Atari 2600 Games by Imagic (and Absolute) | Trying all 17

[Music] yeah frame raater in our last episode we covered Activision's 45 Company games for the Atari 2600 so without further Ado let's finish up the buy extension Activision games from exploring a magic and absolutes Library starting with those IM magic guys who put new on the front of every game they released while Nintendo was taking notes Atlantis you know I grew up with this game but I also kind of didn't you see these red box tari games here these were distributed by zers back then they're basically stolen games they retitled with Loosely related artwork Ocean City Defender is just Atlantis though it does have a few altered Sprites this kind of stuff is another reason why covering the 2600 library is difficult the copyright laws were different at the time so there are countless re-releases that can be hard to keep track of but anyways in Atlantis you must defend the lost city of Atlantis from invading enemy ships you have three turrets at your disposal one straight Cannon and two diagonal cannons enemy ships do not fire at you they pass by a number of times until they've descended low enough to cause damage to the atlantan cities the first thing they'll take out is your middle straight Cannon should you let them get that close once that's gone you'll need to rely on the two diagonal cannons and these can be very hard to learn whenever I play this if my middle Cannon is gone I consider that game over granted after you've cleared a wave there's a chance your middle Cannon will respawn eventually the enemies will inevitably take out all the Atlantean cities and from there the game ends fun fact there once was a contest for this game those who achieved a certain high score would be sent a copy of Atlantis too if they scored high in that release of the game they would be given a chance to win $10,000 only 93 copies of it are known to exist I don't consider it an official release so it's not being included in today's list other than this mention Atlantis is a rather simple game in concept and execution however the fun Factor cannot be denied a certain level of skill particularly in determining diagonal momentum can make this a blast to play it's not one of my favorites personally but I do understand why it is for many Cosmic Arc this serves as a sequel to Atlantis the alpar row solar system has a sun that's about to Supernova so it's the mission of the atlanteans to preserve life from the systems doomed planets this pink mother ship is known as the cosmic Ark it must first destroy incoming asteroids before descending onto a nearby planet where the Atlantean ship must collect skittish creatures to preserve their lives watch out for those planetary defenses once you've landed once the creatures are collected head back to the cosmic Ark before more asteroids close in you'll get an audible warning well before that happens whenever you lose your total lives the atan ship takes off once again for whatever sequel of magic makes next much like the case with Atlantis before it to my knowledge unfortunately the atlantian mission ended here with no sequel in sight from cosmic Arc this game may sound complicated but once you know what's going on it's very straightforward while a more interesting concept than Atlantis in my opinion it's not quite the better game hard to compare the two since they play very differently that being said I'd probably play this once but never again a lot of the time what makes an Atari game great is whether the gameplay is addictive or not and unfortunately Cosmic Arc just isn't however I really do love the idea of a Continuing Story between these games demon attack is already amazing before you've even taken the game out of the box but how's the game it's a classic that anyone can pick up and immediately understand however it can be quite difficult all you need to do is move left to right shooting flying demons as they appear their patterns are sporadic and their Firepower even more So eventually demons will split into smaller demons which after a period of time fly down to try and kamakazi your ship there's a lot of skill involved in attack which makes us A Step Above many other 2600 shmups it gets a solid recommendation dragon fire the player will invade castles to steal the dragon's treasure first screen is the moat where you have to strategically jump over the oncoming Flames once over to the left of the screen you enter the dragon's layer where he must scramble around to collect all the treasure while the dragon shoots fiery flame balls at you avoid them of course and use the entrance Hut to hide if you need to once it's all collected the exit appears and you can start all over again in a New Castle many consider dragon fire to be one of the greatest 2600 games and it's easy to see why the only issue which is negotiable is how immediately the dragon can get you after hiding in the entrance most especially into later rounds you don't need to hide in the first place but without an immediate reaction this can be a move considered too dangerous to pull off the first time you escape from a Dragon's Lair with all this cool treasure you'll know that dragon fire is a rewarding exhilarating and adrenaline pumping experience somehow the fun just doesn't get old with its great Challenge and crisp visuals so I think I understand the game fathom you start the game as a dolphin who will swim deep into the sea collecting seahorses once you've collected them all you get a piece of the Trident at a certain point you get a seagull symbol which allows the dolphin to surface transform into the seagull and then collect the remaining pieces of the Trident by exploring the sky to collect pink clouds same idea different controls and environment try to avoid those obstacles or enemies because contact with them will lower your health once that's depleted it's game over however your health points will increase as you collect more seahorses and pink clouds once you've collected all the pieces you can then descend as the dolphin once more to free the mermaid trapped at the bottom of the sea it then repeats with more variations to the environment this game is difficult to Fathom it's got an ambitious premise for the rather limited 2600 and usually that isn't such a good thing but not the case with fathom I found it to be rather enjoyable the environments look great avoiding hazards is challenging but rewarding once you've collected what you need to save the mermaid my only issue is the controls for the dolphin you have to hold the button to swim and move the joystick to direct it I'm not sure if that was necessary for the seagull it's a bit too floaty after the first stage there can be tons of birds which feel ridiculously hard to avoid since in many cases you can't really move anywhere else without running into one of them otherwise the concept is still really good and I'd recommend giving it at least a try firefighter is a game where you save one person from a fiery death as the fireman deploy your hose and shoot water up towards the windows with active fire quickly the fire will deplete then with a cleared building you have to extend the ladder and and stand at the side of the building to rescue the person alternatively you can save the person if they've made it a few floors up by angling the firetruck ladder to their position hang by the firet truck holding the button then move up or down to angle it there's no real way of knowing what floor the ladder is positioned at and considering the amount of time it takes to deploy the ladder it's not really worth doing one other thing I feel is necessary to mention is how if the person is at the other side of the building you have to wait a really long time for them to make their way over to you which is of course annoying the reception for this game seems to be mixed some like the concept as do I unfortunately the formula feels like it needed some work to be as engaging as it should be it also helped to make it more challenging somehow as even the hardest difficulty modes are a breeze laser Gates is one of the most interesting Shooters on the 2600 in my opinion a computer responsible for maintaining Intergalactic peace has malfunctioned and now it's up to you the Dante Dart to destroy the fail safe detonators inside and initiate self-destruct doing so won't be easy due to the computer's defenses which will be the active threats as you navigate through the caverns of the computer one by one you'll be put up to the challenge when encountering threats like laser Gates giant cement walls and small defense Fighters that each pose a unique threat to the player remember not to touch those walls as they'll hurt your ship once all four detonators are destroyed the game ends however doing so without safe States is proven to be nearly impossible due to the game's energy and shields which quickly deplete getting hit or running into the walls will more quickly deplete these resources seeing how far you can get is where the real fun comes from this has been an absolute classic to me since I was a kid it's actually another one of those zers games that was retitled this one's called laser volley to this day I still find it a thoroughly entertaining experience Moon sweeper is a space rescue Adventure upon starting you're flying around in space brightly colored circles represent moons that you can move close to in order to land on once you do collect six miners seeking rescue from the surface anything else that you can shoot will get you points sometimes giant enemy ships will appear in the sky which you can destroy by holding down on the joystick then firing to launch an air missile I really like this idea it reminds me a lot of beam Rider once you've collected six miners some boost Towers will appear navigate through them to launch back into space and start the process all over again on a different Moon sounds pretty great right yeah it is there's a few things to point out though Moon sweeper tries to be more realistic in its controls it considers momentum which means stopping your input doesn't immediately halt the ship like you'd expect from other Atari games you can determine your speed by holding up or down on the joystick accordingly which helps to avoid obstacles but you'll often want to speed up on a planet because your lowest speed is very slow that being said for these physics I find going any faster is detrimental to your survival with time and practice I imagine these things wouldn't be an issue it just isn't an easy adjustment at first once that difficulty curve is understood you can have tons of fun with moon sweeper No Escape a shmup with a Twist instead of shooting directly at the enemies you have to shoot at the ceiling only the bricks that fall can wipe out those nasty creatures the more bricks that remain on top at the end of a stage the more points you get if you do happen to shoot at one of these creatures directly they'll multiply you can curve your shot by holding a direction while firing which is necessary later into the game when enemies start actively dodging your attempts to slam bricks on their heads I like the dynamic music system when less enemies are on screen the music pattern changes beyond the unique gameplay No Escape isn't particularly fun more so tedious if I'm being honest the idea is neat but that's the best I can say for it it's far from a bad game though don't get me wrong there Quick Step oh jeez yet again I find myself against a game that is far too fastpaced for me to enjoy the plot goes something like this a kangaroo and a squirrel are fighting for their territory much like cubert you got to do your best to jump on each space the squirrel will reclaim that space so you just have to be the one to most recently clear it before it sinks to the bottom the thing is you'd want to stay away from that yourself as if you fall off the screen it'll be a few seconds before the game places you back in it often responds you close enough to the bottom that if you don't react immediately you could just fall off again sometimes the game is so chaotic I end up jumping off the screen myself unintentionally there are occasional power-ups you can use you can make one of the spaces disappear which is said to be useful for trapping the squirrel but the dang thing is just so fast I can't really think on the spot of where's a good place to put it the squirrel seems not to fear the bottom of the screen at all and manages to get away every time seems like a typical case of AI overload to me for maximum appeal this game should have been slowed down a bit not everyone would agree with that some love this incredibly fast-paced sort of gameplay so for those kinds of people this game is for you for someone like me though it's all a bit too much riddle of the Sphinx this game can best be described as a quest an elaborative Quest that confuses me greatly it starts with the game's manual that reminds me of the Bible like I get it this Egyptian dude is cool please just tell me what I have to do so let me try to explain what I figured out with this game you play as this Egyptian dude the son of pharaoh you got to stop Anubis you can't do this until certain prerequisites are met this involves trading with fellow Merchants for specific items you'll need to use when you visit various temples all the while enemies will try to damage You by throwing rocks they will also steal from you if you get too close you too can throw rocks but your ability to do that as well as move will decrease over time due to dehydration visit the various oases to get back to health eventually you come across some Gods who you'll need to make offerings for in order to get a specific item you need sometimes this offering doesn't go through and you get punished you know this all sounds fine and dandy but not on the 2600 did I yet mention that to track your hydration you have to flick the black and white switch on the console this game has so many bizarre ideas even down to kissing the goddess iris's feet I'm not joking about that that's that's something you can really do apparently as far as I'm concerned it's Atari time not kinky o' so I'm going to move on to Shooting Gallery in this game you carry a pistol shooting at various targets which pass the row above some targets are worth more than others and will even unlock other characters to shoot you only have a set number of shots before you run out then the game ends so make the shots count in order to keep going the animals shown are distinct and you should have no trouble figuring out what they're supposed to represent the color differences keep it all from blending in a lot of thought clearly went into making this a good representation of the concept they were shooting for solar storm is something so this is a paddle controlled game you're defending your planet by shooting the Invaders that descend on the screen if too many pass your planet will overheat and explode so says the manual while you play this ambient hum will ring in the background I always love when Atari games take advantage of the creepy sounds it can make after what the game calls a wave you'll be transported to the orbital platform here you can attempt to get an extra Life by eliminating five passing ships before the time runs out it's quite difficult you're only given four directions at which to shoot I'm assuming a certain degree of rotation on the paddle changes this angle but as a result this part is incredibly difficult to play when being emulated I did enjoy solar storm but most for the colorful graphics and sound the gameplay itself isn't too much to jump for when compared to the variety of Atari schms solar storm increases its speed quickly which would make it fun for those with lightning fast reflexes unlike myself maybe I'd play better if I was using a real paddle controller this is the game that I really wish I could fall in love with but unfortunately it just isn't hitting the right notes for me star Voyager this game does have a story it's related to some betrayal of a new treaty from some Intergalactic Society seems like a lot of these Space games on the Atari took the same notes they all sound like this nonetheless the buildup for Star Voyager didn't feel much like it had a payoff usually these first-person Space games have a learning curve but this one is really simple you just take a look at that radar aim your ship towards the enemies that show up and blast them away along with their own projectiles be aware of the energy meter on your bottom right because once that goes to zero the game ends firing will also decrease this value by one increment at a time the number on the bottom left indicates what stage you're on stages are completed by eliminating all the enemies then aiming your ship towards this portal doing so replenishes your energy this is a pretty simple experience it's not bad but gets repetitive quick there's a two-player mode where player two can play as the enemy which could be fun when all said and done though there are other games of its sort that accomplish what star Voyager does but better subterrania imagine Defender but you're not actually saving anyone to start you're faced with this beast called the hex uplex who will throw flying creatures at you dodge and Destroy them to open a path to the tunnels underneath from this point on your task with eliminating more flying creatur creatures defeat the all to unlock a path to the next tunnel which will be booby trapped so time your descent appropriately be sure not to touch the walls which are deadly it even has a set of skulls on it to further sell that illusion after a certain number of tunnels you'll come across the hex suplex again it turns into a recurring boss fight of sorts it's approached the same way each time the further you descend the more chaotic the enemies become in the tunnels this is just the sort of spin on a schmu that I was looking for it's creative fun and challenging unique characters also help to give it more of an incentive to play if just to see what kind kind of wacky Creations the developers came up with I enjoyed this a lot and now consider it a Hidden Gem for the 2600 trick shot is a game of pool with several different modes to spice things up as the title implies one of those modes is trickshot where you've got to get all the balls into the holes in one hit to play you just have to aim this dot behind the ball meant to represent the pool queue then hit by holding and letting go of the button the physics are a bit slow I don't think this is the most accurate representation of a pool game but that being said it is the 2600 there's nothing really wrong with trick shot it's just a bit pointless to play this over any other video game adaptation of pool I've said it before but yeah video games based on board games card games poker and to a lesser degree Sports never seem to age well there's always something newer and better to be playing Wing War you control a dragon the goal is to defeat other dragons in their places of origin when you start the game you're greeted by a black screen fly over to the right to encounter the first dragon destroy it by shooting flames this is done by flicking up on the joystick it'll drop a crystal you can't carry more than one at a time without overriding the first one so bring it back to the original screen and place it on the bottom to score return to where you fought the first dragon destroy it again to unlock the next PATH between the two castles at the bottom this will encounter the second dragon same deal as before afterwards you can navigate to the left of the screen with the second dragon to encounter the Third Dragon again the concept repeats there's a swooping motion you can perform by pressing down on the joystick which is used to quickly dive through obstacles often necessary if you're picking up a stuck Crystal I consider Wing War to be engaging for a couple of minutes unfortunately It suffers from the same thing a lot of objective based Atari games do when fresh it's a fun distraction but afterwards there isn't a great returning factor I can't even seem to figure out if there's a scoring system for this with a magic completed let's move immediately on to Absolute entertainment's Library there are four games shouldn't take us long to get through these Pete Rose Baseball it seems people are rather fond of this adaptation to baseball I guess it makes sense it's fairly detailed and of course its Graphics are Stellar on one of the screens pitching and batting looks great but everything else not so much I will admit it does look fine but I have an issue with all the characters being white wait that didn't come out as intended what I mean is I can't tell who's on which team in the field I can't even tell what player I'm controlling sometimes and look at this weird situation here the ball is right there why can't this guy pick it up what this guy can't pick it up either turns out only the pitcher was allowed to pick this up but why am I missing something here this is surely a playable 2600 interpretation of baseball so long as you can get over the curve and frustration it's just not for me skateboarding is simple in both concept and execution go through 30 skateboarding obstacles before heading to school aka before the timer runs out that's the idea how about the gamep playay it's really solid dare I say it's radical and totally tubular the physics of your skateboard are very responsive crashing into something or failing to complete an obstacle will have you hold the skateboard again which you can jump back on to at any time the obstacles are very fun to jump slide and grind through you can even grab hold of this truck for extra speed though I could never figure out how to do it Graphics look great and the music that plays when you ride the board is lots of fun somehow despite being a short Loop doesn't get annoying either this is an incredible 2600 game that I completely recommend giving a shot title match pro wrestling I played this first on the 7800 and yeah compared to that I can say that this is a competent alternative on a lower spec system absolute we're the masters of bringing decent Graphics to the 2600 and this is no exception the wrestlers represent themselves well the actual gaml is competent considering the one button setup although to be completely honest I wasn't too sure what was going on half the time the opponent is a pushover so it's easy to win when not attacking each other the two will engage in a passionate exchange of romance it's not often you see such intimacy on the ring unless you're watching Bruno who's to say these two can't share a special moment together between battles I say the world needs some love right now what better way to show it than break up the fights and okay maybe my stalling has gone on long enough I don't know a thing about wrestling but Love is a Battlefield and these two have all right I'll stop Tom Cat the F-14 fighter simulator we already covered this game in our last video due to Activision redistributing the game under the name fighter pilot technically it counts in both lists if you're curious about that game see the YouTube card above to check it out now if you haven't watched that video in full yet there's more of a reason to click on it you lasted this long in a 2600 video after all so what what did I think of the two libraries IM Magic's games can be timeless Classics although there are a few games that fall short of course my own opinions can be subjective a game like quickstep if you have better reflexes could be a lot of fun absolutes games well I don't have too much to say since they didn't create too many what's clear however is their ambition each absolute game feels like a work of art specifically in what they were able to accomplish on 2600 Hardware that being said all but one of these have direct 7,800 counterparts that are technically Superior skateboard and being the only exception though it does have a 7800 sequel whether that's a better game or not is entirely up to preference but that's all I've got to say about these bit of a blunt ending but yeah thanks for watching the iMagic and absolute entertainment 2600 library and I hope to catch you frame raters in the next video [Music] he

Channel: FrameRater

Views: 103,006

Keywords: atari 2600 games, atari 2600 avgn, atari activision games, all atari 2600 games, all 2600 games, atari classics, atari ports, atari ghostbusters, ghostbusters atari, atari 2600 best games, atari 2600 commercial, atari 2600 pac man, atari 2600 donkey kong, atari 2600 space invaders, atari 2600 adventure, atari 2600 asteroids, atari 2600 et, 2600 games, atari atlantis, atari dragonfire, atari laser gates, atari skateboarding, atari demon attack, cosmic ark atari

Id: An2tBmU21yE

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021