I noticed that the coordinates on your shirt are for Alamogordo, the site of the landfill. I have been to Alamogordo twice the past two years passing through the area. I went to different places each time, White Sands one time and Lincoln NF the other, but both times I made sure I stopped at Pistachioland.
The Atari had 300 decnet games, unfortunately there were 420ish games made. So you could make a list of 120 Atari games to hate. With that said I nominate 007, Rampage (super disapointing that Activision made this one) and Word Zapper. Also shout our to Appollo our very own Dallas based Atari software company. There best game had to do with luggage. good video Thanks
Atari's meeting must have gone something like this: "Hey, this new Rubik's Cube thing is popular!" "Yes, but you can take it with you anywhere. We need a version that ties you to the TV and console instead."
the whole video i was waiting to see if you'd have I Want My Mommy. I bought this out of the $5 and Under bin at Kay Bee Toys in early 80s. Boy did I regret that.
The 2600 was a ton of fun and the sounds still take me back to great memories. However, there was some junk produced and some were a real waste of money. For me, Cosmic Swarm by CommaVid was the worst. Big ole' nasty chubby cartridge too - just a mess.
Good video! Unfortunately, I have about 6 of those worse 2600 titles that you mention. I so agree about the Data Age, games, they did make a couple of good ones in Frankenstein's Monster and Journey's Escape!
I feel ET’s legacy is due to it being one of the first highly anticipated games that wasn’t based on an arcade game. ET, while not great, was far from the worst available for the 2600.
Not too hard to find worse games than ET...ET was never that bad to begin with (and you gotta give Warshaw some credit for doing it in 5, and not half-assing it per se). Whatever game that happened to be big during the crash would be the placeholder for ET in 83. The lore/half-truth of it being part of a landfill makes for fun history though.
My brother got ET for Christmas when it came out. We played it for a short while, kept falling, and gave up. Our other games were pick up and play titles so it never occurred to us to read the manual. I may try to play that game again. As for worse games, the one that really stands is Fire Fly. It really is a bad game. I absolutely hated the sound of it. Another game that I would put on the list is Laser Blast. It is extremely repetitive. Middle ship....left ship....right ship......wash, rinse, and repeat. The last time I played it, I remember using that same combination for about an hour. Needless to say I had enough points to get the patch....
Oh man! I'm not alone! I just posted about Laser Blast for the same reasons! Nice looking game, but a real dud from Activision of all companies! Worst game I ever played from them.
I feel Pac-Man for the 2600 is terrible. It absolutely destroys the feel of the arcade and the look. I know arcade ports are not great on the 2600 bit Pac-Man takes the title for being the worst port and I feel this was a big part of the crash.
I stood in line for like 2.5 hours at Caldor the day that game released to get my copy. lol Yeah, it was a definite disappointment when I got it home and played it... but I'll be damned if I didn't still get blisters playing the hell out of it! lol I was going to get my money's worth! ;-)
I'm happy that of all the games mentioned here, I only had to suffer through Starship. The version of Miner 2049er that I had 100 or so years back might've been for the Atari 800 computer, and that one was (at the time) pretty good. Never saw the 2600 version, and I'm sorry to hear it was that bad. LOL Cheers, Brett!
ET is fine but it is among the worst mainstream Atari games, these are all more obscure titles that the average gamer haven't heard of so it makes sense why ET gets a bad rep even if it's not exactly deserved.
E.T. is just a game that shouldn't have existed. What's a film that lends itself more even more poorly to a video game adaptation, anyway? Nixon/Frost? A River Runs Through It? Barton Fink? E.T. was a bad game, because it had to be in order for it to be relevant to the movie at all.
Laser Blast... besides being an Activision game that actually looks great... and seems fun, at first... man, that game gets repetitive and old quickly. You eventually just memorize a pattern and you can never die. I legit could get into a groove on this game and then close my eyes and play it without looking at the screen and clear endless stages. Has to be one of the worst Activision titles, at least. And yeah... I actually had a pretty good time with E.T. People just needed to read the manual. The pixel-collision issue with the pits was a genuine problem, but when you got used to the game, you just sort of got good at avoiding the pits. lol There is a "fixed" ROM floating around that remedies that issue. Even HSW said that he wished he had time to rectify that issue when he first programmed it. Maybe it wouldn't be so hated if that was the case.
Chase the Chuckwagon and the FIVE Atari Porn Games are Worse than E.T. Also i hated the Game Porkys for the Atari 2600, i had it as a kid and hated it. Porkys was based on the 1980s film that was also pretty terrible.
Star Ship tried to do the scaling bit with the graphics, but it's very primitive compared to other games that came out later with scaling. I've got a good imagination, but I can't figure out what I'm doing in Star Ship. Yeah, having to start a level over is painful because of how slow he moves. It looks okay, but doesn't play so well. A game called I Want My Mommy?!? I don't mind short games, at least I get to see the end of the story, if the game has one. This one seems rather worthless. My wife is pretty good at E.T., especially if she uses the lower difficulty settings. I say that Raiders of the Lost Ark is worse than E.T. because, (maybe I'm the only one on Earth who can't do it) it is unplayable! I can't get Indy off the cool looking opening screen. It's a very big letdown after the cool box art, manual, and cartridge art, as well as hearing the theme song when you start the game, to try to move stick figure Indy around, only to find that he's already trapped right of the bat. Not even reading the manual, nor even looking up gameplay hints helps me. I traded it in. At least E.T. is playable once you put in a little effort into learning how.
Hey Brett. I just noticed you have a new book coming out… the sequel to your Top 100 best games. Amazon alerted me… it says it’s an August release. Is that accurate? I had no idea you were writing a sequel. Excellent stuff my friend.
I have played E.T. several times and it is not good but it is not that bad of a game. The only people who say it is the worst game have never played it. I have played and suffered through each of the games you have mentioned and these are some terrible games. Skeet Shoot is crap. Fire Fly is the worst game I have played on the 2600 and is the worst game I have ever played. You should have not played the "composition" from Fire Fly because it sounds so awful. Miner 2049er is one of my favorite games for the Colecovision and 5200 but I am not a fan of the 2600 version. I have seen a lot of bad cartridge labels but not that bad, labels that have been ripped up look better. You must have the worst condition copy of I Want My Mommy in the entire world. Games worse than ET that you did not mention: Swordquest Earthworld Swordquest Fireworld Swordquest Waterworld Karate Bugs Final Approach Double Dragon Basic Math Superman Flag Capture Starmaster Sneak N Peek All games by Mystique Plus a bunch that I did not mention.
Brett, how did you feel about the M-Network ports of some of the Intellivison games to the 2600? And, whose 2600 adaptor was better, Mattel's or Coleco's?
Miner 2049er on the Atari 800 contained some entertainment, although the graphics weren't great even at the time, but I think the VCS version was just too much of a stretch for that older machine.
It's real bad on VIC-20, too. Like, wow, if it was going to turn out like this, why even bother? (Weirdly, Mountain King and Donkey Kong were quite respectable on that format. I don't know, man.)
Brett, if you want yo salvage your writing carer you need to come harder on the Amico, because your videos are what pushed me yo invest $1000 and now its gone
Writing career seems to be doing fine, but I’m sorry to hear about the investment. I’m not a money guy and never really thought in investment terms. I was just excited about the reimagined Intellivision games and loved playing the system when I got the chance. I still hope a miracle happens and it comes out. But I’m certainly not counting on it, which is why I canceled my pre-order.
Sorry, I have to disagree. It was very easy, but it was 1980. Also, first Easter Egg in the history of games. If you want an RPG for Atari\ try DragonStomper by Starpath.
