2) made for the Atari 2600.
good review...I liked m network the games remind me of the great year that is 1982....I liked football tron....star strike...I remember the commercial for m network...' m network is the cure for the video blues'singing that song in my head!
With only 2-3 million Intellivisions sold but 10 million Ataris by the start of 1982, the writing was on the wall. Mattel finally figured the way to make money on their game library was to sell some to Atari owners. Too bad they didn't get some of these out in 1981 before their was a glut, so maybe one of their games might have been a hit; though he rates most of them C-to-B.
I would of bought more M network carts but by that time the Atari 800 was at Sears and my friend and I were writing BASIC for the first time ....a new passion ...
Another great video, thanks Jon! I watched this over fruit and oatmeal breakfast with my 8 y/o son and we even got Mommy to watch with us. She's not much into video games, but she smiled and laughed a few times and took notes from your RUclips video-making skills for her own YT channel. ;) Cheers!
OH YEAH These are up there with Activision as my favorite games on the console. I used to play Frogs and Flies for hours, I loved jumping into the water and making up stories about the other frog. I did this for most Atari games, come to think of it. Thank you for covering these!
To start off, I really like these vids… ranking each game by a certain manufacturer is a cool way to do it since the quality seemed very tremendously from one software house to another….. that being said, I would say that an nostalgia factor is adding one grade to each of these reviews, placing each game one category higher than I would rank it personally
I only bought three 3rd-party games for Atari through 1983. One was Pitfall! and the other two were M-Network's Armor Ambush and Super Challenge Baseball. Unfortunately, since they didn't include 1-player versions, the "super challenge" was to find an opponent willing to learn the controls to play well, which is likely why they don't score well in this video. I remember M-Network advertised their games on TV in 1982, but didn't realize they were ports of Intellivision games. Apparently none of these sold 1 million or more copies. Having a one-button joystick like Atari really limits your ability to play sports games, which is one reason Mattel Intellivision's sports games were so much better. Basketball was the only sports game from the '70s I got for my Atari, which was probably the only one in the 1970s better than Odyssey² sports games, which also had a one-button joystick. I did get Pele's Championship Soccer in 1981. It looks like the M-Network sport games were a step up, but came out at the time of Atari's RealSports line which also had its flaws. It's too bad they didn't release some of their games for Atari in 1981 before the glut of games in 1982. Having multiple sprites on the screen at the same time caused flicker in games like Adventure, Superman, Pac-Man, and Wizard of Wor. They worked around that in Berzerk by not having two robots on the same row, and mostly fixed it in Ms. Pac-Man when ghosts were not on the same row. But I would be interested to know how they got around the flicker in a game like Lock 'n' Chase or Dark Cavern, the latter having 5 enemies on the screen at the same time. So many Atari games needed to use symmetrical play fields across the vertical axis, presumably to save memory. However, though there are some symmetrical parts of the screen in Armor Ambush, screens have terrain features that are not; and there seems to be quite a few screens to enjoy. It looks so much better than Combat that I'd hoped that it would catch on among players. I'd like to see a "making-of" for this game too.
Great video! Huh I remember having a lot of fun playing Burgertime. I have to go back and see if the controls no longer hold up. I know the one in the nes I had a terrible time getting on / off ladders.
Memory lane! I played a good number of these games, because for whatever reason they were super cheap (don't know why but maybe Intellivision over-manufactured) ... here's the thoughts on the ones I remember playing: - Air Raiders - the sound design was good for its time and managing fuel and ammo was a great challenge - Astroblast - was alright, very fast paced, but one of those games where I didn't want to use the paddle and thus it lost me - KoolAid Man - ok I never played it but I sure remember all the comic book ads! - Lock n Chase - was very satisfying and responsive to play, especially since the Atari Pac Man port was so clunky - the two "Space" games - I think I put these down after 5 minutes seeing they were hard to understand and with no score - Super Challenge Baseball - Probably my favorite of them all. This one has a special place in my heart as the frustration of having trouble selecting fielders and them moving so slow while runners went all the way around the bases was hilarious when playing with a friend. It made it really rewarding when you were actually able to get someone out. The pitching/throwing mechanics were fun too. - Super Challenge Football - in some ways ahead of its time for sure. The giving assignments to your players was fantastic.
I thought I read astroblast had the ability to play joystick or paddle? This is knd of on my radar because of the paddle option for my 2600+. Thanks for your takes. Never had M network games but now can be got for a couple bucks.
My son really took to Frogs and Flies. I was showing him games I grew up with and thought he’d dig Combat for 2 player. Nope. The one I really didn’t care for was his favorite. 🤷♂️
I had two M-Network games - Astroblast and Dark Cavern. I never know why they were shaped differently or that Intellivision was a thing, but they were both pretty fun and featured heavy in my rotation. Honestly, I think you were undersold Dark Cavern a little - that game is FUN! Plus it holds up well. I do know tha tMasters of the Universe is pretty lame, but that He-Man theme is worth a little credit, right? Also, NEVER turn off the Bump-n-Jump music! I still get that stuck in my head at times.
frogs and flies and that first tron game was a mainstay for me, sorry that Masters of the bottom tearvesre wasn't so great, I never knew it existed till the internet..well the one on the VCS that is. great vid my man!
My brother and I drank a lot of Kool-Aid one summer to mail-in for that game. Your ranking seems right to me; it's not a great game, but not bad at all...especially considering it was a marketing tie-in game.
Hate to break it to you, Jon, but you played Masters of the Universe on the advanced level. The difficulty switch positions are reversed for this game, so you were playing in the "b" position and starting on level three. Hence the "3" on screen. Try it again in the "a" position.
My grandfather had an Intellivision.The Baseball game on Intellivision is so great, we'd play it for hours and hours. Sad that the Atari version is lacking so much of what makes the Intellivision fun. I do really like Adventures of Tron though. It's a game I didn't even know about back in the day. Picked it up a year ago or so and it's probably my favorite M-Network game on Atari. Astroblast is pretty fun too but Astrosmash on Intellivision is better.
Astroblast was fun but my all around favorite has to be the flawed Burger Time. Slow and sluggish compared to other console versions but still very much enjoyable in my opinion.
I was jazzed with the M network sports titles...way beyond what Atari sports was. However my early VCS was somewhat incompatible with the carts it had trouble booting up and I remember reading back then an issue with design for old systems (??). Never the less I thought m network baseball and football were outstanding.
Oh, so the zeroes with the dots in the middle was a design choice by Mattel and not just something built into the Intellivision hardware? Strange seeing a number…font…I‘ll always associate with the Intellivision on a different system.
I still liked playing Dark Cavern and Lock 'n' Chase years later. But watch out for the two-player only sports games. Some are good, but if you don't have an opponent....
Awesome retro game video as usual, however... Kool Aid Man shoulda been a B, not sure if it was my desire to own the game so badly based on comic book ads (glad you included it!) and the delusion of thinking the VCS version would look as cool as the Intellivision screenshots! but still to this day it's a game I gotta play anytime I play some Atari. As a kid I didn't even know there was a He-Man game, and you better believe I would have wanted it. Good thing that never happened because it DID did suck arse. And Space Attack... come on, it's a solid A!! However I will admit, without reading the instructions, you'd have no idea what to do or even understand what's going on!!! Not sure how exactly I'd rank the Tron games, but Deadly Discs was definitely better than Adventures!
Thanks, B. I can see a solid argument for Space Attack, but Kool-Aid? 😁 I think you're judging it based on nostalgia rather than the gameplay. Which, by the way, is totally fair!
I'm honestly surprised you didn't give Frogs N Flies an S, most people would rate it even higher than S. It's a game everyone whips out at parties. (Fun fact: It's an arcade port.) I'd be kinder to Burgertime than you were. Yeah it's ugly as sin but I didn't find the controls quite as difficult. I'd have given it a C. (TBF, nostalgia factor.) Aside from that I'd mostly agree with your rankings. I'd give Astrolblast an S because I played the shit out of it.
I played Super Challenge Football with my little brother years ago, he would get so ticked off at me for screen looping to tackle his guy, he eventually wouldn't play it with me anymore =( Astrosmash is definitely an S, I played it a lot, wish I could rem what my high score was, the sky had changed colors a few times, I'm thinking maybe aroun 40k? It changes blue at 1000(assuming you can maintain your pts), then I think purple, then green, but I can't remember for sure. I'd probably play that He-Man game, just because I'm a sucker for good songs and graphics on an Atari VCS game. 🤣 Baseball games in general for years were difficult to select the right outfielder, unless you really played it a lot, then it became 2nd nature. It took until like RBI 3 on NES for programmers to finally get it right, and that was a Tengen release in 1989 or '90(I think). Cool reviews man, not sure how the M ratings video slipped under my radar a month ago, sadly, you're running out of Atari VCS games to rate. Oh no! 😭
I never had too many M Network games for my Atari. So I don't have much of an opinion. I did always enjoy Astro Smash however. And I think Burger Time is okay. Honestly the others I have aren't memorable as I cannot even think of which ones they are even with you just going over all of them.
S+ atari 2600 games are imo : Solaris, Yars Revenge, Mrs Pac-Man, Defender, Missile Command, Pete Rose Baseball, Berserk, Pitfall 2, Combat and Air Sea Battles. Pole Position( 1 and 2) S or imo S+ , i destroyed the heck of that game and actually finished it :-)
Too bad that Mattel finally ported an arcade game, but did so poorly. Mid-1983 was too late whether on M-Network or for their own system, even if it was a "must-have" game.
Just because games were produced and in stores didn't mean they were sold to consumers. That was the problem with retailers who didn't know what to stock, and why they lost confidence in video games. I count 27 games for Atari that sold over 1 million; three of those were disappointing to consumers.
As we're learning by watching this channel's series, there is no one company that had all hits and no misses, or all As and no Ds. It will be interesting to see how he breaks down Atari's own games, if he does, maybe by years? Atari released 8 games in 1981, 15 in 1982, and 33 in 1983!
Well, Sea Battle never saw release during the 2600's heyday, but Intellivision Productions produced a limited number of professionally produced carts in 2000. As such, Little Jonny could not have played it, so I chose to omit it as I did with several prototypes which have come to light.
@@GenXGrownUp lol it does take a m network cart set it up against you rankings it has the pointy top then the cart goes down to the part that goes in the cartridge slot where it's wider at the bottom lol I swear I'm not crazy 🤣 🤣🤣🤣
Frogs and Flies was the ONLY game I remember playing on the Atari 2600 with my mother, who gave me my Atari for a Christmas present as a kid. I LOVE this game on A-Difficulties. Great game, looks great, plays great, and a lot of fun for ALL ages/sexes. Also, Football was great, but I never had anyone to play with, so that's my biggest disappointment with it; wish it had 1-player. Played a lot of Adventures of Tron (I think I got that free with proofs of purchases or something) and Space Attack. The only other 2 I played regularly as a kid were Burgertime and Lock'n'Chase, but they were "one game and done" titles for me.
Space Attack (originally Space Battle on the In tell I vision) was originally another development of a Mattel license. Originally it was intended to be a Battlestar Galactica game, but there were two problems. One was that although Mattel had the licenses to produce toys, and electronic games, they didn't extend to video games. The other issue is that when the Intellivision Space Battle was nearing completion, acquiring a license didn't matter in light of the show's ratings. So it was decided to release the game as a generic space game. If you ever play the original Intellivision game though, it's pretty apparent what the initial inspiration was. For one, they really nailed the design of Cylon raiders, right down to how they fly in the show. The look of the "strategy" screen also looks like the "war book" computer displays in the show. Even the three squadron colors correspond to those of the Viper squadrons; Blue, Gold, and Silver spar squadrons.
Little Andy's friend, little Jamie from up the street, had Super Challenge Baseball. We had lots of fun playing that game with other "littles" from the neighborhood. We were amazed at how many glitches we found in the game (like the home run detection being VERY inconsistent). The most bizarre one is if the ball gets hit to the third baseman and you hold right and hit the button at the exact second the ball hits the third baseman, the ball will NOT go to first base, instead it will make this half circle bee-line down to the bottom of the screen, the ball disappears and the game calls it a home run for the other team. We figured the game was "whipped." My uncle was a Catholic priest and the game was so full of glitches I asked him to bless the game and my uncle said "God has better things to do than bless video games." We just played the game for what it was and had fun. Astroblast is a really good game. I wanted Discs of Tron back in the day but could never find it. Everyone had Adventures of Tron, but nobody had Discs of Tron so I never got to play it.
I'd move Bump'n Jump to S (it's a lot of fun, varied and technically impressive game on the VCS) and Lock'n Chase to A (the maze is always the same, but the mechanic of locking the enemies is very fun, and if you manage to trap one inside two of your doors you get a lot of points). Astroblast is great, especially with a paddle, but it gets repetitive after a bit, so I'd give it an B. On the other hand, I'll check out Dark Cavern, it seems a kind of game I'd enjoy
@@GenXGrownUp you can only do it in two spots: bottom left and bottom right of the screen. When you are followed by an enemy you can place two doors in a row, but you have to time it exactly. You must place the first door while the enemy passes that exact spot in the maze
I loved Space Attack, on the harder settings it required a good amount of strategy. I think the Super Challenge Football game was the original Mario Cart in making you hate your brother (OK we all know that was Atari Combat). My brother (RIP) had this juke move that always made me miss him during a run play. I liked Air Raid too. I wish Mattel made a M-Network Space Hawk version for the Atari. That would've been cool.
Adventures of Tron is one of the very best games for the 2600. It's massively dynamic regards to how much choice you have at any time and soon becomes the most rewarding experience once you are aware to this. One complain is that the collision detection concerning collecting the bits is a bit random but this simply isn't the case once you understand the window of collision required. Easily one of the most satisfying games you will ever play on any system but you do have to at least be aware to the various fall back options available to you on your current plan of action. Truly amazing game but it's often misunderstood and rated as such
Dark Cavern is still fantastic. Those robots get really vicious after a few rounds.
I know, right? You can't sneak up on them in those later levels because they can see behind them.
@@GenXGrownUp I've never been great at the game but something about it keeps me coming back to it
Frogs 'N Flies will ALWAYS be an old Atari favorite
I got my systems late in their life cycle. We were poor, but I do remember Frogs n Flies and while yes, the depth of ANY of these games wasn't there, making a high score was way more fun.
M Network really gave it a good try with the 2600. The baseball game was my favorite, as I was able to get a handle of controlling the player. I once pitched a 1-hittter in that game. And I loved Space Attack...I used to play it saying "It's just like Beggars Canyon back home!"
Super Challenge Baseball looked and played pretty well. The "super challenge" was to find an opponent who either had the game or was willing to learn the controls. Too bad it came out the same year as Realsports, which probably split the audience, so to speak (and its baseball and football games had glitches). I just rewatched his video on Imagic, which included Pete Rose Baseball, which had a glitch so you couldn't use certain fielders to get the ball if it was out of their location. Bad programming. The only problem I could see with M-Network's is that there's no shortstop. But what are you going to do with only one fire button?
Mattel had some kind of voodoo to get so many independent characters moving without flicker. Esp football and soccer. Wow!
No kidding!
I'd like to know more about that!
My friend and I played the heck out of M Network Baseball. We had rosters, used an official baseball scoring book and kept stats. Total nerds, but it was a blast. Why were Al Bumbry (Orioles) and Kent Hrbek (Twins) so good "in" this game? This deserves a homebrew with a CPU player.
That's awesome! I've often said that any game, with the right second player, can be elevated to S Tier in that instance because of the fun it delivers!
That was the "Super Challenge:" to find a worthy opponent willing to learn the controls. Sadly, it didn't have a 1-player option. I found out the Intellivision games didn't either. So if I'd gotten an Intellivision, I probably would have been disappointed in their line of games, since they didn't get Atari conversions or many 3rd-party games, or their licensed Burger Time until really late in 1983.
Given your exhaustive and methodically accurate descriptions, Im surprised you didn't clarify that Dark Cavern is a rename of Night Stalker. Do you happen to know why they renamed it for the VCS version?
I opted not to call out every rename (i.e. Astrosmash/Astroblast) -- I had it in the script early on but felt it didn't add anything to the discussion for this video's purposes. From what I've read, Mattel renamed their VCS ports to keep them at a distance. Then you could say, "Night Stalker - ONLY on Intellivision" without blocking the M Network division from creating a port. 😀 Thanks for watching!
A lot of these are best-effort ports with slight name changes. Astro Blast is Astro Smash, Frogs and Flies is Frog Bog, Space Attack is Space Battle, Star Strike is... Star Strike.
I bet they renamed most of them because of missing features--like in Night Stalker, there's a progression of different robots with extra capabilities. I don't think those made it to Dark Cavern.
Interesting...tricky marketing tactics abound. And yes, there were others that were renamed as well, thanks for the reminder.
I heard recently that they did that in case they were bad, they didn't want it to negatively affect their console's games.
Super Challenge Baseball was infinitely more frustrating on well-used (and less sensitive) joysticks. On new joysticks (or any third-party joystick of decent quality) it became much easier to select fielders and throw to the right place. It didn't stop my brother (3 years older) from being a poor winner though!
A follow up video to this would be to compare the actual Intellvision games these were modeled off of. Tron Deadly Discs is awesome on the Intellivision.
That's a great idea! The 2600 ports were always inferior, but it's definitely worth a comparison. I'd like to see the same done with Coleco games.
I used to love frogs and flies graphics. Not only they look like The things they try to represent, but it even has a day and night cicle. At least, until sunset. I loved Atari games that do that, like the Voleyball one.
I was so amazed when I found the sailboat accidentally in RealSports Volleyball, I thought that was the neatest thing.
@@agentmith I remember there was a shark but, I don't remember a ship. I need to play ir again to see it!
@@SylveonTrapito Yes, it was a shark fin and not a sailboat.
Space Attack remains one of my all time favorite 2600 cartridges! I first played it at a friend's house, and while we were playing his older brother commented "that's about as close to a real space battle as you'll ever want to get." Since I play Elite Dangerous, that's comical nowadays, but at the time it felt like he was right.
By the way, Frogs and Flies is an adaptation of the arcade game Frogs.
Thanks for the info. I figured it was an original concept; oh well, at least it was playtested with kids' quarters at the arcade. Though that's no guarantee of a hit or successful conversion.
Loved all of it an whole heartedly agree. Even when you gave Baseball a D. I agree with the D because the control is wonky. But I played this with my brother for decades. As a two player game you both deal with the frustrating controls and struggling with getting the right player to run after the ball became the best part of playing. And like you we didn’t read the manual so we never knew how to hit a home run. For decades!!! So infield hits added to the urgency to get to the ball quick. It gets an S for some of my favorite gaming memories.
I like to hear stories like this, because the Atari initially was a two-player machine, like some Arcade games were in the 1970s and the previous generation 1 consoles that only had one or a few games in the circuit board. However, by 1982 the one-player games were the thing, and M-Network missed out not having a computer player. I'm told the Intellivision games these were based on didn't either for some reason (limitations of the system?).
IIRC you can only hit a home run right down center field. I could be wrong about that. I only managed it once and I gave up on it really quickly. Easily one of the worst games on 2600.
@@jamierose9095. I think it as easy as pressing up on the joystick as the batter. More speed in theory. Can launch it consistently out of the park. Made the two player experience less about skill or composure.
Space Attack was a favorite on Intellivison at my Uncles house as a kid, I am going to check out the M version!
Great video! M-Network also released a blue Tron joystick to go with those games. I believe it looked like the joystick on the arcade cabinet.
It's too bad they didn't release a version of the 4-stage Tron Arcade game that had shoot-the-spiders, shoot-the-bricks, tank maze and light cycles levels. I loved that Arcade game. I had Surround (1977) but it wasn't cutting it.
It did look like that. My family had one.
It worked okay, but we had some joysticks with leaf switches that we felt were the best.
Lock and Chase is noteworthy as the Pac-Man clone on the 2600 with rock solid, flicker-free graphics. They used clever tricks to do it. Nobody else figured those tricks out.
@@stevehastings2010 Yeah, I'm looking forward to a video on that. I think Wizard of Wor had even more enemies than Pac-Man, but really bad flicker. They should have learned from this.
Great video. Troy Deadly Discs was the first game I bought with my own money when I was little and my favourite game.
Lock N Chase is a very underrated game. It's one of the better Pac-Man inspired games which actually deviated enough from the formula to not be just a bad copy. The graphics are surprisingly smooth for the 2600, too. Dark Cavern is very good as well - almost like a roguelike game for the 2600. I never owned Super Action Football, but it looks surprisingly playable relative to the other football games of the day.
I like Lock 'N' Chase and Dark Cavern, both of which solved the flicker problem somehow (but I hate the word "underrated"). I think the Super Challenge Baseball and Football games may be better than Atari's Realsports versions, but they didn't have a 1-player option and came out at the same time. I don't think any of the M-Network games sold 1 million or more copies, despite TV and comic book advertisements. So if people agree that these games rate C to B, this may be why.
Glad I didn't bust my a$$ to get that mail in Kool Aid game. I was satisfied he was in the Journey game. Lol 😅
I played it at a friend's home and it was OK. But would I have wanted to play it hours on end by myself? Maybe not.
I like to joke of all the dogfood kids had to eat for proof-of-purchases to get "Chase the Chuckwagon" one of the worst games made for Atari, and I'm told in about 3-5 days, and didn't involve chasing anything.
TRON: Deadly Discs is awesome! Incredibly addictive and always keeps you on your toes. My younger brother and I vastly preferred playing it over similar (and more boring) games like Berzerk.
I loved Super Challenge Baseball ... once I figured out how the controls worked.
As someone who owns the Atari version of "Football", I would have been ecstatic having the M-Network 's title on the same platform. While I had some idea of memory and resource limitations at the time, I had no concept of generational consoles. What we had was what we ever will have. I loved both baseball and football so much I was a naive early adopter of both Atari titles. Thank goodness for competition from Activision and M Network.
I felt Atari's Home Run and Football (why didn't they call it "Touchdown"?) from the '70s were so bad, I didn't want to have them in my collection when I could have gotten them at the thrift store for $1-2.
Frogs and Flies was the number one game in my house that my sister and I played together. I have such great memories of that game, especially with the difficulty switch flipped so you can land in the water or make small jumps on the pads. What a fun game!
I loved both Tron games. I still play both of them on my Anbernic RG-352, along with Astroblast. My dad was obsessed with Air Raiders and Star Strike. I also loved Lock and Chase and Armor Ambush.
Fun fact about the M Network games: My family grew up kinda low to middle income and games were expensive, but a lot of these games started showing up on closeout at Odd Lot in Brooklyn, usually for less than $5.00. My dad and mom got me a ton of games that way; closeouts, used, second hand... Whatever they could, and my collection, while it wasn't huge, was definitely interesting and a lot of times I'll see titles on a list that I felt like only I had or knew about.
Also MOTU was literally the worst game I owned. Period. End of story. LOL
LOVE Frogs And Flies. It may look way better on the Intellivision, but it plays better on the 2600. Astroblast rules too.
Agreed. MOTU, while a fun game on the Intellivision, was completely & utterly butchered on the 2600. Astroblast, lock & chase, & the tron games are my fav from mattel.
I'm a Xennial who had a NES, but is now going back to learn aboutgames from late 70s/early 80s consoles and 80s microcomputers. Lots of games to discover for the first time! Thanks for the vid.
Thank you for watching. 😀
Growing up , I had one friend who had an Intellivision. He was always trying to get us to come over to play it. And while the graphics were definitely superior, the controller was a nightmare. It had a 9 digit number pad that you would slide a plastic cover over indicating which button did what. But that also destroyed the tactile recognition of which button you were pressing. For games like baseball, each button indicated a player you could switch to, but inevitably you had to look down at the controller to figure out where you thumbs were, and why you kept selecting the right fielder instead of the first baseman. Also the controller was the first to use a digital pad, except it was a large disc that was difficult for small hands to control. My friend also neglected to tell us about the "running off the screen" trick in football and soccer, which was great for him, but frustrating for us. Strangely enough I never had an issue with the ColecoVision's number pad because the buttons were big and separated by plastic walls. And you have to remember, this was also a time when kids still might choose to play outside over playing video games. We still had games like lawn darts, and slip-n-slide that had much more potential for bloodshed than any video game. Hey we were kids. We were invincible.
I had a similar experience with Intellivision. I was fascinated by it, but each time I got my hands on one, it just felt so unintuitive compared to the simplicty of the VCS. Thanks for watching, Mike! 😁
Loved playing Super Baseball with my brother as a kid. Really felt that M Network was preferable for sports titles, even on the 2600.
Probably a result of Mattel being serious about sports games for the Intellivision.
Super Challenge Football to be so simple really is a fun to play. I have always wished that someone would do an updated hack to somehow add punts and FG's.
Dark Cavern deserves a second look. Those different color robots give different point values and really influence your strategy. Those green and yellow ones are not only really high point values, they are only that color for a short period after they spawn. So you want to get to them fast as soon as they appear. And they can only shoot in the direction they are looking. So that influences your strategy for tracking them. Some of them are always looking around, some only look ahead. And the ammo appearing at random spots forces you to run around the maze instead of camping out in a good spot.
All good points and things I observed. None of that would likely push it beyond a B in my book, though. Thank you for watching! 😁
Air Raiders was a favorite of mine when I was little. Thought it was so cool because nobody ever knew about it.
Adventures of Tron, Air Raiders, and Discs of Tron were my favorites.
Star Strike - When I saw screenshots of this, I loved the 3D effect, but when i actually played it, I thought the game was kind of boring. Coincidentally, I once saw a small, fake screenshot for the Intellivision version of Zaxxon, and it looked a lot like this game. I was very disappointed to later find out that the Intellivision version looked about the same as the Atari 2600 version, rather than this.
BurgerTime - The reason most of the enemies look like flapping squares is that rather than being programmed sprites, those are built-in missile graphics, which were basically just rectangles. Programmers could control their size and color, but not their shape. The developers did this because using sprites for all the enemies would have lead to the dreaded flicker problem that plagued Pac-Man, especially if there was a whole row of enemies chasing the player. I'm not sure I agree with their decision, but there was an actual reason for it, it wasn't just them being lazy.
Your content is pure value. Thank you. 🎉
🤘👍👍👍🎥💥 Being big fan of all Atari products, including for sure Atari 2600, and also having few videos about Atari, I'm highly interested what other "competitive" channels present about this iconic console! Do you remember how much this console was wanted by children in the 70s and 80s? ❤😏
I surely do remember - I was there!
I remember wanting a better system like _Intellivision,_ or _ColecoVision_ which were advertised on TV showing better graphics. But once you had one, parents wouldn't get you another, and Atari was the cheapest and playable, unless you got stuck with _Odyssey²_ or something. Some kids were able to get around that by getting a better system through a computer like _Atari 400/800_ or _Commodore 64._ Since my computer, the _Commodore VIC-20_ didn't have sprites, it wasn't any better than Atari. Also screenshots of video games in ads in comic books looked the worst for _Atari VCS_ and dissuaded me from getting ones that are said to be good, like Popeye, Joust and Mario Bros.
However, upon seeing recent reviews of old Intellivision games, I probably came out ahead as I got to play Space Invaders, Missile Command, Asteroids 1980-1 and more games that came out in 1982-3.
@@GenXGrownUp 👍 👍 👍
@@sandal_thong8631 Nice memories... However from time perspective, we can see that difference between Atari 2600 and other consoles at that time was quite minor... more marketing than real difference. Perhaps sprites were there a key difference...?
@@ITGuyinaction Oops. I must have lost or deleted my comment. Probably it was about watching the ads of Atari vs. Intellivsion (and VIC-20). First Mattel said their Intellivision had the better sports games (true). Then Atari countered saying it had games people wanted like Asteroids, Missile Command and Warlords while the competition, not so much. Then Intellivision said they also had space games, which seemed weak, though from comments people here liked the M-Network space conversions. Finally William Shatner showed up saying the VIC-20 was a computer that can play games too.
Armor Ambush & Baseball were my top 2 favorites from this label.
The arcade version of Burgertime also has control issues
I always felt like there was a few pixel range where you could hop on/off a ladder - so many ports require pixel-perfect turns or you won't move.
The reality of He Man hurts...but your list is respectable. One thing I want to point out. Tron's Deadly Discs. Press the fire after releasing the disc at ANY time, and you can call the disc back.
I had lots of these M-Network games, they were cheap at my local Ames (old-timey Walmart) so I loaded up and was generally not disappointed. Frogs & Flies was adorable and endlessly fun, an infinite range of angles and speeds you can jump at, and you could never master it because you could never predict the flies. Loved how it ended when it became nighttime. Adventures of Tron took practice but ultimately was the most challenging game on the Atari, it got harder and harder and was very playable, one of the few Atari games that held up to actual arcade games for pure fun. And finally I loved that baseball game! It was so good! Yes it took practice, but baseball is a complex game w/ 9 players and 4 bases, the video here proves you didn't get good at it. You would never run your 2B out to the outfield like that. A quick double right-tap-click and your right fielder is activated, field the ball and then click-up throws to 2B, just amazing how you had full command of an entire baseball field with just one lousy joystick/button. Cmon, keep trying and grade it again. OK that's enough from me, all 3 of these games get an A from me.
I have really been enjoying your ranking videos! I would love a homebrews ranking for the 2600 by you! 🙂 Thanks for all the great videos!
I never owned an Intellivision system and these ports were pretty much as close to playing these on our Atari back in the day. I did play Intellivision games like Astrosmash, Night Stalker and Space Battle when I could play them in stores like Sears or Kmart. I was thrilled to actually play the Atari counterparts of each of those games and a few others I never played before. Oh and those three Intellivsion games that I loved to play were Astroblast, Dark Cavern and Space Attack on the Atari.
Oh and incidentally I remember a kid's show like Captain Kangaroo that utilized the Space Battle game to shoot the UFOs when the kid said the word "pow," I believe. I think that was on the Bozo the Clown show, but I could be wrong.
I only played their auto racing game at a store. Sadly it didn't make it to an M-Network conversion, probably because it would have required the Steering Controllers which only came with Indy 500. I got Indy 500 from the initial launch in 1977 in 1981, and it was still good. But because only a few people had the controllers that was a disincentive to make any more games like that. Too bad.
Still the craziest box cover art in the history of: only 25% of the surface of the cover has anything to do with the particular game. But hey: at least the customer is clearly informed that this is a game (1) by M Network and (2) made for the Atari 2600.
good review...I liked m network the games remind me of the great year that is 1982....I liked football tron....star strike...I remember the commercial for m network...' m network is the cure for the video blues'singing that song in my head!
With only 2-3 million Intellivisions sold but 10 million Ataris by the start of 1982, the writing was on the wall. Mattel finally figured the way to make money on their game library was to sell some to Atari owners. Too bad they didn't get some of these out in 1981 before their was a glut, so maybe one of their games might have been a hit; though he rates most of them C-to-B.
Mmm'kay, lol. I love Mr. Mackey! I used to play Frogs and Flys with my sister. Great reviews!
Thank you 🤗
Frogs and Flies os a HUGE hit with my 10 year old son and his friends..... That and the original Atari Basketball....
I would of bought more M network carts but by that time the Atari 800 was at Sears and my friend and I were writing BASIC for the first time ....a new passion ...
Another great video, thanks Jon! I watched this over fruit and oatmeal breakfast with my 8 y/o son and we even got Mommy to watch with us. She's not much into video games, but she smiled and laughed a few times and took notes from your RUclips video-making skills for her own YT channel. ;)
Cheers!
Wonderful! Maybe the highest praise I've heard all week. Thank you for watching! 😀
OH YEAH
These are up there with Activision as my favorite games on the console. I used to play Frogs and Flies for hours, I loved jumping into the water and making up stories about the other frog. I did this for most Atari games, come to think of it. Thank you for covering these!
What kind of stories? Now I want to know!
The M Sports Football was their best sports offering
It's a good one!
Air Raiders was the only M-Network game I had back in the day. Good game!
To start off, I really like these vids… ranking each game by a certain manufacturer is a cool way to do it since the quality seemed very tremendously from one software house to another….. that being said, I would say that an nostalgia factor is adding one grade to each of these reviews, placing each game one category higher than I would rank it personally
Thank you for watching!
I had the Kool Aid game! Saved enough points and waited my 4 to 8 weeks for shipping!!!
You earned it the hard way? Kudos!
Tron Deadly Discs & Dark Cavern were my favorites
This was an awesome video
You're very kind. Thank you.
I only bought three 3rd-party games for Atari through 1983. One was Pitfall! and the other two were M-Network's Armor Ambush and Super Challenge Baseball. Unfortunately, since they didn't include 1-player versions, the "super challenge" was to find an opponent willing to learn the controls to play well, which is likely why they don't score well in this video. I remember M-Network advertised their games on TV in 1982, but didn't realize they were ports of Intellivision games. Apparently none of these sold 1 million or more copies.
Having a one-button joystick like Atari really limits your ability to play sports games, which is one reason Mattel Intellivision's sports games were so much better. Basketball was the only sports game from the '70s I got for my Atari, which was probably the only one in the 1970s better than Odyssey² sports games, which also had a one-button joystick. I did get Pele's Championship Soccer in 1981. It looks like the M-Network sport games were a step up, but came out at the time of Atari's RealSports line which also had its flaws. It's too bad they didn't release some of their games for Atari in 1981 before the glut of games in 1982.
Having multiple sprites on the screen at the same time caused flicker in games like Adventure, Superman, Pac-Man, and Wizard of Wor. They worked around that in Berzerk by not having two robots on the same row, and mostly fixed it in Ms. Pac-Man when ghosts were not on the same row. But I would be interested to know how they got around the flicker in a game like Lock 'n' Chase or Dark Cavern, the latter having 5 enemies on the screen at the same time.
So many Atari games needed to use symmetrical play fields across the vertical axis, presumably to save memory. However, though there are some symmetrical parts of the screen in Armor Ambush, screens have terrain features that are not; and there seems to be quite a few screens to enjoy. It looks so much better than Combat that I'd hoped that it would catch on among players. I'd like to see a "making-of" for this game too.
Loved Football & Baseball. Controls were fine for me.
Great video! Huh I remember having a lot of fun playing Burgertime. I have to go back and see if the controls no longer hold up. I know the one in the nes I had a terrible time getting on / off ladders.
This was a great video. Keep up the good work. Take care... :)
Thanks for watching!
I always found Burger Time on any platform to be a fun but challenging game to play,
Memory lane! I played a good number of these games, because for whatever reason they were super cheap (don't know why but maybe Intellivision over-manufactured) ... here's the thoughts on the ones I remember playing:
- Air Raiders - the sound design was good for its time and managing fuel and ammo was a great challenge
- Astroblast - was alright, very fast paced, but one of those games where I didn't want to use the paddle and thus it lost me
- KoolAid Man - ok I never played it but I sure remember all the comic book ads!
- Lock n Chase - was very satisfying and responsive to play, especially since the Atari Pac Man port was so clunky
- the two "Space" games - I think I put these down after 5 minutes seeing they were hard to understand and with no score
- Super Challenge Baseball - Probably my favorite of them all. This one has a special place in my heart as the frustration of having trouble selecting fielders and them moving so slow while runners went all the way around the bases was hilarious when playing with a friend. It made it really rewarding when you were actually able to get someone out. The pitching/throwing mechanics were fun too.
- Super Challenge Football - in some ways ahead of its time for sure. The giving assignments to your players was fantastic.
I thought I read astroblast had the ability to play joystick or paddle? This is knd of on my radar because of the paddle option for my 2600+. Thanks for your takes. Never had M network games but now can be got for a couple bucks.
My son really took to Frogs and Flies. I was showing him games I grew up with and thought he’d dig Combat for 2 player. Nope. The one I really didn’t care for was his favorite. 🤷♂️
I had two M-Network games - Astroblast and Dark Cavern. I never know why they were shaped differently or that Intellivision was a thing, but they were both pretty fun and featured heavy in my rotation. Honestly, I think you were undersold Dark Cavern a little - that game is FUN! Plus it holds up well. I do know tha tMasters of the Universe is pretty lame, but that He-Man theme is worth a little credit, right? Also, NEVER turn off the Bump-n-Jump music! I still get that stuck in my head at times.
frogs and flies and that first tron game was a mainstay for me, sorry that Masters of the bottom tearvesre wasn't so great, I never knew it existed till the internet..well the one on the VCS that is. great vid my man!
Thank you for watching!
I'm a fan , always will
My brother and I drank a lot of Kool-Aid one summer to mail-in for that game. Your ranking seems right to me; it's not a great game, but not bad at all...especially considering it was a marketing tie-in game.
Haha! I love that you got the it "real" way and put in the work. Thanks for sharing! 😀
There's supposed to be an easter egg too, where the Thirsties change their sprite.
Was Astroblast on a pc compilation
Lock n’Chase:10/10
Hate to break it to you, Jon, but you played Masters of the Universe on the advanced level. The difficulty switch positions are reversed for this game, so you were playing in the "b" position and starting on level three. Hence the "3" on screen. Try it again in the "a" position.
I dunno - it'll be a cold day in hell when I fire that game up again! 😁
Okay, for scientific curiosity I just played on difficulty A. Aside form being slower, no better. I stand by that F. 😂
My grandfather had an Intellivision.The Baseball game on Intellivision is so great, we'd play it for hours and hours. Sad that the Atari version is lacking so much of what makes the Intellivision fun. I do really like Adventures of Tron though. It's a game I didn't even know about back in the day. Picked it up a year ago or so and it's probably my favorite M-Network game on Atari. Astroblast is pretty fun too but Astrosmash on Intellivision is better.
Astroblast was fun but my all around favorite has to be the flawed Burger Time. Slow and sluggish compared to other console versions but still very much enjoyable in my opinion.
Never really played these, as i had Intellivision growing up. That said, kived these games on that system
I was jazzed with the M network sports titles...way beyond what Atari sports was. However my early VCS was somewhat incompatible with the carts it had trouble booting up and I remember reading back then an issue with design for old systems (??). Never the less I thought m network baseball and football were outstanding.
Funny, I thought zx spectrum games would be better than this but the colors and gameplay make the 2600 better.
Oh, so the zeroes with the dots in the middle was a design choice by Mattel and not just something built into the Intellivision hardware? Strange seeing a number…font…I‘ll always associate with the Intellivision on a different system.
Thank you
You're welcome
Never really played any M network games. I’ll have to hunt a few out
I still liked playing Dark Cavern and Lock 'n' Chase years later. But watch out for the two-player only sports games. Some are good, but if you don't have an opponent....
Awesome retro game video as usual, however...
Kool Aid Man shoulda been a B, not sure if it was my desire to own the game so badly based on comic book ads (glad you included it!) and the delusion of thinking the VCS version would look as cool as the Intellivision screenshots! but still to this day it's a game I gotta play anytime I play some Atari.
As a kid I didn't even know there was a He-Man game, and you better believe I would have wanted it. Good thing that never happened because it DID did suck arse.
And Space Attack... come on, it's a solid A!! However I will admit, without reading the instructions, you'd have no idea what to do or even understand what's going on!!!
Not sure how exactly I'd rank the Tron games, but Deadly Discs was definitely better than Adventures!
Thanks, B. I can see a solid argument for Space Attack, but Kool-Aid? 😁 I think you're judging it based on nostalgia rather than the gameplay. Which, by the way, is totally fair!
If you hit nothining in bump n jump, you get a bonus
Lock 'n Chase is atrocious on the Atari 2600! You ought to play the homebrew Lucky Chase instead. It's so much closer to the arcade game it's nuts.
Frogs and Flies is a 2 player classic.
I'm honestly surprised you didn't give Frogs N Flies an S, most people would rate it even higher than S. It's a game everyone whips out at parties. (Fun fact: It's an arcade port.)
I'd be kinder to Burgertime than you were. Yeah it's ugly as sin but I didn't find the controls quite as difficult. I'd have given it a C. (TBF, nostalgia factor.)
Aside from that I'd mostly agree with your rankings. I'd give Astrolblast an S because I played the shit out of it.
I played Super Challenge Football with my little brother years ago, he would get so ticked off at me for screen looping to tackle his guy, he eventually wouldn't play it with me anymore =(
Astrosmash is definitely an S, I played it a lot, wish I could rem what my high score was, the sky had changed colors a few times, I'm thinking maybe aroun 40k? It changes blue at 1000(assuming you can maintain your pts), then I think purple, then green, but I can't remember for sure.
I'd probably play that He-Man game, just because I'm a sucker for good songs and graphics on an Atari VCS game. 🤣
Baseball games in general for years were difficult to select the right outfielder, unless you really played it a lot, then it became 2nd nature. It took until like RBI 3 on NES for programmers to finally get it right, and that was a Tengen release in 1989 or '90(I think).
Cool reviews man, not sure how the M ratings video slipped under my radar a month ago, sadly, you're running out of Atari VCS games to rate. Oh no! 😭
Thanks for watching and for sharing your memories! 😀
I never had too many M Network games for my Atari. So I don't have much of an opinion. I did always enjoy Astro Smash however. And I think Burger Time is okay. Honestly the others I have aren't memorable as I cannot even think of which ones they are even with you just going over all of them.
Also first!
One word....
Atari.
ATARI!!!
Astroblast, Lock ‘N’ Chase, Tron are my favorite games from Mattel. Wasn’t Dark Caverns actually named Night Stalker? How come they changed the name?
They changed several names when porting from Intellivsion to the VCS. Astroblast was "Astrosmash" on Inty, for example.
@@GenXGrownUp I also enjoy Dark Caverns.
Troy deadly disc S for me
S+ atari 2600 games are imo : Solaris, Yars Revenge, Mrs Pac-Man, Defender, Missile Command, Pete Rose Baseball, Berserk, Pitfall 2, Combat and Air Sea Battles. Pole Position( 1 and 2) S or imo S+ , i destroyed the heck of that game and actually finished it :-)
Most frustrating Burger Time port...not many are great, but this one is the best of the worst. 😂
Too bad that Mattel finally ported an arcade game, but did so poorly. Mid-1983 was too late whether on M-Network or for their own system, even if it was a "must-have" game.
We didn't own any of these games, maybe they didn't release in Europe. Quite like the look of a few of them.
Burger time was fun
We never had a single M network game. I don't recall ever seeing them.
Man if I knew back then what I know now, I could have made a ton of crap games and sell them at full price before the crash!
Just because games were produced and in stores didn't mean they were sold to consumers. That was the problem with retailers who didn't know what to stock, and why they lost confidence in video games. I count 27 games for Atari that sold over 1 million; three of those were disappointing to consumers.
Jon, only 10 days...
Until?
Atari 2600+
Activision was the king for Atari in my mind.
As we're learning by watching this channel's series, there is no one company that had all hits and no misses, or all As and no Ds. It will be interesting to see how he breaks down Atari's own games, if he does, maybe by years? Atari released 8 games in 1981, 15 in 1982, and 33 in 1983!
No sea battle?
Well, Sea Battle never saw release during the 2600's heyday, but Intellivision Productions produced a limited number of professionally produced carts in 2000. As such, Little Jonny could not have played it, so I chose to omit it as I did with several prototypes which have come to light.
Lock N' Chase is great. Should be a B. Masters of the Universe was and still is a colossal disappointment.
Don't even mention MotU - TRIGGERED! 😜
@@GenXGrownUp I was beyond excited to play that game, and when the day finally came, it felt like the day you found out santa wasn't real. Lol
E.T. moment?@@cryptocoffee13
Your tier list actually looks like a side view of an m network cartridge. Seriously look at the end of video and all his ranking
I don't see it - maybe I need to squint! 😝
@@GenXGrownUp lol it does take a m network cart set it up against you rankings it has the pointy top then the cart goes down to the part that goes in the cartridge slot where it's wider at the bottom lol I swear I'm not crazy 🤣 🤣🤣🤣
Funky looking boxes. Never played the games.
Thanks for watching nonetheless.
Quit whining about Baseball! Controls are confusing? As in "challanging"? No duh that's why they named it Super Challange! Jk 😅
🤔
Tron Deadly Discs was one of my favorites
Fun video as always! M Network does not get enough attention, IMO. Astroblast is an F- for me. That's the beauty of opinions!
Frogs and Flies was the ONLY game I remember playing on the Atari 2600 with my mother, who gave me my Atari for a Christmas present as a kid. I LOVE this game on A-Difficulties. Great game, looks great, plays great, and a lot of fun for ALL ages/sexes. Also, Football was great, but I never had anyone to play with, so that's my biggest disappointment with it; wish it had 1-player. Played a lot of Adventures of Tron (I think I got that free with proofs of purchases or something) and Space Attack. The only other 2 I played regularly as a kid were Burgertime and Lock'n'Chase, but they were "one game and done" titles for me.
Space Attack (originally Space Battle on the In tell I vision) was originally another development of a Mattel license. Originally it was intended to be a Battlestar Galactica game, but there were two problems. One was that although Mattel had the licenses to produce toys, and electronic games, they didn't extend to video games. The other issue is that when the Intellivision Space Battle was nearing completion, acquiring a license didn't matter in light of the show's ratings. So it was decided to release the game as a generic space game.
If you ever play the original Intellivision game though, it's pretty apparent what the initial inspiration was. For one, they really nailed the design of Cylon raiders, right down to how they fly in the show. The look of the "strategy" screen also looks like the "war book" computer displays in the show. Even the three squadron colors correspond to those of the Viper squadrons; Blue, Gold, and Silver spar squadrons.
awwwww man!!! I probably would have harrassed my mom mercilessly for the intellivision if they branded it as a BSG game! Hahah. Their loss....
I count Space Attack as the M-Network's version of Atari's Star Raiders (Imagic had Star Voyager, and Activision had Starmaster).
Little Andy's friend, little Jamie from up the street, had Super Challenge Baseball. We had lots of fun playing that game with other "littles" from the neighborhood. We were amazed at how many glitches we found in the game (like the home run detection being VERY inconsistent). The most bizarre one is if the ball gets hit to the third baseman and you hold right and hit the button at the exact second the ball hits the third baseman, the ball will NOT go to first base, instead it will make this half circle bee-line down to the bottom of the screen, the ball disappears and the game calls it a home run for the other team. We figured the game was "whipped." My uncle was a Catholic priest and the game was so full of glitches I asked him to bless the game and my uncle said "God has better things to do than bless video games." We just played the game for what it was and had fun. Astroblast is a really good game. I wanted Discs of Tron back in the day but could never find it. Everyone had Adventures of Tron, but nobody had Discs of Tron so I never got to play it.
I actually had Discs of Tron but not Adventures of Tron. Weird.
Played the hell out of LockNChase, Astroblast (never knew it worked with paddles though!), and Frogs N Flies.
I'd move Bump'n Jump to S (it's a lot of fun, varied and technically impressive game on the VCS) and Lock'n Chase to A (the maze is always the same, but the mechanic of locking the enemies is very fun, and if you manage to trap one inside two of your doors you get a lot of points). Astroblast is great, especially with a paddle, but it gets repetitive after a bit, so I'd give it an B. On the other hand, I'll check out Dark Cavern, it seems a kind of game I'd enjoy
I'm intrigued about the whole "trapping the cop" thing. How does that work since you can only drop doors on the horizontal?
@@GenXGrownUp you can only do it in two spots: bottom left and bottom right of the screen. When you are followed by an enemy you can place two doors in a row, but you have to time it exactly. You must place the first door while the enemy passes that exact spot in the maze
@@danielespeziari5545 Ahhhh, cool. 😀
I loved Space Attack, on the harder settings it required a good amount of strategy. I think the Super Challenge Football game was the original Mario Cart in making you hate your brother (OK we all know that was Atari Combat). My brother (RIP) had this juke move that always made me miss him during a run play. I liked Air Raid too.
I wish Mattel made a M-Network Space Hawk version for the Atari. That would've been cool.
Thank you for sharing your recollections. I give your childhood memories with your brother a solid S TIER! 😀
Adventures of Tron is one of the very best games for the 2600. It's massively dynamic regards to how much choice you have at any time and soon becomes the most rewarding experience once you are aware to this. One complain is that the collision detection concerning collecting the bits is a bit random but this simply isn't the case once you understand the window of collision required. Easily one of the most satisfying games you will ever play on any system but you do have to at least be aware to the various fall back options available to you on your current plan of action. Truly amazing game but it's often misunderstood and rated as such
about as exciting as Adventure, you play as a square, moving around an empty screen, highly lauded game, but also the top 5 of boring Atari games.