Considering the huge limitations of the 2600, the Pitfall games really were an incredible achievement. The programmers were basically wizards in those days.
The console's architecture was designed to be as flexible as possible to make up for the weak hardware. Stronger consoles aren't designed for that level of flexibility. The NES, for example, was many times more powerful than the 2600 (the 2600 didn't even have a full kilobyte of RAM) but doesn't support the type of sorcery the 2600 did quite a few times.
Space Invaders was amazing because it was all done in software. The arcade version was all hardware, nothing could be changed in game without physically changing the hardware. The 2600 requires some serious creativity and understanding of its limitations to make a good game.
Most people aren't aware the first Pitfall can also be beaten if the player collects all 32 treasures before time runs out. Learning which tunnels to take and when to know Left or Right is imperative to finishing Pitfall
Arguably programmers are and always have been wizards of a kind, making computers do things the average person can only dream about. ---The genius of the 8-bit era appears to have been largely about effectively transforming obvious limitations into useful features.
@@jnharton Programming now is easier since they tend to use high level languages, such as C++ to make games. The OS provides a good part of the functionality. There are libraries such as OpenGL, Direct3D, Vulkan to deal with the 3D graphics. There is DirectSound, OpenAL, FMod, Bass to deal with the sound card. There is less need to worry about RAM and VRAM. I don’t know if they write anything with assembly language now. Back then, they had to write in assembly language. You can’t use RGB 24 bit for colors. They use color indexing and the color table probably contained 16 colors. There was a bunch of limitations like how many colors a sprite could have. The Atari 2600 had no VRAM and had 128 Byte of RAM to store the program state. For the sound, I am guessing there is some instruction for the CPU to send some bytes to the sound chip.
Unless you were there when it was new, it's hard to appreciate just how damn magical the 2600 was. Popping in a new, unknown game, and watching the blocky graphics pop up, not really knowing what to do (since we never had the manuals), was an experience like no other. The hours I spent on Adventure, Yar's Revenge and Robot Tank.
What's magical is that someone could in theory code an entire game for the 2600 in around half a year. It takes 3 to go from in shape to Greek God physique, just for comparison.
@@TheSeedyProject It's quite fun once you read the instructions. There are scans of the manual here: www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-et-the-extra-terrestrial_7300.html
I think for the most part they were easy to figure out what to do, since they were as simple as they were. Notable exceptions for me were Raiders of the Lost Ark, Basic Programming, and Swordquest.
The 2600 original was my first console in 77. UPS truck pulled up and I was excited as heck to get that thing inside and try it out. Like you said, unless you were there at the beginning and not spoiled on higher end graphics and game play now, you could not appreciate the magic. I still have a 5600 system and 17 cartridges but the controls are junked. They never were very good to start with.
I am amazed how the utterly sparse technical specs of the Atari 2600 could amass such a library. Especially for a machine designed to play _only_ Pong-like games.
The reliance on the programmer to manually control everything, including the drawing of the screen, made the system a challenge to program, but it also made it extremely flexible and allowed it to remain competitive far beyond its original scope. I have to admit that I never considered Superman or Adventure - though fun - as being games that pushed the envelope, but for the time I guess they did. Pitfall utilized some very clever code to squeeze way more screens into the space than would seem possible. David Crane is a genius. There's a lecture on RUclips somewhere where he explains how he did it (it was a polynomial counter that could be reversed to give it the previous output, which he then used to describe and draw the screen). He was able to store an entire screen, in a sense, in only ONE BYTE...
I really struggled in this video wondering just how much detail to go into, I could easily have talked about Pitfall for the full 20 minutes! I read and watched a lot about Pitfall, David Crane certainly is a genius!
@@Sharopolis It's those limitations that bring out the best in programmers. In fact, because of those limitations there is a concentrated effort to make _game play_ as good as possible to make up for it. I can honestly say that many of those old games from the "Hey Day" of gaming - in the early to mid eighties - are still, to this day, the most fun I've had with video games. New game systems are literally millions of times more powerful, but are the games millions of times better in terms of game play? I would say, no.
@@JustWasted3HoursHere God of War is a beautiful game with kind of crappy gameplay and some really bad camera problems. No amount of beauty makes up for getting stuck looking zoomed in at the boss's foot and getting slaughtered. Trash.
Pitfall II pushed the envelope even further, though I'll admit that I was embarrased, when I met David Crane, that I thought the "DPC" chip stood for something like "digital processing something or other" rather than "David Patrick Crane".
The faux wood trim on my 2600 always matched the faux wood paneling on the walls of my parent's basement. Is there anyone in my age group who didn't have the faux wood paneling in their basement? If you didn't, you at very least knew someone who did! Classic stuff, and a great video! Keep up the great work!
None of the houses I lived in as a kid (I was an Air Force brat) had basements, but wood paneling was common. As were the harvest gold washing machine and avocado green fridge.
This was a great video. I was an avid 2600 owner and player back in the 80’s and this explains very well how limitations were overcome without large amounts of dry technical material. I’m a heavy technical user but this video was very enjoyable to watch. Well done.
Programmers were a different breed of person back then. The less resources a computer platform had, the more intelligent a programmer had to be. I remember having to learn the actual chip architecture and instruction set in order to code games back then.
@@chrisray9653 And that still runs in a fraction of the time it did "back in the day" and it's multilingual, works for people that need accessibility extensions, can't be exploited to take over the whole system just by looking at it..
Well... Limitations still exist nowadays. For example, porting the Source Engine to the PS3 in 2011, for the release of Portal 2, was an absolute nightmare, and required to master its weird CPU architecture. Or GTA V, running smoothly on the already aging Xbox 360. There is also the Nintendo Switch, and its amazing games running butter-smoothly on a purposely underpowerd (yet amazing) hardware, with game like TLoZ: BotW, a lot of indie games and some amazing ports that could have been done only thanks to a good knowledge of the hardware. A lot of today's developers are as talented as yesterday's developer. And remember, *if used correctly,* libraries can save years of development without really affecting the performance. (and let's not forget the huge quantities of low-quality game that flooded the market before copy-protection)
@@donpalmera the point is: real programmers create all of what you've mentioned, unlike the bulk of modern age coders, who are way more like users than developers. That's what people mean when they talk about stuff from "back in the day"; they don't necessarily try to come up with a point where software should go back to the roots of ancient products.
Originally, I was let down by 'Battlezone' for the 2600, thinking "it looks nothing like the arcade". As time went by, and the more I played, I began to TRULY appreciate the game in full color (which it did SPLENDIDLY), and to this day, I'm really impressed how GREAT this port was to the venerable Atari. Well done.
Overall you picked great titles to showcase the 2600 at its finest. I’d just add a few points: 1. The 2600 version of Space Invaders also had an awesome 2-player simultaneous co-op mode that is simply unrivaled even on most later consoles. 2. Enduro was a race car driving game ahead of its time, emulating various road conditions such as day, night, fog, and ice. 3. Some of the paddle games supported 4-player simultaneous play, such as Warlords, long before the Nintendo 64 would standardize 4-player local play. Some of these games still stand the test of time today, being very enjoyable despite the limitations of the console.
Enduro was like totally awesome, changing day & night...way better than Night Driver, LOL! WarLords was so much fun if you could get at least another player or 2 to play with, but you could also kill bots! Way ahead of it's time!
One of my favorite ways to play Warlords was suicide mode, inspired by the CPUs! Instead of trying to be the first to get 5 points, try to have the lowest score when someone hits 5. It is trickier than it sounds to be the untied victor at zero against 3 CPUs that often destroy themselves.
OMG, Enduro was SO GOOD. Indeed, so good that a teenager I met was trying to trade me multiple games for it. When I declined, my apartment was broken into just a few days later, and (along with a few other items) that particular cartridge was stolen out of my Atari library. I'd have paid a pretty penny to have ever found that kid....
This video taught me a lot. I love how you explain the tricks used. I was also unaware of just HOW limited the VCS was in its pong console like design.
6:42 Wonder if those "kids" are still alive? They'd be like 50 now. I remember when my father bought the Atari 2600 back in 198x. Tutankhamun was the first game I beat.
Man, I was 6 when the NES launched in 85 and it's like I am approaching mid 40s now. Now, if you actually remember this system "at launch", then you are vast majority approaching mid 50s*--if not older. *If you were not a 4 or 5 year old. But, it would be pointless to buy a chjIb that young something that expensive that they could quickly break. Also, I'd assume that it'd need to be extra special to draw a chjIb that young's attention(like a cartoon, which the NES was). So, I assume that almost all launch Atari users would be approaching mid-50s or older!
@@pattrell5257 Good guess. I'm 47. My first system I bought with my own money is a Sega Genesis. I was wanting a SNES but it was too much money, and the Genesis included Sonic the Hedgehog. So I get a system and game with some money to spare. Years later, I got a Super NES. I've been a gamer from day one.
@@BLKBRDSR71 I wasn't talking about you, unless you owned an Atari 2600 from launch. I turn 43 this month, if the ALMIGHTY be willing. I was 6 at NES launch and might never forget it...
Absolutely love Pitfall II. One of my first games as a kid. C64 version though. Seems quaint about 35 years later, but I clearly remember being blown away by how big the game world was.
The first time I ever had an Atari VCS was some time back in 1989...at the time I lived in Cockermouth, Cumbria. Needless to say, the only place I could get the slimmed down version (* never knew that modified version came out in 1986 - thanks for that information) was in Carlisle. I do recall when I was growing up though that there was a shop on the high street in Cockermouth that did sell some Atari VCS cartridges, and I was always fascinated by the artwork on the cartridges themselves - indeed, I did get hold recently of that book about Atari Art. Back in the day, you used your imagination. As far as the hardware that the Atari VCS had...I'd like to do some digging into that...I'm a lso a massive fan of the Atari 8 bit computers, and loved the hardware (I did play around with it, writing machine code programs involving VBIs and DLIs) - I remember Jeff Minter writing an article in whichever magazine of those years - he was saying that Atari computers were ideal for lazy programmers. Certes, it was very easy to do hardware scrolling with these machines. You needed geniuses like Tony Crowther to deal with it on the c64 though. This is an awesome channel, and I thank you.
I have a cartridge, played it a bunch like 20 years ago...man i miss being able to find gems like that for $3.00 from Goodwill, LOL! It is a really good game, hard to keep the enemy from destroying all your star bases in each different zone/map though. Blowing up 3d looking planets makes it worthwhile.
What I like about these expositions is the technical breakdown of what makes the game work it's like having a copy of chasing the bean for every game he's talking about. Very nice
One of my favorite games was Demon Attack. I took my VCS to college in 2002 while everyone else had their Playstation. We had a whiteboard we kept high scores on for Space Invaders, Ms Pacman and Plaque Attack.
Adventure! How me and my brother hated that damn bat, we dreamed of ways to kill it. Eventually I figured out that once you were done with one of the castles, you could lure the bat inside and then lock him in for the rest of the game. If you weren't careful you could lock the key inside the castle and never get back in. And does anyone else remember the easter egg hidden in one of the side chambers? You used the bridge to pass through the wall and you could see the game designer's name in a hidden chamber.
The easter egg is the biggest reason Adventure is my favorite game for the 2600. I must've spent a hundred hours just replaying the game and counting the easter egg screen as a requirement of completion. It's a wonderful piece of trivia.
The great thing about tank and space invaders were simply the fact that there were like 30 versions of the game tank to play, and nearly 128 for the space invaders title. You had to hold select and new game down at same time to fast forward through versions.the fact I still remember this 45 years later tells you the impact. Surround was a good one with multiple versions too. So despite the games having such low memory on the carts, they made the best of it and then through in many many variants to have fun with. Want invisible tanks. Got that. Want bullets to bounce? Got it. Bulges to pass through barriers? Got it. And on and on.
Okay, where is Galaxian? That game had the same formation as the arcade, full color sprites, and the diving attack enemies use with a bonus if you kill the escort ships before the "boss" ship.
The 2600jr was a huge success in Eastern Germany after the wall collapsed because it was offered cheaply in mail order catalogues alongside cheap games released under the own brands of the catalogues. These were mostly bootlegs and ROM hacks of older games with a quirky German title. However I fondly remember Solaris. I never had it but often borrowed it from a friend at school. I play it from time to time up until today, it has aged well.
Except that Crysis was famous for being very demanding and requiring very powerful hardware for its time, whereas Solaris was working with a console essentially of the previous generation that was astonishingly *primitive* for its time. Neubauer's original Star Raiders had been written for more powerful hardware, 7 years earlier.
I got the redesigned 2600 as a Christmas present in either 1987 or 1988...I can't remember which. One cartridge I got with it was "Solaris." It was damned impressive for the Atari 2600. Unfortunately, I also got "E.T." and "Journey Escape."
Loved how over time the programmers figure out work arounds and ways of doing things the original makers never dreamt of. Made programmers push more and more to create some outstanding for the time graphics
Starflight was like the awesomest game though...the Sega Genesis port of it was pretty good too, and released by EA a few years later (1993 I think). Wish a modern version of that would come around-and not suck.
Here is my list for games that pushed limits for atari 2600. Enduro, Pole Position, River Raid, Pitfall, California Games, Double Dragon, Hero, Popeye, Dig Dug, Defender, Donkey Kong. Battlezone
The up'y down'y game? I have never heard it called that before...I like it as it has an almost improvisation to it. I have only ever known this type of game to be called a platformer. The reason for this is likely when I started gaming...which was essentially in 85' with the Nes and 86' for the Master System.
With the sun in the middle which makes gravity and also screen looping or edge bouncing(so many different game variations on those older games) yeah...too bad i couldn't coax my lil' bro to play me tho
Pitfall 2 blew me away when I was a kid. It had so much more to it than any of the other games out at that time.( for atari, anyway ) It was the first time I actually felt like I was exploring a video game world, it was absolutely gigantic compared to the other games I had played up until that point. I guess I got some exploration out of my first few games of Adventure, but it wasn't very long before that map was permanently etched into my mind.
Very impressive video again, love the technical info. Space Invaders: I saw an interview where it was described how the Atari gang were astounded at what the programmer had managed to do (Rick Maurer). An epic conversion!
Thanks! I'm glad you liked the history part, I really wanted to get that across, the 2600 is so fascinating as it was such a pioneer in the gaming world.
I'm 49 yrs. old and I had the SEAR'S version TELE GASMES and it was the same thing as the ATARI . I owned E.T. the game and a bunch of others Q-bert , Phoenix .…
Over here in Sweden, the Atari 8-bits were put in the lot with the x-in-1 games you mention, and called curiously, *hockey games* (although they had ping-pong and tennis and we loved those sports as well). Considering cartridges to replace some hardwired circuitry perhaps wrongly so, and perhaps rightly so at least for most game titles. Maybe if the best games (which basically means Activision titles) had made it here early, it would have been a great hit? Pitfall II, H.E.R.O., and River Raid did make it here on mainly the C64 along with many newer enticing game ideas, although I remember the first two fondly from the Apple II - but not many had access to such early US computers here I think, or at least not in the home. I think those 3 game ideas have held up well, though flip-screen insta-kill and memorization of maps (or on-paper mapping of them) began to feel very old by 1985-6. I think Atari 8-bit had the right vision though, and they did make proper 8-bit computers, and even more, they went on to Atari Games on arcade, which was an absolute powerhouse, dominating the market with with so much innovative hardware and most of all, novel and fun, addictive game ideas that are absolute classics and gems.
Back then I had a vectrex (an excellent console in its own right) and my cousins had a vcs. I really was jealous. Color graphics, amazing games such as Toutankhamon ... I spent much more time at their place than playing with my vectrex lol.
Ultima games were still based on the map pixels, not on object, so GREDITOR was born. With a listing that stretched around the house, a friend of mine and I wrote a sophisticated graphics editor that could allow you to edit any part of the game as a picture. Thus, you could blank out the fire walls, and set up bridges, as you wished. It was fast, and did what things like Mac's Fullpaint would do almost a decade later. It ran on an 800.
Really nice list and I hoped to see Solaris on this. Was not disappointed. :D I also would say that California Games, Tunnel Runner and Escape from the Mind Master are games that pushed the limits of the Atari 2600, but I guess the latter would be cheating as you need the Starpath Supercharger add-on cartridge.
I had Solaris and always liked it but never pushed far in it. It took me eventually playing it on an emulator and saving states along the way, with the help of a map for me to finally complete it. Even with those advantages it was still a challenge!
Wow... I could just imagine your stunning disappointment. I grew up with the chunky mono-color sprites, so colorful games like Pitfall II were a real treat. Solaris was on a whole other level. If I started with that, I would have thought the other carts were broken or something. LOL
Back in the day (get off of my lawn!), we didn't call it the VCS or 2600. We just called it Atari, just like almost a decade later people said Nintendo instead of NES. There were a lot of "screen exploring" games that used the Adventure style. Superman, Pitfall, Haunted House, Raiders of the Lost Ark, H.E.R.O., and yes E.T. were all using the same idea. And no, E.T. did not cause the video game crash of 1983. But your examples only scratch the surface of how games were developed to "push the limits". A glaring example is Yar's Revenge, perhaps the greatest game on the console. Everyone knows about Activision's Pitfall and River Raid but few mention StarMaster, a fantastic title which was like a lite version of Phaser Patrol. Phaser Patrol? Yes! The initial packed in release with the Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger that added a whopping 6k additional RAM for the Atari. And it worked brilliantly! Yes, the games were released on cassette tapes and you needed a tape player.....but just about every "cool kid" had a Sony Walkman or knockoff. The huge Supercharger cartridge went into the Atari slot, plug the unit into the headphone jack on your tape player, push play, and voila! Instant minds blown of what was capable on the Atari at the time. I only had Phaser Patrol and Dragonstomper but what a great early gaming experience! Think of it this way....the Supercharger was the father of the Nintendo FX chip, pushing the limits of machine and man! Sorry, I had to get a Red Barchetta reference in there somehow.
@@animatsuri : I'd still like to play that game! Anything "3D" at the time was extremely cool. I loved Wizardry on the Apple II and perhaps one of my favorite games of all time is AD&D Treasure of Tarmin (later named Minotaur) on the Intellivision.
@@wojciechmuras553 : Yes, those are better examples than the SuperFX....but we get the point. It's a really great add-on that is very rare these days. But cassettes are a horrible medium for data!
One game I'd definitely add to the list (as boring as it may sound), Video Chess. Sure, doesn't look like much, but developing a functional Chess AI that works with 128 bytes of RAM (many of which are needed to display graphics too) And of course, being able to display 8 chess pieces on a row is also something, that needs some clever tricks. No matter how "unexciting" it might look nowadays.
I would agree that Video Chess pushed the limits of the "standard" machine like little others. Bank switching was in fact designed for it but eventually they managed to stay in the 4k standard ROM!
I've been wanting to do a video about this for years...Solaris is definitely one of the ones on my list, and I own it too! One of my favs, granted by the time it came out the 8 bit generation had taken over.
I got a six-switcher as a kid back in 1979. It was the culmination of 3 years of birthday money, odd jobs and grandma kicking in the last $20 and, d@mn, was it worth it!.
So, being of 'that' age I have been around forever. Played in the local arcade also spent some money at the local, got a few PET's available by the hour club, obviously on a Saturday. I guess around 1979 I demanded a pong machine which I remember playing solo!! For me, the 2600 with Invaders, Tank Battle and Missile Command was purchased at the local Comet/Rumbelows. This lasted until I started work in late 1982, when I signed up in Boots for a Spectrum, to play Sabre Wulf. Sold that for a C64, then Amiga 500+, a 1200 followed by a PlayStation 1. The rest is history.
Pitfall II and Solaris really pushed the limits for sure. Couldn’t believe how much was crammed into those games when I was a kid. I’d also include Secret Quest. I think it was mostly overlooked, since it came out when the NES had already been the king of the hill for a few years (and it wasn’t much longer until the 16 bit era blew up), and most gamers just weren’t paying attention to Atari by that point. I picked it up for cheap at a Big Lots sometime in the early 90s without ever hearing of it before, and I was hooked.
Pitfall was incredible, also River Raid. The latter was so incredibly polished; the scrolling, the inertia of your plane when banking, the colours and sprites - all topped off with perfect gameplay that's still so much fun today, I loved Defender, but on a technical level Stargate impresses me very much also; to manage a playable Defender II that resembles the arcade, that's very cool.
Ha, I didn't know Star Raiders was made by the same guy as Solaris. Those are my two favorite Atari 2600 games. Adventure, Asteroids, and Demon Attack are pretty great too. I seem to remember liking Robotank better than the 2600 Battlezone, Battlezone being my favorite Atari arcade game. Still play Battlezone religiously.
Battlezone was great, but it could have been so much better in spite of the limitations imo...Star Raiders was fun when you tried to conserve energy and played on hardest mode, only putting shields & computer up when needed....then when stuff gets damaged & your ship is shaking and 1 of your torpedo tubes is gone & the other is damaged & the targetting computer flickers cuz your ship is on it's last leg....omg, the intensity it's like The Enterprise vs The Reliant in the Nebula in Star Trek II...so dramatic, and then your shields go down and you explode in all Atari blipping glory!
I fondly remember Pitfall 1 & 2, that I played endlessly with my mother and my sister. We actually drew maps for both to be able to get all treasures. The 20 minute time limit on 1 was brutal, and the only way to beat 2 with a perfect score was to NEVER get hit by an enemy, as that would transport you back to the latest save point, while substracting points from your score along the way. I'll never forget the night my mom beat the game with a perfect score after weeks and weeks of trying.
I *think* the barriers disappear just because the screen is a bit squashed and things run out of space, I don't think it's a glitch. The double shot reset is a glitch I understand, this thread on Atari Age is the best info I could find. atariage.com/forums/topic/77886-space-invaders-double-shots-bug-or-intentional/ I was going to put this in the video, but I struggled to find good information about it!
I remember when I parents bought a 2600 and Defender, in Minot North Dakota (we are from Canada). And my big brother played it and played it. We still have that atari.
I like them all except Superman, because it is difficult and uneasy to understand if played for the first time like E.T. I rather choose Phoenix, River Raid, Maze Craze, Miss PacMan, and Enduro.
I was playing mine up until around 1986, but back in the 70s and early 80s, you'd not really play a game for hours on end, it was just a bit of a distraction. I actually had far more "adventure" when I read fighting fantasy books. It wasn't until 1990 when I had both a 286 PC and an Atari ST that I got completely hooked on games.
I had an xe130 as a kid. We had a box full of disks...most were cracked games. Boulderdash, pharoahs curse, jumpman jr...I've been a game addict ever since.
@@markstahl1464 Hold down Reset when you turn the Atari on, with Space Invaders in, and you can have double shots on the screen. Of course, you start instantly, so better be quick on the mark there.
Check out the book "Racing the Beam (The Atari Video Computer System)." It's a fantastic book detailing the development and creation of six games while talking about many, many others. Solaris is an incredible game on the hardware and I'd love to see a detailed breakdown of its creation from the programmer.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Considering the huge limitations of the 2600, the Pitfall games really were an incredible achievement. The programmers were basically wizards in those days.
The console's architecture was designed to be as flexible as possible to make up for the weak hardware. Stronger consoles aren't designed for that level of flexibility. The NES, for example, was many times more powerful than the 2600 (the 2600 didn't even have a full kilobyte of RAM) but doesn't support the type of sorcery the 2600 did quite a few times.
Space Invaders was amazing because it was all done in software. The arcade version was all hardware, nothing could be changed in game without physically changing the hardware.
The 2600 requires some serious creativity and understanding of its limitations to make a good game.
Most people aren't aware the first Pitfall can also be beaten if the player collects all 32 treasures before time runs out. Learning which tunnels to take and when to know Left or Right is imperative to finishing Pitfall
Arguably programmers are and always have been wizards of a kind, making computers do things the average person can only dream about. ---The genius of the 8-bit era appears to have been largely about effectively transforming obvious limitations into useful features.
@@jnharton Programming now is easier since they tend to use high level languages, such as C++ to make games. The OS provides a good part of the functionality.
There are libraries such as OpenGL, Direct3D, Vulkan to deal with the 3D graphics. There is DirectSound, OpenAL, FMod, Bass to deal with the sound card.
There is less need to worry about RAM and VRAM.
I don’t know if they write anything with assembly language now.
Back then, they had to write in assembly language. You can’t use RGB 24 bit for colors. They use color indexing and the color table probably contained 16 colors.
There was a bunch of limitations like how many colors a sprite could have.
The Atari 2600 had no VRAM and had 128 Byte of RAM to store the program state.
For the sound, I am guessing there is some instruction for the CPU to send some bytes to the sound chip.
Unless you were there when it was new, it's hard to appreciate just how damn magical the 2600 was. Popping in a new, unknown game, and watching the blocky graphics pop up, not really knowing what to do (since we never had the manuals), was an experience like no other. The hours I spent on Adventure, Yar's Revenge and Robot Tank.
What's magical is that someone could in theory code an entire game for the 2600 in around half a year. It takes 3 to go from in shape to Greek God physique, just for comparison.
Only hours? Been decades and still trying to figure out ET.
@@TheSeedyProject It's quite fun once you read the instructions. There are scans of the manual here: www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-et-the-extra-terrestrial_7300.html
I think for the most part they were easy to figure out what to do, since they were as simple as they were. Notable exceptions for me were Raiders of the Lost Ark, Basic Programming, and Swordquest.
The 2600 original was my first console in 77. UPS truck pulled up and I was excited as heck to get that thing inside and try it out. Like you said, unless you were there at the beginning and not spoiled on higher end graphics and game play now, you could not appreciate the magic. I still have a 5600 system and 17 cartridges but the controls are junked. They never were very good to start with.
I am amazed how the utterly sparse technical specs of the Atari 2600 could amass such a library. Especially for a machine designed to play _only_ Pong-like games.
The best Christmas present I ever got was the VCS with Space Invaders back in the day
My dad had to have a 2600 cause he loved the arcade games of his time so we got one very early in its life
I'd have given my right arm for a 2600. I begged and pleaded with my parents to buy me a VCS but to no avail.
A bit of an eye opener. For some reason, I never really think about the games at the end of its life. I always envision early crude stuff
@@richbiles230872 sad.... I guess I was lucky to have one lol
The older consoles make it believable that people found gaming as a fad as they weren't very good even back then
The reliance on the programmer to manually control everything, including the drawing of the screen, made the system a challenge to program, but it also made it extremely flexible and allowed it to remain competitive far beyond its original scope.
I have to admit that I never considered Superman or Adventure - though fun - as being games that pushed the envelope, but for the time I guess they did. Pitfall utilized some very clever code to squeeze way more screens into the space than would seem possible. David Crane is a genius. There's a lecture on RUclips somewhere where he explains how he did it (it was a polynomial counter that could be reversed to give it the previous output, which he then used to describe and draw the screen). He was able to store an entire screen, in a sense, in only ONE BYTE...
I really struggled in this video wondering just how much detail to go into, I could easily have talked about Pitfall for the full 20 minutes! I read and watched a lot about Pitfall, David Crane certainly is a genius!
@@Sharopolis It's those limitations that bring out the best in programmers. In fact, because of those limitations there is a concentrated effort to make _game play_ as good as possible to make up for it. I can honestly say that many of those old games from the "Hey Day" of gaming - in the early to mid eighties - are still, to this day, the most fun I've had with video games. New game systems are literally millions of times more powerful, but are the games millions of times better in terms of game play? I would say, no.
@@JustWasted3HoursHere God of War is a beautiful game with kind of crappy gameplay and some really bad camera problems. No amount of beauty makes up for getting stuck looking zoomed in at the boss's foot and getting slaughtered. Trash.
Pitfall II pushed the envelope even further, though I'll admit that I was embarrased, when I met David Crane, that I thought the "DPC" chip stood for something like "digital processing something or other" rather than "David Patrick Crane".
The faux wood trim on my 2600 always matched the faux wood paneling on the walls of my parent's basement. Is there anyone in my age group who didn't have the faux wood paneling in their basement? If you didn't, you at very least knew someone who did! Classic stuff, and a great video! Keep up the great work!
None of the houses I lived in as a kid (I was an Air Force brat) had basements, but wood paneling was common. As were the harvest gold washing machine and avocado green fridge.
God I'm old... but I LOVED Adventure and Haunted House. So fun to hear those sound effects again! Great vid!
Haunted House was great. My favorite game of all time on the VCS was Warlords.
I loved Haunted House, would play it for hours.
Haunted House intrigued me but I never played it (though loved Adventure). I'll try in via emulation soon though!
Haunted House was fun. I can still hear those doors opening and closing. Haha.
I play some of those games still today.....Pitfall, Ghost Manor, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Defender, Amidar, Smurf....just great.
This was a great video. I was an avid 2600 owner and player back in the 80’s and this explains very well how limitations were overcome without large amounts of dry technical material. I’m a heavy technical user but this video was very enjoyable to watch. Well done.
Thank you, it's always hard to know how much detail to put in my videos, glad I hit the spot.
Programmers were a different breed of person back then. The less resources a computer platform had, the more intelligent a programmer had to be. I remember having to learn the actual chip architecture and instruction set in order to code games back then.
Today: Call libraries of 50k lines of code to get a dialogue screen up.
@@chrisray9653 And that still runs in a fraction of the time it did "back in the day" and it's multilingual, works for people that need accessibility extensions, can't be exploited to take over the whole system just by looking at it..
Well... Limitations still exist nowadays. For example, porting the Source Engine to the PS3 in 2011, for the release of Portal 2, was an absolute nightmare, and required to master its weird CPU architecture. Or GTA V, running smoothly on the already aging Xbox 360. There is also the Nintendo Switch, and its amazing games running butter-smoothly on a purposely underpowerd (yet amazing) hardware, with game like TLoZ: BotW, a lot of indie games and some amazing ports that could have been done only thanks to a good knowledge of the hardware.
A lot of today's developers are as talented as yesterday's developer. And remember, *if used correctly,* libraries can save years of development without really affecting the performance.
(and let's not forget the huge quantities of low-quality game that flooded the market before copy-protection)
Innovative, not intelligent.
@@donpalmera the point is: real programmers create all of what you've mentioned, unlike the bulk of modern age coders, who are way more like users than developers. That's what people mean when they talk about stuff from "back in the day"; they don't necessarily try to come up with a point where software should go back to the roots of ancient products.
Originally, I was let down by 'Battlezone' for the 2600, thinking "it looks nothing like the arcade".
As time went by, and the more I played, I began to TRULY appreciate the game in full color (which it did SPLENDIDLY), and to this day, I'm really impressed how GREAT this port was to the venerable Atari. Well done.
I kinda enjoyed Battlezone but the thing about it seeming to roll on forever going nowhere unable to dodge incoming fire concerned me.
Overall you picked great titles to showcase the 2600 at its finest. I’d just add a few points:
1. The 2600 version of Space Invaders also had an awesome 2-player simultaneous co-op mode that is simply unrivaled even on most later consoles.
2. Enduro was a race car driving game ahead of its time, emulating various road conditions such as day, night, fog, and ice.
3. Some of the paddle games supported 4-player simultaneous play, such as Warlords, long before the Nintendo 64 would standardize 4-player local play.
Some of these games still stand the test of time today, being very enjoyable despite the limitations of the console.
Enduro was like totally awesome, changing day & night...way better than Night Driver, LOL! WarLords was so much fun if you could get at least another player or 2 to play with, but you could also kill bots! Way ahead of it's time!
One of my favorite ways to play Warlords was suicide mode, inspired by the CPUs! Instead of trying to be the first to get 5 points, try to have the lowest score when someone hits 5. It is trickier than it sounds to be the untied victor at zero against 3 CPUs that often destroy themselves.
OMG, Enduro was SO GOOD. Indeed, so good that a teenager I met was trying to trade me multiple games for it. When I declined, my apartment was broken into just a few days later, and (along with a few other items) that particular cartridge was stolen out of my Atari library.
I'd have paid a pretty penny to have ever found that kid....
Space Invaders game 33. I spent so much time in the early ‘80s playing that with friends. There’s really nothing else on another console like it.
This is great! A sequel featuring modern homebrews that push things even further would be awesome!
That's something I want to do in the future so keep watching.
Hey, they even ported freaking After Burner on the VCS. It was called Radar Lock there of course since it was not done with license of Sega.
This video taught me a lot. I love how you explain the tricks used.
I was also unaware of just HOW limited the VCS was in its pong console like design.
6:42 Wonder if those "kids" are still alive? They'd be like 50 now.
I remember when my father bought the Atari 2600 back in 198x.
Tutankhamun was the first game I beat.
50 isn't old enough to doubt that they're still alive
Man, I was 6 when the NES launched in 85 and it's like I am approaching mid 40s now. Now, if you actually remember this system "at launch", then you are vast majority approaching mid 50s*--if not older.
*If you were not a 4 or 5 year old. But, it would be pointless to buy a chjIb that young something that expensive that they could quickly break. Also, I'd assume that it'd need to be extra special to draw a chjIb that young's attention(like a cartoon, which the NES was). So, I assume that almost all launch Atari users would be approaching mid-50s or older!
@@pattrell5257 Good guess. I'm 47. My first system I bought with my own money is a Sega Genesis. I was wanting a SNES but it was too much money, and the Genesis included Sonic the Hedgehog. So I get a system and game with some money to spare. Years later, I got a Super NES. I've been a gamer from day one.
@@BLKBRDSR71 I wasn't talking about you, unless you owned an Atari 2600 from launch. I turn 43 this month, if the ALMIGHTY be willing. I was 6 at NES launch and might never forget it...
Yes. We're still alive.
Absolutely love Pitfall II. One of my first games as a kid. C64 version though. Seems quaint about 35 years later, but I clearly remember being blown away by how big the game world was.
Even bigger on the 800
The first time I ever had an Atari VCS was some time back in 1989...at the time I lived in Cockermouth, Cumbria. Needless to say, the only place I could get the slimmed down version (* never knew that modified version came out in 1986 - thanks for that information) was in Carlisle. I do recall when I was growing up though that there was a shop on the high street in Cockermouth that did sell some Atari VCS cartridges, and I was always fascinated by the artwork on the cartridges themselves - indeed, I did get hold recently of that book about Atari Art. Back in the day, you used your imagination. As far as the hardware that the Atari VCS had...I'd like to do some digging into that...I'm a lso a massive fan of the Atari 8 bit computers, and loved the hardware (I did play around with it, writing machine code programs involving VBIs and DLIs) - I remember Jeff Minter writing an article in whichever magazine of those years - he was saying that Atari computers were ideal for lazy programmers. Certes, it was very easy to do hardware scrolling with these machines. You needed geniuses like Tony Crowther to deal with it on the c64 though. This is an awesome channel, and I thank you.
Thank you for some interesting reminiscences!
There’s a place called Cockermouth, Cumbria? Sounds like a dirty joke.
God Solaris looks absolutely beautiful for the 2600
I have a cartridge, played it a bunch like 20 years ago...man i miss being able to find gems like that for $3.00 from Goodwill, LOL! It is a really good game, hard to keep the enemy from destroying all your star bases in each different zone/map though. Blowing up 3d looking planets makes it worthwhile.
What I like about these expositions is the technical breakdown of what makes the game work it's like having a copy of chasing the bean for every game he's talking about. Very nice
One of my favorite games was Demon Attack. I took my VCS to college in 2002 while everyone else had their Playstation. We had a whiteboard we kept high scores on for Space Invaders, Ms Pacman and Plaque Attack.
Adventure! How me and my brother hated that damn bat, we dreamed of ways to kill it. Eventually I figured out that once you were done with one of the castles, you could lure the bat inside and then lock him in for the rest of the game. If you weren't careful you could lock the key inside the castle and never get back in. And does anyone else remember the easter egg hidden in one of the side chambers? You used the bridge to pass through the wall and you could see the game designer's name in a hidden chamber.
The easter egg is the biggest reason Adventure is my favorite game for the 2600. I must've spent a hundred hours just replaying the game and counting the easter egg screen as a requirement of completion. It's a wonderful piece of trivia.
That superman game remains the best superman game of all time which is really really sad.
😂 sad but true
Great video, thanks for making and posting!
Excellent vid, looking forward to pt. 2 - and yeah, Solaris is an absolute belter. :)
Thanks!
The great thing about tank and space invaders were simply the fact that there were like 30 versions of the game tank to play, and nearly 128 for the space invaders title. You had to hold select and new game down at same time to fast forward through versions.the fact I still remember this 45 years later tells you the impact. Surround was a good one with multiple versions too. So despite the games having such low memory on the carts, they made the best of it and then through in many many variants to have fun with. Want invisible tanks. Got that. Want bullets to bounce? Got it. Bulges to pass through barriers? Got it. And on and on.
Okay, where is Galaxian? That game had the same formation as the arcade, full color sprites, and the diving attack enemies use with a bonus if you kill the escort ships before the "boss" ship.
The 2600jr was a huge success in Eastern Germany after the wall collapsed because it was offered cheaply in mail order catalogues alongside cheap games released under the own brands of the catalogues. These were mostly bootlegs and ROM hacks of older games with a quirky German title.
However I fondly remember Solaris. I never had it but often borrowed it from a friend at school. I play it from time to time up until today, it has aged well.
Magnificent wee machine. I look forward to a part 2 in the future. :)
Solaris graphics were incredible. Pretty much the Crysis of the 80s
Indeed. _Solaris_ rivals NES games with its graphics and depth.
Used to love Solars when I was a kid growing up in the 90s, despite it coming out before I was born
@@reillywalker195 YES!
Solaris did not come out until 1986 though which was basically after the console was dead
Except that Crysis was famous for being very demanding and requiring very powerful hardware for its time, whereas Solaris was working with a console essentially of the previous generation that was astonishingly *primitive* for its time. Neubauer's original Star Raiders had been written for more powerful hardware, 7 years earlier.
I got the redesigned 2600 as a Christmas present in either 1987 or 1988...I can't remember which. One cartridge I got with it was "Solaris." It was damned impressive for the Atari 2600.
Unfortunately, I also got "E.T." and "Journey Escape."
Don't stop believing
I got both Pitfall II and Enduro for my birthday in '84. Such great games. I think Enduro was sampled in Let Me Be Your Fantasy, around the 5:00 mark
Damn, think you're right, that's a weird bit of trivia!
Nice one! You really showed some stunning titles here! Just needed Bobby Is Going Home in there :D.
Thanks! More to come on the 2600, so keep watching.
Excellent video, 2600 games really did evolve quite far.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Superman on the 2600 is so nostalgic for me ...and it was a fantastic game
I don’t know why, but I always loved the terrible graphics of the Atari 2600 for some reason, I don’t know, they just have a certain charm to them
I did too. Both the looks and sounds were so different from reality that it felt like a strange dream world.
Loved how over time the programmers figure out work arounds and ways of doing things the original makers never dreamt of.
Made programmers push more and more to create some outstanding for the time graphics
Solaris was my proper introduction to space adventure gaming before I discovered Starflight on my Aunt & Uncles 286 PC .
Starflight was like the awesomest game though...the Sega Genesis port of it was pretty good too, and released by EA a few years later (1993 I think). Wish a modern version of that would come around-and not suck.
What about Montezuma’s Revenge? I really liked that game back in the day. The graphics were amazing and it was a fun game.
Here is my list for games that pushed limits for atari 2600. Enduro, Pole Position, River Raid, Pitfall, California Games, Double Dragon, Hero, Popeye, Dig Dug, Defender, Donkey Kong. Battlezone
Donkey Kong? Loved it, but was very basic
Computer journalism used to be a thing, back in the 80s. Pause at 14:46 to read an exciting account of Atari just as Jack Tramiel took over.
From what little I understand, it seems like _every_ 2600 game pushes that machine's limits.
The up'y down'y game? I have never heard it called that before...I like it as it has an almost improvisation to it. I have only ever known this type of game to be called a platformer. The reason for this is likely when I started gaming...which was essentially in 85' with the Nes and 86' for the Master System.
My fave was Space Pilot(?)... dueling space ships, with gravity no less. Hours and hours on that one.
With the sun in the middle which makes gravity and also screen looping or edge bouncing(so many different game variations on those older games) yeah...too bad i couldn't coax my lil' bro to play me tho
Show of hands, who made the appropriate sound effect when the cowboy got hit in Gunslinger / Outlaw at 1:13?
*Boow*
Pitfall 2 blew me away when I was a kid. It had so much more to it than any of the other games out at that time.( for atari, anyway ) It was the first time I actually felt like I was exploring a video game world, it was absolutely gigantic compared to the other games I had played up until that point. I guess I got some exploration out of my first few games of Adventure, but it wasn't very long before that map was permanently etched into my mind.
Very impressive video again, love the technical info. Space Invaders: I saw an interview where it was described how the Atari gang were astounded at what the programmer had managed to do (Rick Maurer). An epic conversion!
Loving these, thanks for making lockdown a bit more bearable 👍👍👍👍
Fantastic Video, very very compliments
You have a really creative array of nicknames for the 2600.
16:07 what's the music here? it's not any of the ones you listed :(
I like this history style of video, rather then the normal list style you normally do. Excellent work mate
Thanks! I'm glad you liked the history part, I really wanted to get that across, the 2600 is so fascinating as it was such a pioneer in the gaming world.
@@Sharopolis it truly is iconic
Great video! I think you should do a top 30 or something and show 30 seconds of each game so everyone gets the gist.
That's a good idea!
Another wild game that came out in the early 80s before the Atari 2600 was re-released.
BEAMRIDER! good game!
That was a phenomenal tetrapod analogy, very well done there.
I'm 49 yrs. old and I had the SEAR'S version TELE GASMES and it was the same thing as the ATARI . I owned E.T. the game and a bunch of others Q-bert , Phoenix .…
Over here in Sweden, the Atari 8-bits were put in the lot with the x-in-1 games you mention, and called curiously, *hockey games* (although they had ping-pong and tennis and we loved those sports as well). Considering cartridges to replace some hardwired circuitry perhaps wrongly so, and perhaps rightly so at least for most game titles. Maybe if the best games (which basically means Activision titles) had made it here early, it would have been a great hit?
Pitfall II, H.E.R.O., and River Raid did make it here on mainly the C64 along with many newer enticing game ideas, although I remember the first two fondly from the Apple II - but not many had access to such early US computers here I think, or at least not in the home. I think those 3 game ideas have held up well, though flip-screen insta-kill and memorization of maps (or on-paper mapping of them) began to feel very old by 1985-6.
I think Atari 8-bit had the right vision though, and they did make proper 8-bit computers, and even more, they went on to Atari Games on arcade, which was an absolute powerhouse, dominating the market with with so much innovative hardware and most of all, novel and fun, addictive game ideas that are absolute classics and gems.
Back then I had a vectrex (an excellent console in its own right) and my cousins had a vcs. I really was jealous. Color graphics, amazing games such as Toutankhamon ... I spent much more time at their place than playing with my vectrex lol.
I started with the 2600 then moved on to the 800 computer. I would always LOL when I saw that Atari Age magazine with new 2600 games.
Ultima games were still based on the map pixels, not on object, so GREDITOR was born. With a listing that stretched around the house, a friend of mine and I wrote a sophisticated graphics editor that could allow you to edit any part of the game as a picture. Thus, you could blank out the fire walls, and set up bridges, as you wished. It was fast, and did what things like Mac's Fullpaint would do almost a decade later. It ran on an 800.
I loved the video, this gives me a good idea on what to get
Glad to be of service!
Really nice list and I hoped to see Solaris on this. Was not disappointed. :D
I also would say that California Games, Tunnel Runner and Escape from the Mind Master are games that pushed the limits of the Atari 2600, but I guess the latter would be cheating as you need the Starpath Supercharger add-on cartridge.
I had Solaris and always liked it but never pushed far in it. It took me eventually playing it on an emulator and saving states along the way, with the help of a map for me to finally complete it. Even with those advantages it was still a challenge!
Solaris was my first ever game I had and I thought that was a 2600 standard, but no.
Wow... I could just imagine your stunning disappointment. I grew up with the chunky mono-color sprites, so colorful games like Pitfall II were a real treat. Solaris was on a whole other level. If I started with that, I would have thought the other carts were broken or something. LOL
Great book about the 2600 called Chasing the Beam
Racing the Beam.
Cosmic Ark, Jungle Hunt and Private Eye
Back in the day (get off of my lawn!), we didn't call it the VCS or 2600. We just called it Atari, just like almost a decade later people said Nintendo instead of NES.
There were a lot of "screen exploring" games that used the Adventure style. Superman, Pitfall, Haunted House, Raiders of the Lost Ark, H.E.R.O., and yes E.T. were all using the same idea. And no, E.T. did not cause the video game crash of 1983.
But your examples only scratch the surface of how games were developed to "push the limits". A glaring example is Yar's Revenge, perhaps the greatest game on the console. Everyone knows about Activision's Pitfall and River Raid but few mention StarMaster, a fantastic title which was like a lite version of Phaser Patrol.
Phaser Patrol? Yes! The initial packed in release with the Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger that added a whopping 6k additional RAM for the Atari. And it worked brilliantly! Yes, the games were released on cassette tapes and you needed a tape player.....but just about every "cool kid" had a Sony Walkman or knockoff. The huge Supercharger cartridge went into the Atari slot, plug the unit into the headphone jack on your tape player, push play, and voila! Instant minds blown of what was capable on the Atari at the time. I only had Phaser Patrol and Dragonstomper but what a great early gaming experience!
Think of it this way....the Supercharger was the father of the Nintendo FX chip, pushing the limits of machine and man! Sorry, I had to get a Red Barchetta reference in there somehow.
The Supercharger will feature in an upcoming video!
Escape from the Mind Master was a with it's 3D mazes was really a limit pusher to me.
Sounds more like the 32X or the Famicom Disk System than SuperFX. Pretty cool device!
@@animatsuri : I'd still like to play that game! Anything "3D" at the time was extremely cool. I loved Wizardry on the Apple II and perhaps one of my favorite games of all time is AD&D Treasure of Tarmin (later named Minotaur) on the Intellivision.
@@wojciechmuras553 : Yes, those are better examples than the SuperFX....but we get the point. It's a really great add-on that is very rare these days. But cassettes are a horrible medium for data!
One game I'd definitely add to the list (as boring as it may sound), Video Chess.
Sure, doesn't look like much, but developing a functional Chess AI that works with 128 bytes of RAM (many of which are needed to display graphics too)
And of course, being able to display 8 chess pieces on a row is also something, that needs some clever tricks. No matter how "unexciting" it might look nowadays.
I would agree that Video Chess pushed the limits of the "standard" machine like little others. Bank switching was in fact designed for it but eventually they managed to stay in the 4k standard ROM!
@@347573 Is that the game that also invented the "venetian blind" sprites where it would save CPU cycles by drawing only even/odd lines?
I've been wanting to do a video about this for years...Solaris is definitely one of the ones on my list, and I own it too! One of my favs, granted by the time it came out the 8 bit generation had taken over.
I got a six-switcher as a kid back in 1979. It was the culmination of 3 years of birthday money, odd jobs and grandma kicking in the last $20 and, d@mn, was it worth it!.
So, being of 'that' age I have been around forever. Played in the local arcade also spent some money at the local, got a few PET's available by the hour club, obviously on a Saturday. I guess around 1979 I demanded a pong machine which I remember playing solo!!
For me, the 2600 with Invaders, Tank Battle and Missile Command was purchased at the local Comet/Rumbelows. This lasted until I started work in late 1982, when I signed up in Boots for a Spectrum, to play Sabre Wulf. Sold that for a C64, then Amiga 500+, a 1200 followed by a PlayStation 1. The rest is history.
Is that Grand Prix Legends in your profile pic? Great game.
@@C.I... Good spot, yes it is. Spent years playing it, on and offline.
It truly was an awesome system, which I still enjoy today. Like another posted before me, it felt almost magical.
Pitfall II and Solaris really pushed the limits for sure. Couldn’t believe how much was crammed into those games when I was a kid. I’d also include Secret Quest. I think it was mostly overlooked, since it came out when the NES had already been the king of the hill for a few years (and it wasn’t much longer until the 16 bit era blew up), and most gamers just weren’t paying attention to Atari by that point. I picked it up for cheap at a Big Lots sometime in the early 90s without ever hearing of it before, and I was hooked.
I always thought it basic compared to the arcade but this video gives new perspective.
It's only fitting that one's of the most impressive Atari 2600 games is a space shooter. :)
Pitfall was incredible, also River Raid. The latter was so incredibly polished; the scrolling, the inertia of your plane when banking, the colours and sprites - all topped off with perfect gameplay that's still so much fun today, I loved Defender, but on a technical level Stargate impresses me very much also; to manage a playable Defender II that resembles the arcade, that's very cool.
Kaboom and Yars revenge and Pitfall were favorites after pitfal was conqured months after buying.
Adventure made a helix out of the memory to create those wonderful maps in just 4k. Warren was brilliant.
Holy crap! I think Solaris is the game from my childhood that I've been trying to remember/locate for decades! Not 100% but 99% sure.
Ha, I didn't know Star Raiders was made by the same guy as Solaris.
Those are my two favorite Atari 2600 games.
Adventure, Asteroids, and Demon Attack are pretty great too.
I seem to remember liking Robotank better than the 2600 Battlezone, Battlezone being my favorite Atari arcade game.
Still play Battlezone religiously.
Battlezone was great, but it could have been so much better in spite of the limitations imo...Star Raiders was fun when you tried to conserve energy and played on hardest mode, only putting shields & computer up when needed....then when stuff gets damaged & your ship is shaking and 1 of your torpedo tubes is gone & the other is damaged & the targetting computer flickers cuz your ship is on it's last leg....omg, the intensity it's like The Enterprise vs The Reliant in the Nebula in Star Trek II...so dramatic, and then your shields go down and you explode in all Atari blipping glory!
I fondly remember Pitfall 1 & 2, that I played endlessly with my mother and my sister.
We actually drew maps for both to be able to get all treasures. The 20 minute time limit on 1 was brutal, and the only way to beat 2 with a perfect score was to NEVER get hit by an enemy, as that would transport you back to the latest save point, while substracting points from your score along the way.
I'll never forget the night my mom beat the game with a perfect score after weeks and weeks of trying.
You, sir, are a poet of pixelated pastures. A bard of the bytes. A retro rhapsodist, nimbly burning words into the CRT of the mind.
Thank you kind sir. Sounds like you have the soul of a poet yourself!
My Opinion: Moon Patrol, River Raid 2, BeamRaider and SOLARIS!
Could you explain in Space Invaders why the barriers disappear or why there is a double shot reset glitch?
I *think* the barriers disappear just because the screen is a bit squashed and things run out of space, I don't think it's a glitch.
The double shot reset is a glitch I understand, this thread on Atari Age is the best info I could find.
atariage.com/forums/topic/77886-space-invaders-double-shots-bug-or-intentional/
I was going to put this in the video, but I struggled to find good information about it!
I remember when I parents bought a 2600 and Defender, in Minot North Dakota (we are from Canada). And my big brother played it and played it. We still have that atari.
I put HOURS in my Atari Space Invaders. :) It was the bees knees to my 10 year old self. :)
One of the most fun of games on the 2600 for me was Empire Strikes Back, it was pretty impressive.
I like them all except Superman, because it is difficult and uneasy to understand if played for the first time like E.T. I rather choose Phoenix, River Raid, Maze Craze, Miss PacMan, and Enduro.
Montezuma's Revenge and Kung-fu Master look better than some early NES games. Incredible stuff.
Great video. Try Radar Lock. Think Afterburner 2600 with pretty much all the features of the arcade, in 2600 form of course.
Thanks for the tip!
I was playing mine up until around 1986, but back in the 70s and early 80s, you'd not really play a game for hours on end, it was just a bit of a distraction. I actually had far more "adventure" when I read fighting fantasy books. It wasn't until 1990 when I had both a 286 PC and an Atari ST that I got completely hooked on games.
I had an xe130 as a kid. We had a box full of disks...most were cracked games. Boulderdash, pharoahs curse, jumpman jr...I've been a game addict ever since.
Adventure and Yar's Revenge were the first two games I've ever played. Good memories.
Space invaders is still great. 👾
ESPECIALLY the 2600 version!
Even after all these years. Almost a perfect game that will be around for centuries. Seriously. Like chess or checkers, its timeless.
@@markstahl1464 Hold down Reset when you turn the Atari on, with Space Invaders in, and you can have double shots on the screen. Of course, you start instantly, so better be quick on the mark there.
@@nowthatsjustducky ha! I remember that! Do you remember the other cheats/easter eggs on games like Combat, Yars Revenge and Adventure?
Pitfall II is mentioned as having the first coprocessor on a cartridge. Did any of the other Atari 2600 games add processing power like that?
I used to love pitfall
Slightly off topic but Defender on the 5200 was amazing, I played that for hours aha hours.
Check out my last video about the Atari 8-bit family, basically the same hardware as the 5200!
Unpopular opinion, Defender is best on the GBC.
Didn't your controllers break after a couple hours though?
Space shuttle journey into space was absolutely amazing. I read where the game actually changed emergency procedures on the real shuttle
Check out the book "Racing the Beam (The Atari Video Computer System)." It's a fantastic book detailing the development and creation of six games while talking about many, many others. Solaris is an incredible game on the hardware and I'd love to see a detailed breakdown of its creation from the programmer.
I read that book when I was researching this vid, it really is good.
"Created by Warren G. Robinett" ... good times, indeed.
I remember buying Solaris in lieu of a ‘Cy-Kill’ (Gobots) model that I had saved for for weeks. It’s still one of my favorites.
The pinball game Midnight Magic REALLY pushed the limits of the system too.
SOLARIS was the first game that I truly loved to play !