Home run! This is probably the stable of games that I knew the LEAST about. MASH was my only cartridge that I own. But there are a couple more that I see now that I need to keep an eye out for. ThanksJon. Very informative and entertaining. 👍🏻👍🏻
The first 4 releases Turmoil, Fast Eddie, Worm War 1, and Deadly Duck were all released at the same time. The boxes are different from the remaining games. I believe they were programmed by Sirus before 20th Century Fox had their own programming company.
Fast Eddie has always been one of my personal favourites. It’s a shame it never got a PAL release.. Thank god that the 2600 is (kind of) region free lol
Oh, I've got stuff to say, all right! (Nothing confrontational, though.) Many of the games by 20th Century Fox were actually by a company named Sirius. Sirius was one of the biggest third party video game developers of its era, but 20th Century Fox was reluctant to pay them for their work, and as a result, Sirius was starved of revenue and went bankrupt. This theft of goods and services regrettably was a standard business practice in the 1980s... it's also how Commodore was able to make the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 so cheap. Order chips from a supplier, don't pay them for the product, KEEP ordering chips until the supplier goes out of business, buy what remains of the company after bankruptcy, forgive your own debt. Also! Alien was created by Dallas North. You may know him better as Douglas Neubauer, the creator of the Atari 2600's best game Solaris.
Back in 1981, 1982 (and maybe 1983) kids had Pac-Man fever so anything like that could intrigue kids. I never played _Aliens_ but heard it was a good clone, if you're content with 3 enemies. Of the clones, I now have _Lock 'n' Chase._ Somehow that avoids flicker and still has 4 enemies, perhaps by not having them on the same row at the same time.
I owned Alien, Fantastic Voyage and Beefsteak Tomatoes. My parents bought them for me at a discount from the Kaybee bargain bin during the crash sometime in '83. I spent many hours playing my Fox games. Not only were they fun and had good replay value but i also liked that they were based on actual sci-fi movies... sorta. You had to use your imagination a little bit with the 2600.
Little Andy never had any of these games, he was too busy playing Activision, Atari, M-Network, and IMAGIC games. But he did have a friend who had Mega Force and Andy played it a lot during sleep overs. Andy and his friend had a lot of fun playing that game so little Andy would have scored it higher.
I didn't discover Mega Force until a few years ago, as an adult. Still, I would score it higher. I mean, it's no Pitfall 2 or Jr. PacMan, but it is a very fun game for what it is. Among the Defender style games on the 2600, it's probably my third favorite--behind Stargate and Star Wars TESB and ahead of Chopper Command and any other game of that type.
MASH's operation minigame was kind of easy to cheese depending on game mode and difficulty switch settings. some of the more difficult shrapnel, while awarding higher points values, didn't give you as good of a return on points-per-second because of how long it took to maneuver them out of the body. So you quickly learned to triage each patient, registering that you got a deep one and deliberately pushing that block of pixels into the side wall as quick as possible to get the failbuzz and move on to the next patient, whom you hopefully have a better chance at saving quickly.
Turmoil is a phenomenal game. I love the insane pace of it. It’s honestly one of the most under appreciated shooters on the 2600. I’m glad to have Flash Gordon demystified. I can recall having seen the movie and trying (unsuccessfully) to understand what the game had to do with it. Great rankings! Personally, I would probably move Bank Heist up a bit. I really enjoyed the risk and reward of trying to bag all the banks you could manage before running off to the next unsuspecting town. 😊
Wow. Im 42 and have been playing Atari most of my life. My dad got one when i was a baby but i still havent heard of a few of these. Thats one thing i love about this system! There were just so many games for it or variations of games that even in 2023 im still learning about ones i didnt know existed!
Same here I'm 43 grew up with it and honestly pretty much all I play anymore is segas total war series and atari I can't stand call of duty or battlefield anymore way too much bullshit
I had Fast Eddie growing up. I learned that you could change the color of the level by using the color/ bw switch on the Atari. You simply press the switch to bw and the level color would cycle through random colors. Then you would press the switch up to color and it would stay that color.
I got the MASH game as a b-day gift and I got the edition that game with an Army green T-shirt wrapped up with the box! And I agree that Alien is the best game on that list...my child mind never looked at it as a Pac-Man clone.
So far I've only played Bank Heist, and I think your ranking is fair. I'd put it somewhere between C and B. I love maze games and this one has an interesting concept. Next I want to try Fantastic Voyage and Worm War I.
I've been looking forward to this one. While I haven't played too many of these I've been wanting to. try more of them out. And though you gave them low grades, M*A*S*H and MegaForce were two of my favorites as a kid. In fact I still have them and enjoy playing them now. Also worth noting, Earth Dies Screaming is Fox movie. Though nothing remotely like the game. I've seen it, and liked it, a few years ago.
Fantastic Voyage is one of the best shmups on 2600. I remember spending a lot of time playing Megaforce and Buck Rogers I found boring and strange, games that at the time were kind of obscure, like Frankenstein's Monster. One thing is for sure, the style of 20th Century Fox cartridges look very good on the shelf.
If I remember correctly, there was a contest for people to design the M.A.S.H. game, or maybe it was for a sequel to this one... I just remember my brother submitting an entry about Hawkeye killing enemies as a level... and even as a little kid I was thinking "Hawkeye didn't shoot anyone"
Haven't played any of these. They don't seem to come up very often in the UK. But something you can say is that these games perhaps deserve more love than they get. Graphics and the desire to make them more replayable seem impressive for the 2600 games of the time.
Aliens is kind of like a mashup of pac man and wizard of wor, looks fun, never played. We had fast eddie and turmoil on the 8 bit computer too iirc. Worm war 1 looks really fun too.
The only ones I remember playing were Alien and Beany Bopper. Alien was fun but I was expecting scares like the movie (11 year old kid, come on). Beany Bopper holds a special place because when it came out my little sister was born and we nicknamed her after the game. It has stuck to this day!! 🤣
Amazingly, my Atari 2600 game collection does not contain a single 20th Century Fox title. Alien and Turmoil both seem pretty easy to find on eBay, and they are not expensive, so I might need to track down copies of those.
I just don't see them that frequently in piles of old carts. I have hundreds upon hundreds of carts (mostly dupes) from purchasing so many lots, but maybe only have a half dozen Fox titles. It's weird! Both Alien & Turmoil are well worth owning. Thank you for watching! 😀
I used to play Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes with all the difficulty settings turned up so the enemies were fast and their shots were as wide as the sprayer. The wall building aspect made it different enough from other shooters I'd give the game a solid B, and it was one of the 2600 carts I still got a craving for in the NES/SNES era, but the limited amount of threats at a time keep it from being an unqualified classic.
Jon, I've been wondering why the slogan isn't something like "You have to grow up, but you don't have to get old." Being that the channel is called what it is, that would imply to me that you did actually have to grow up. Something for the philosophers to figure out maybe.
@@TheSlickMachine That's almost exactly it! I know a lot of people my age and younger who gave up on the things they loved from their childhoods as they got older. They chose to grow up along with growing older. I like to celebrate the things from my youth and never gave up on them - that's what I try to do with GenXGrownUp. 😀
Nice collection of games made by 20th Century Fox. Since these games were owned by Disney as 20th Century Studios, Atari 2600 had a decent library of games made by TCF. “Turmoil”, “Worm War 1”, “SpaceMaster X7” and “Alien” are the good ones. The company ran from 1982 until 1983, and they made many good games outside of its movie studio at the time.
We had a little Mom-and-Pop book store in town that would open and let you play games before you purchased. I still remember first playing Enduro there! Thanks for watching. 😀
There were video game magazines that rated or had recommendations for Atari games, but not too many kids got them. We weren't that savvy consumers, and many like me trusted if it was by Atari it would be good until it wasn't. Adults should have required us to playtest them first. I remember trying out and liking _Space Invaders_ and _Dodge 'Em_ when they came out. I did play a number of games at other kids' homes 1981-4, but didn't buy the 3rd-party ones from Activision and Imagic for myself until I grabbed everything I could at $1 each at the thrift store in the 1990s.
I never owned or played any of the 20th Century Fox Atari 2600 games, although I heard and saw pictures of them and even though Porky's was on my radar to watch as a kid !... it was never on my radar to play. This video DID kinda pique my interest in it though... Seems pretty OK actually. I'm sure that wouldn't last though. NOW... MASH, Alien and Megaforce... they would have been right up my alley back in the day and I remember really wanting to own them and talking about them with my friends who owned 2600s. And I completely agree with your ranking of Alien. It seems worthy of the ranking and title !
I still own Fast Eddie as a pirated cartridge called "Modern Knight". As far as I know (there's no dump on the internet for that version and my old 2600 doesn't want to be connected to my TV, so... meh, I'm kinda disappointed), it was exactly the same despite some changes in graphics. It's a mystery cartridge, and as far as I know today, it's quite unusual to find. In any case, it was one of my favourites back in the day. Some other personal stuff: - I always believed that "Alien" was a hack and not an official game 😄; - I always thought that "Earth Dies Creaming" could have been a great game, but it failed miserably; - I've always liked "Spacemaster X7" and today it's one of the most played games (in emulation, of course).
Ok, I remember all these games and in 1982 Pac-man and it's clones were everywhere, but a D & D first person shooter? I remember thinking this was so cool and played it endlessly. Crypts of Chaos was ahead of its time in 1982.
Excellent job as usual Jon !!!! I absolutely enjoy these rank tier videos. I owned a lot of Atari games and almost all of the Activision, Imagic, Parker Bros and M Network. But, never any of these titles. After watching this, the only title I'd be interested in playing is Aliens......sure is a pac man clone. The next rank tier I'm voting for is M Network.
Worm War I is the only title from the 17 in my collection which somehow failed... I've wanted to burn it into an EPROM since then to play it again, but I never got around to do it.
Can't say I agree with you on Spacemaster X-7. Spacemaster is probably one of the best games for the Atari and for this company. And M*A*S*H, the operation is very unique. There are no other games with this premise for the Atari.
I LOVED WORM WAR I totally forgot about it !!! I also did like Megaforce for some reason, and Fast Eddie was always fun. Some great titles I forgot about
Eeyup.. Never went much past a round or two on Worm War 1… That really does get quite fun the deeper you so into it! Think I prefer Difficulty A where the work movement is randomized! You all prefer A or B?
Little Wadey 💯 percent missed the 20th century fox boat. They totally had a pretty bad reputation and add to that my young attention deficit issues (and my poor moms inability to constantly buy little wadey new atari tapes AND burger chef every night), yeah I totally appreciate these rankings because maybe I can finally play these games. Haha little jonny looks and sounds like the kinda guy that wadey would walk back & forth to school and to our arcade The Cue Club with.
For some reason the commercial for Deadly Duck has stuck with me since I was a kid. I always enjoyed MASH. Me and my sister used to play that one constantly.
I heard another reviewer rated some of these games as worth playing or at least in his top 50% of 261 Atari games, but I still don't see myself interested in _Alien, Fantastic Voyage, Beany Bopper, Turmoil_ etc. I did like _Tempest_ but don't see _Turmoil_ as the same game.
I have like three 20th century Fox games and The main thing I don't like about him is some of them don't have proper and labels I like the fact how they have little notches in them so they're stackable but I don't like the fact that they don't have a proper label at the end of the cartridge I know turmoil had a proper end label though
Great video! I disagree with Mash and Fantastic Voyage. I think those should be higher up on the list. I really enjoyed them as a kid and still do, especially Fantastic Voyage. For a company doing licensed games I think overall they did a pretty good job.
The only ones of these I had back then were Alien and Flash Gorden. Alien got the lions share of attention. Still does. I pretty much agree with your rankings although I would have put the beefsteak maters game a notch or so up. It has some intere4sting play mechanics. I got to like it after one particular week of the HSC on AtariAge.
The M*A*S*H game had a fairly good rendering of the theme music (Happily titled "Suicide is Painless" sung by Johnny Mandel) for it's early technical limitations.
A good portion of the Fox games are ports of microcomputer games. I would have thought they would have slapped the names of more of their movies on the games that came out.
We never called it either. It was just "the Atari" because there was no need to identify the model. But the product is (was) named the VCS, so it's accurate. It wasn't re-branded to 2600 until '82.
Understood - and not debating what you and your friends locally nicknamed it. 😀 The slight rebrand by Atari in '82 was to make it easier to differentiate it from the 5200 which they were preparing for launch.
@@GenXGrownUp I have a question for you. Would you recommend I wait for the Atari 2600+ or get the Retron 77? The SD card aspect of the Retron is tempting, but I feel like the 2600+ will have more support and build quality.
@@mistergone5156 That's a tough call, and depends on how you expect to use it. From what we've learned so far, the 2600+ does the same thing the RetroN 77 does with physical carts: rip them to memory and play from there. Beyond that the RetroN has an SD slot and load/save states if you like those features. The RetroN has a firmware issue where, if you use the community firmware (which allows you to fill up the SD card with games), the paddles don't work like they should. Plus, it's about 1/2 the price of the 2600+ and available now. There are just so many unknowns about the 2600+, but it seems to simulate only the core functions of the 2600 and likely won't have any of those modern, added features.
@@GenXGrownUp Thanks for the advice, it is a tough one. I feel like Atari hardware will be more reliable than Hyperkin's, the paddle issue burns (Kaboom!). I could always play the extra games on the computer if I wanted.
I still feel weird whenever I hear someone say "Atari VCS" because we never called it that back in the 80s. I never once heard anyone say VCS until a couple years ago and now everyone calls it that. Back when I was a kid we just called the "the Atari" or "Atari 2600".
I use the two interchangeably. In the late '70s we just called it "Atari" in my neighborhood, and then started calling it the "VCS" when the 5200 was first announced, and it became the 2600 just before I traded it in for my 8-bit computer.
Didn't realize how many games 20th Century Fox had and how below average 90% are. Turmoil is a B to me. Megaforce is a fun game to me, think it's a B. Alien is for sure the best one of them all. Never played Worm War 1 so I might look into finding a copy. Think I have it one emulation? Got a Slik Stik arriving next week to play some of these.
I only had 4 of these. Deadly Duck, Fast Eddie, Beanie Booper, and Worm War I. My mother still loves Deadly Duck to this day. I haven't played the others in quite a while, but I remember been quite fond of them.
I'M DUMBFOUNDED THESE ALTERNATE PARTY GAME PRODUCTION COMPILATION REVIEW VIDEOS 10 MOS. LATER DON'T HAVE A MINIMUM OF 100K VIEWS EA. BY NOW. THESE vids R EXCELLENTLY MADE BY GEN X GrownUp. I remember seeing some of these at friends houses sitting stacked on shelves but never seen in on screen action... 🕯️🕹️🕯️
Thanks for your kind words of confidence in my productions, DJS. Please considering sharing your enthusiasm on your socials with links to help get the word out. 😜
I recently discovered that the guy who programed Turmoil also did the NBA Jam arcade game. Turmoil is a fun pick up and play 2600 game. It reminds me of a 2D version of Tempest.
Maybe it's the graphics, but for me the Earth Dies Screaming deserves at least to be B-tier (I really enjoy it, even if it took me a while to fully "get" it).
I think if the chopper missions of MASH had been a side scroller more like Defender and Stargate, in that you had to scroll along searching for patients to pick up and take BACK to the MASH, avoiding anti aircraft batteries firing at you along the way, that would have really made the game much cooler ! And the patient in the operation phase... cringe !
Fantastic Voyage and Worm War I were two of about 17 games I got in a lot for $15 in 2017, shortly after I got my first 2600 Jr. No manuals, just cartridges. For both of these, playing without a manual felt like for several rounds on both, every time I failed, I'd learn something new about the game, how it was meant to be played that I would have known had I had the manual. Even at 25 years old(at the time), it was cool learning to play games that are, on the surface, very simple through trial and error without it being at frustrating levels. Still two of my favorites for the VCS.
Getting into the VCS proper now. Buying a 2600+ and a VCS and will be building a collection of games to play and enjoy. Thanks for making these! Subbed!
I am in shock over Worm War I, because I had the same reaction as a kid. I played it maybe for a couple minutes tops. I picked it up a flea market or something in the mid-80s, so of course it had no instructions and no box. But hey, for fifty cents it was at least worth checking out. Wish I could go back and show my younger self this video!
