*26* Mind Blowing Atari 2600 Games!!! 

Thanks for taking the time to watch the video! Check these out too! Homebrews for Atari 2600 Episode 3!: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JDrxbgzC6Uw.html Atari 2600+ Review: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VKUQiImtRws.html 5 Minute History: The Atari 2600 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H8vaXOKJxKQ.html

The Imagic games really knocked my socks off as a kid. Cosmic Ark, Atlantis, and Riddle of the Sphinx all sparked my imagination and impressed me technically.

Excellent list. A large part of the 2600's appeal, even to this day, is seeing how far the technically limited capabilities of the original hardware can be pushed.

Star Wars arcade for the 2600 was a mind blowing game , I never knew it existed and I found a copy of it at a yard sale , it is awesome.

I quite liked the 2600 port of KLAX. The idea of porting a Arcade game from 1990 to a console from 1977 is insane. Still plays well and the rotation effect on the blocks is well done.

Oh, how I loved Adventure! I played it for days...not sure why now lol! Such good memories, ty! 👍👍

Combat blew my mind. Blasting a tank so hard across the battlefield boundaries and have it appear on the opposite side of the TV screen was the most powerful thing I've seen on Atari 2600.

What has always impressed me about the VCS is the use of color. Absolutely incredible. Thanks for the video. ❤❤❤❤

I still frequently play, and am STILL impressed by Tunnel Runner. It was a favorite of mine in the 80's. A favorite of mine today.

Phoenix was one of my favorite games in the arcade. just loved it

Good selecetion. I'd include Pac Man Jr. in a favourites list. It's a nice conversion of the arcade and has big vertically scrolling mazes.

More games to add to my 'to buy' list!

I had no idea the 2600 was capable of this. Impressive.

Awesome video, thanks for sharing your passion and enthusiasm Greg !

Adventure is the original Zelda. As for most impressive I think Jr. Pacman is up there were the smooth scrolling and different music at the start of each level (aside from level 2 for some reason). Its a shame Atari didnt have a 2 buttom controller for games like Double Dragon, Kung Fu, or the later sports releases. Good video👍

Very cool and surprising list! Thank you! ❤

Omega Race was a very good port worthy of mention here. It required a peripheral that slid over the joystick and daisy chained to the controller jack. It added a second button to fire your weapon. The joystick button was used for thrust to move the space ship.

Great list. And they are games from the 80s, made with the tools from that time. 2600 is so unique because the hardware is super limited by at same time the lack of video memory let the software do all sort of tricks.

What a good compilation. Instant subscribed to this channel!

Just a point of correction. Escape From the Mind Master was not the pack-in game for the Starpath Supercharger. In fact, when the Supercharger was released, it was listed as a "Coming Soon" title for future release. PHASER PATROL came packaged with all Superchargers.

What amazes me with Tapper is that the “clients” have all different colors (3) I don’t know how it’s done?

Adventure also had the pleasure of being the first game with an Easter egg.

Great selections! Love the pace too.

I bought a SuperCharger back in the day and it came with Phaser Patrol...which I loved.

Thanks greg! 1st time seeing alot of these games! Didnt know the 2600 can really pump out some graphical games under the right devs!

Correction to the Supercharger segment; Phaser Patrol was the game included with the Supercharger not Escape from the Mind Master which was a stand alone release, number 5 in the series.

Nice video! I love that you included my most favorite version of Frogger!

This is a good video. I grew up with the 2600 since the beginning. Many of these I’ve never seen. The Super Charger is completely new also. Very informative. Well done.

The thing I love about late era games for most of these systems (even the NES) is that you can see what 6, 7 years of working with the console and figuring out the back to front tricks of it can achieve. The 2600 was designed as you say to play very simple games with simple abstract graphics. The NES's early titles are often just as rough looking, relatively speaking. But get to those late era games, and the programmers were performing miracles with this technology, because they'd gotten the handle on the ins and outs and how to do neat graphical tricks within the meager memory allowed.

Great video, Greg!

dude, what a great video. thanks.

One more thing of tunnel runner . The sound as you move through. Louder when closer adds to the environment. Great game

Honestly the fact that people are able to push the 2600 to it’s limits even in the home brew market is great Even so out of all of the Atari consoles, the 2600 is my personal favorite

Nice subject! I think you've covered most of the bases, too. I'd suggest Midnight Magic as another game that defies expectations on the 2600. The Atari 2600 Jr. ads used to show it in direct comparison to Video Pinball, and the gap in visual quality is immense.

Great video thank you

I love videos like this! Nice work, Greg! It’s cool to see developers pushing the hardware to its limits.

Great video

Moon patrol was probably the first that blew my mind and of them all sword quest blew me away the most with the bright colors and variety of challenges. Honestly surprised you did not mention sword quest

Back then, all of them. My little mind had just played pong consoles back then so just the ability to plug and unplug other games was enough at first.

Keep up the good work greg! U deserve more subs! Love your content!

Not surprised Solaris made the list. It's a masterclass of 2600 programming, and by one guy! Part of the reason it stands out is that Neubauer continued developing it on his own for years after the US video game market crash. Atari later picked it up for their 2600 relaunch lineup. Solaris could technically qualify as a "homebrew" game, as most of the development wasn't under a commercial contract. The level of refinement is more of what you'd see in such a passion project. Publisher games churned out back in the day didn't get that level of development work. It's also one of the few Atari published games that gave developer credits.

I remember buying Solaris new and been blown away by the gameplay. Definitely my favourite Atari 2600 game

great video

Millipede is amazing

I still pick up Solaris from time to time when I want starship fighting action. I love the stages where you rescue astronauts. It makes the game all the more immersive.

Nailed it dude.

Montezuma's Revenge on C-64 was so awesome, and I still love it to this day. I'll check out the Atari 2600 port too.

Solaris is definitely the most amazing game released during the 2600's lifespan. Obviously once you start considering homebrew, the story changes, but even then, Solaris would almost certainly remain the most amazing original IP. All of the truly mind blowing homebrew games are ports of arcade games. And as far as that goes, while there's a good half dozen solid contenders, my vote will forever go to Mappy. When you see that game in action, and simultaneously understand that the VCS has 5 sprites and was designed to last for 3 years on games like Tank and Pong, it's just astounding.

I had a c64 but went round a neighbors house who was playing pitfall 2. Up into that point I pitied those Atari owners. But I was amazed by pitfall and was suddenly envious. It was awe inspiring the amount of depth and secrets that seemed to stream out of that game. It wasn’t until Mario on the NES that I had that feeling again.

Pitch perfect 2600 top game tech video. Best demo re how vastly far ahead the 2600 video chip hardware was when released in 1977. The only thing holding back the 2600 was Rom, ram limits, as demonstrated by the Supercharger, later 8K+ carts and much later homebrews. Given more rom, ram and perhaps other (sound, etc) chips as costs came down over the 80s, 90s, the 2600s games could have easily met or bested nes games, though post 92 the genesis and snes were tops in the us

Late stage 2600 games like Xenophobia, Double Dragon & Ikari Warriors are incredible frats of programming! It's also surprising anyone was bothering to put that kind of effort into a 2600 game at the time! The 7800 Master System & NES were out by the time of the 2600 Jr it's strange that there was enough of an audience for 2600 games at the time to justify such titles. So even if some are not that good I'm glad they exist to show what the 2600 could do!

Commando, WOW

For jungle hunt I think the green front foliage is just the background. Hence the low resolution. The other foliage is 2 sprites multiplied x3 = 6 The wines is the two missiles and ball repositioned every scanline. That is why you see one wine having the same colors as the player as those two objects share the same color

I'm not sure why you are impressed with the scrolling in Ikari Warriors. River Raid had endless scrolling seven years earlier.

Excellent video had fun watching it and it brought me back to the days. I grabbed my Atari and started playing thanks

I picked up a Starpath Supercharger on clearance back in the '84 crash along with Suicide Mission and Escape from the Mind Master. They both melted my brain that the humble 2600 was capable of games like this. A few years ago I played the home-brew version of Donkey Kong Arcade and practically soiled myself with shock. Other than not having slanted girders on the first level, the game was as close as it could ever be on the 2600. And the home-brew port of Star Castle, a game that was thought to be impossible on the 2600 (their approximation of the game style back in the day turned into Yar's Revenge) but some crazy programmer took on the challenge.

Great video and lineup of mind blowing games for the 2600. Solaris reminds me a bit of Mad Planets arcade. When you look at the first Pacman version that was dog crap (I know the programmer was rushed to make it), but these games show how much better it could have been.

Great video. I've got a atari classic gold and one game yhat is addictive is save mary. Simple but fun.

Phaser Patrol was the Supercharger's pack-in game, and the Supercharger had 6K RAM. Escape From The Mindmaster was bigger than 6K but that's through multi-loads, loading levels in one at a time from tape.

I remember playing some of these games when I was a kid!

David Crane put an extra chip on the PCB for Pitfall II. It was called the Display Processor Chip, but it also provided 3-channel sound.

I'm still thankful for the salesman who told me to either get a C64 or wait for the NES. The video game market crash of '83 did not really happen here in Germany.

Comparing these games to the ones that came out in 77,78,79 you would think its a different game console. I didnt own most of these games. I did have Space Invaders which was definitely one that i played alot along with Demon Attack, Atlantis and Pitfall... but the last game i ever got for the system was Pitfall 2 in 1984. My mind was blown by the size of it and the music. That was my favorite game by far. Made me wonder why so many of my other games had to look so bad, but i did have many hours of enjoyment on Atari. In 1985 i got a C-64 and from that point on i got the majority of my games as pirated copies, which was nice. One of my favorite games for C64 was Montezuma's Revenge and many years later i was shocked to find out there was a 2600 version which actually looked pretty close to the C64 graphics. Very impressive. I still own my original 4 switch woody and in the last ten years i started collecting for it.... picking up alot of games i never owned and many i never knew about. I have an appreciation for the Atari as an important piece of video game console history and its also interesting to see how some developers chose to push the limits of graphics and gameplay while others made no effort at all and just wanted to make a quick buck. Lol. I try to collect the gems.

Kung Fu Master was probably using what they called "sprite multiplexing" - which I don't understand too well but I guess you could use the same sprite multiple times in multiple locations, and just change the color -- I think it's just before the scanning (electron) gun reach that part of the image.

Adventure is a game i play all the time on an emulator. Something I didn't realizer until I was an adult was that the red dragon will actually chase the bat if the bat is holding the white key. I'm sure the other dragons would do this if they could keep up. He will only divert to kill you when he ends up in your screen. I find this quite hilarious.

4:12 this is some backrooms type of stuff, omg! And that other maze game later. 5:28 Admiral, we have found the nuclear wessel...and Admiral, it is the Enterprise. 😁 Moon Patrol was really good, I was amazed that an Atari game could have actual background music, and you could switch it on or off! Demon Attack, Phoenix, Star Raiders, Star Master, and of course Solaris especially blew my mind as far as how impressive they looked when I first played them. The layered background of Jungle Hunt impressed me as well. Vanguard was great too, Battlezone, Enduro, and Fatal Run. Also, a little known educational game called Word Zapper looks and sounds really good for a 2600 game. TagScan was pretty nifty as well, for a paddle controller game. I always tried to find the obscure and technically high quality games whenever shopping for Atari games at thrift stores back in the 1990s.

I missed Enduro in the list. Colorful, playable and with a huge amount of different track and light conditions.

As an old gamer i recog. Some of these games, i had no idea the awesome game i missed. I go hunting for your game list and a 2600 console...however, id settle for a goog emulator. Thankx for sharing bro, really. I need these lil happy things in my lif tahnk you so much❤

Nice list! For me the first one that really impressed me for the graphics was Cosmic Ark.

I played so much Space Shuttle. It was incredibly immersive.

superb games .I like your review it's close to the truth .I think maybe all the atari 2600 games are fun because of the simplicity which makes the player able to focus on the game play while enjoying colorful solid objects in the background it's neat and enjoyable .

My all time favorite Atari game was megamania followed by kaboom.

Adventure even has a extra quest based on one invisible pixel, which lets you see a violation of Atari policy at the time.

Hab meine Konsole auch noch. Mit Yars Revenge, Phoenix, Moon Patrol, Labyrinth, Wüstenschlacht, Frogger, Phantom Panzer... Und ich war damit als Kind glücklich.

A huge part of the fascination for the 2600 comes in fact from these games: I still remember the day I played for the first time games like Solaris, Xenophobe or BMX Airmaster: I was kinda shocked! To the list, I would add Motorodeo (not so graphically impressive, but surprisingly fun), Road Runner (a kind of unique game), Stargate/Defender II (an almost-arcade perfect port), Realsports Boxing, Realsports Tennis, Realsports Volleyball, Tile Match Pro Wrestling, Klax. This last one could seem too simplistic, but it was the game to be last officially released by Atari for the 2600 and it perfectly captures the essence of the original arcade game. The 2600 was and is still is a lot of fun! The last commercial said "THE FUN IS BACK" but it was wrong, because "THE FUN IS ETERNAL" would have been more appropriated! 😎

Montezuma's Revenge - I had this and mapped out the first level, so that I knew where to go and what to do. Because it took so long to get through the first level, and then you had to start over when you lost all your lives, I never had the stamina to map out the second level. My grandmother used to play this game too, although I don't remember if she ever used my map and made it to the treasure room. I don't think she did. What I remember most is that whenever she was crossing one of the pits with the disappearing bridges, she would physically move the joystick up and to the side, like it was a motion controller as she ran across. Pitfall II - I eventually completed the C64 version of this. By the time I got to the end, I was sick to death of that music. It just keeps going, and going, and going. Tunnel Runner - My only complaint about this game is that they used the same image for both the front and back of the enemies. Not only does this make it impossible to immediately tell if an enemy is coming toward you, or going away from you, but it kind of spoils the otherwise great illusion of a first person perspective. Maybe it was done to save memory, although I would think that making an alternate, solid image for the back wouldn't have used up more than a few bytes.

I remember getting that space shuttle game at the discount bin at Zayres after the video game crash. I could never figure it out.

I am not sure if it was Atari 2600, but I had an Atari. Remember playing Indiana jones on it. I recognize some of the games on your list it was pretty cool to go back and remember some of these games that I had forgotten.

Ikari Warriors, Ikari means Fury in Japanese. Great list!

I think the 2600 gives you access to pure hardware

I would add California Games & Secret Quest to the list. CG has impressive graphics, multiple game play styles & opening screen music. SQ is a space game that is clearly trying to be a Zelda clone. Imagine the dungeon levels from Zelda 1, on the 2600 in space & that's about it. Rather complex game mechanics on the 2600.

Thanks for a great video! BTW, "Tank" is actually called "Combat." Also, the extreme flickering you're seeing on your Atari 2600 emulator doesn't happen to that extent on real Atari hardware. Millipede with the official Atari 2600 Trak-Ball in digital mode is also very playable. Too bad Trak-Ball analog was never implemented back then. Pitfall 2 has a hardware coprocessor chip that gives it the music and extra processing power.

I had Solaris. An amazing game. Now I play it on my Evercade.

believe Phaser Patrol was actually the pack-in game with the Supercharger unit...at least in every version ive seen/had.

I found this, about "Ikari": What is Ikari power? Wrath State | Dragon Universe Wiki | Fandom The Wrath State (怒りの状態, Ikari no Jōtai) is a transformation unique to the Saiyan Broly. Despite lacking a tail, Broly is able to use the power of the Great Monkey Transformation in his human form by tapping into this transformation when he loses control of his anger.

Double Dragon takes over 50 minutes of the same repetitive actions, it gets very mind blowing.

Loved Phoenix still do.

I played some of these games on the 800 XL, if the respective updated versions were available there, but later in my life, thanks to emulators, I gave the 2600 a try - and I admit, I was not disappointed. At all. Some of those games really pushed the limits of what was possible back then. BTW if I recall correctly, Pitfall 2 had an extra POKEY chip in the cartridge.

i loved HERO. Played it on my friend's Vic-20, i think.

Space Battle and Space Attack best 2600 games.

MYou can actually have quite a few different. I think it’s 2 colors for the background. Which the ball shares. And then 1 color for player 1 and missile 1 and 1 color for player 2 missile 2 = 5 colors on one line. So the player is using player q while the enemies is multiplied versions of player 1 with same data but set to different colors Also really neat that they solved smooth x scrolling as what is scrolling is actually just sprites. But come on “arguably” it does not come even close to the NES version. Still for a VCS games it looks amazing

Great list, I can see why you chose them. here are some games I would add to the list or at least get honorable mentions. Defender II (Stargate) by Atari. in my opinion this is the best arcade port for the console, above all. leaps & bounds over the original Defender. Moonsweeper by Imagic, almost identical gameplay as Solaris. Jaw Breaker by Tigervision. a really nice looking & fun to play Pac-Man style game. Ms. Pac-Man by Atari. another well done arcade port. this one redeems the disastrous original Pac-Man. Laser Blast, this one flips the script on Space Invaders as you are now the attacking aliens, solid early Activision title. Ice Hockey - Activision. early sports titles on the 2600 were beyond terrible, but, this one broke the mold, good looking & fun to play. There are probably more games that could be added, but, these are the ones I owned & had fun playing back in the day.

Didn't have a lot of games for this but my favourites were Centipede and Empire Strikes Back.

River Raid 2 is on my ebay bucket-list 😊

Talking about Double Dragon "... and it's a tough game! I'm sure somebody out there has beaten it." (puts my hand up). First game I ever finished. My sister and I co-op'd through it, somehow, when we were like 9 and 7. It was hard.

I used to own 56 (or 58) Atari Games and my friend owned almost as many with about half of his games not matching up with mine. My other friends' games combined added up to maybe a hundred, again with half as much not matching mine. I also spent Saturdays at the mall "trying out" a variety of Atari games. In all I must have played at least a couple of hundred Atari games. Only one or two were from this list and many from this list I never even heard of.

The video misses the really mind blowing part about Battle Zone - it's doing a pretty good job of modeling 3D - like you can hear a tank fire off screen, throw it in reverse, and watch the shell pass in front of you! Compare that to Robot Tank's idea of "stop looking at the bullet and it won't hit you", and you realize how smart it is.

The “post crash” VCS library is fantastic, but sadly almost completely ignored by the retro gaming community.

Space Invaders was a system seller. Most people didn't give half a shit about the 2600 prior to its release.

Cool video showcase! Just one comment, technically, the 2600 does not display sprites or tiled backgrounds as the video seems to imply.