ATARI 2600 TOP 10 Favorite Games

[@R3troZone]

You're exactly right about ET. The hate doesn't come from us who grew up with it. The hate comes from those that grew up afterwards and had more options. I got it on Christmas morning 1982 and I loved it because before that, all I had was Space Invaders and Asteroids and ET was amazing compared to those! I still shake my head and laugh whenever I hear people complain about how the game has no structure and everything is random and you get stuck in the pits to easily. The map is a 3D cube which is brilliant, the pits are easily escaped if you stay to the sides, and its easy to play and win if you read the instructions and learn how everything works. I was beating it at 5 years old, how hard could it be?

[@XV250]

I think the issue is that people find a loose cart and try to play it without ever reading the instructions, and it's pretty much impossible to play without knowing those.

[@TheDI]

I agree with you and @XV250 The game was great and people who had the game and no manual probably got very frustrated trying to figure out the game I loved the fact that it was never the same game each time and that it made it a challenge every time you played I read somewhere once that due to rushing out the game that some copies did not have the instruction manual in the box with the game but I was never able to find the article again Games were expensive for the Atari in the 80's. The 1982 Sears ad has them at regular price $19.99 to $39.99 and calculating for inflation for 2023 that would be $63.72 to $127.50 Sound like the prices we are paying now with all the DLC's. Fortunately we got a lot of our games on sale or on clearance. like Journey Escape I believe we got it at a Hook's Drug store for $8

[@jeremiahthomas8140]

For the most part I agree, but those wells could be a pain to get out of.

[@anthonyspecf]

I agree, ET was pretty solid. Good Graphics for an Atari and it had a goal (to collect the phone pieces, call home, and board the space ship). Maybe if anything the issue is more that it couldn't live up to expectations given how HUGE the movie was. Then again, what could. Now as for Pac Man.... That game's hate may have been more deserved.

[@joeg4707]

My favorite paddle game is Kaboom. Phoenix, Keystone Kapers, Ms. Pac Man, Cosmic Ark, Megamania, Dig Dug, Enduro, Demon Attack, and Turmoil were pretty good too.

[@TheDI]

I think we only had Super Breakout as our one and only paddle game

[@frankschalk7790]

I will go on record as saying I loved both ET and Raiders as a kid, and won them many times. Seperated us pros from the rest of the population 👍

[@meowcula]

Raiders of the lost ark was surprisingly deep for a game of that era. I remember enjoying it

[@TheDI]

I only ever remember beating I once as a kid But that never stopped me form playing over and over again My brother and I would see who could aggravate the spider the closest without being killed

[@jeremiahthomas8140]

You had me until River Raid. I know people love it, but I did not even play it when I was a kid. I am glad you put Maze Craze, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark in there.

[@jimgoebel5348]

I honestly prefer the Atari 8 bit version of River Raid

[@mrp4242]

Nice list! My buddy had a 2600 in the early 80s. By 1988 my family finally got an Atari 7800, which was backwards compatible. Good times. My Top 10 Atari 2600 titles: 1. Mario Bros. A Really solid port. I had this during the height of SMB and its the closest I had at home to Mario. I thought it was great. 2. Pitfall 3. Wizard of Wor. So many great memories of playing this semi-co op with my buddy only to get shot in the back! 4. Frogger. A great port. 5. Missile Command 6. Phoenix 7. HERO 8. Berserk 9. Ms PacMan 10. Space Invaders. Can’t leave out the killer app. HM: Combat, Kaboom, River Raid and Keystone Kapers

[@TheDI]

This is a pretty nice list as well Mario Bros was a pretty good port and I played this on my uncles Colecovision instead of Atari Pitfall - awesome on just about any system Wizard of Wor - I never got a chance to play this one it looks a bit like Berserk meets packman and a lot of fun too and add in a little PvP Frogger was pretty rock solid as a port for the Atari Missile command - not a bad port either considering you were not using a trackball to play it! Phoenix - never played this on either looks like an amped up cross between Space invaders and Galaga but with great looking baddies HERO - loved playing this on my C64 and the Atari version is very good Berserk - I played this one as well on my Uncles Colecovision instead of the Atari but a good game none the less Ms. Pacman - never played it until later on Atari and was a better version than the Atari pac-man space invaders was timeless even on the Atari The coolest thing I can say about space invaders is the original arcade using the reflection of the monitor on the glass to make it look like the invaders were floating in the air was ingenuous, that is something you can never forget playing it for the first time Thanks for dropping your list of Favorites in the comments!

[@frankschalk7790]

Great selection of games

[@Pikmit]

The Atari 2600 Junior was my first console. 🙂

[@PaladinLarec]

So I'm not the only one who loves ET. I loved it as a kid and had no problem conquering it. Raiders of the Ark, on the other hand......

[@TheDI]

I had only ever beat Raiders once as a kid. I'd come close but I'd catch my parachute on the tree branch trying to get into the cave. You know just like it happened in the movie :)

[@jimmcclements5229]

Pitfall, Megamania, Turmoil, Amidar, Space Invaders, Berzerk, Asteroids, Bowling, Astroblast, and Defender.

[@TheDI]

Several of these I have reviewed in Your Top 10 Atari games series Vol 1,2 and 3

[@jimgoebel5348]

ET is NOT a bad game.

[@robertdecker146]

Dolphin, Crackpots, Spider Fighter, Oink, Skiing, Ice Hockey, Grand Prix, Tennis, Freeway, SeaQuest. These are 10 especially very enjoyable Activision games that I've played on a Ps2 compilation game-pack. There are 45 games on that game-pack. Mostly Activision games, and a couple of imagic titles thrown in for good measure. I wish they had included "Riddle of the Sphinx" though, as far as imagic games goes. But yeah, I really miss playing ps2 games so much, especially that Activision game-pack compilation. I just gotta get my ps2 controller port fixed.

[@TheDI]

Activision had some very good games on the Atari I never got to play Riddle of the Sphinx and I always wanted to play Desert Falcon as I seen advertisements for it but I never could find it at the store

[@anthonyspecf]

Good list, and has some titles I wasn't expecting. I'll list my favorite 10 below (no specific order ). Yar's Revenge, Seaquest, Frostbite, River Raid, Enduro, Keystone Kapers, Jungle Hunt, Millipede, Cosmic Ark, Midnight Magic (fun pinball title). P.S. If I had Hero for the Atari back in the day, I think it would have made my list. It looked like a really fun title.

[@TheDI]

Thanks for the comment! I might not have portrayed it well in the video but this was my top ten Atari games I owned growing up I've seen many of the ones in your list in many others in the comments and they are all really good games Now I've never heard of Midnight magic before and I just checked it out and it beats the pants off of video pinball and that was a fun one to play as well I didn't have HERO on the Atari but I had it on my C64 and the Atari version is a pretty good port of the game

[@anthonyspecf]

@@TheDI Same for my list. I know there are a lot of great games I never played for the Atari (like Chopper Command, Hero, etc...) so my list is also of the games I own and have played.

[@PApro]

The Jungle Hunt music still occasionally gets stuck in my head at random. I haven't played that game since 1990ish if not the late 80's...

[@thedinobros1218]

Well, honestly, I love the E.T. game too.

[@Chris-cv4tt]

The sequel to Atlantis was Cosmic Ark. Atlantis 2 was a limited release game (contest) that was essentially the same game as Atlantis with cosmetic changes.

[@TheDI]

Yes, you are correct on this. In my defense I really didn't script this video I did it off the cuff as I said at the start of the video and I was trying to remember everything from when I played all these games as a kid since I really hadn't done it since the mid 80's. I was trying to rack my brain while talking and I think Atlantis 2 popped in there instead of Cosmic Ark. I also messed up on maze craze as well. I said the cops were running around the maze instead of the robbers :(

[@Chris-cv4tt]

@@TheDI No worries! It takes a lot to make these videos and we all love watching them.

[@TheDI]

it's all good I took it as good constructive criticism and was being more hard on myself :)

[@DeadKoby]

Not a bad list. Many of these were on my favs list too. Raiders was too complex for kid me, but ET and Adventure I figured out just fine. Maze Craze as a 2 player game was way fun.....we set the cops to "stun" your player, and made a rule if anyone got stunned, they had to go touch the ORANGE cop before trying to get out... Stupid rule, but it added to the fun.

[@TheDI]

It's very cool to have special rules among your siblings when playing games it just adds to the fun we had something with frogs and flies but I cant quite remember what it was now

[@The_Bad_Guy.]

I agree ET isn't bad as long as you know what to do. As kids we played it a lot (because its one of the 8-10 games we had) but could never beat because we didnt have the manual which was critical back in the day. But i would say my favorite 2600 game would have to be Star Master. Another Activision gem on the 2600. They packed a ton into a little cartridge with that game. And it still holds up well today.

[@TheDI]

I haven't played Star Master but I will add that to my list of games to try! I think I have mentally counted up that we had roughly 16 Atari games and I am betting most of them was from the crash in 83 and my dad always shopped at Sears so they ran some seriously slashed prices on the Atari games at that time so I'm sure that is where most of the ones we got came from

[@The_Bad_Guy.]

@@TheDI we had like I said about 8-10 then friends of my dad's gave us about 12 or so more (probably because they moved on to the NES and we didn't yet) but star master was one of our originals that I wasn't really that good at as a kid but still liked it. I do highly recommend it. I think you will be impressed.

[@gordongraham7]

Growing up, Chopper Command and Circus Atari were my all-time favorites. I recently got the 2600+ and bought a few games I didn't play back then which have become favorites, especially River Raid and Phoenix. I also loved the arcade games like Donkey Kong, Ms Pac-Man and Frogger.

[@SaintLewisMusic]

Raiders of the Lost Ark was a truly great adventure game. I spent HOURS on that thing... & by hours, I mean months.

[@TheDI]

I loved when you could whip the jail walls to escape and you could go all the way down to just Indy's hat running across the ground

[@Uriel77200]

Defender and Demon Attack were my favs

[@TheDI]

Never got the chance to play Demon Attack back in the day but it is a pretty great game. Defender was a pretty good port of the arcade on the 2600

[@PApro]

We had a ridiculous amount of 2600 games. I can't even begin to remember them all. A lot of stand outs are on this list. One of the biggest standouts I didn't see is Keystone Kapers. That was with out a doubt one of the best on the system IMO! River Raid was definitely up there. We had Frog Bog on Intellivision rather than the 2600, which was endless hours of fun. Frogger was ok but we always though Freeway was far better. Same concept but chickens crossing the road. E.T. was perhaps the most confusing and pointless of all the games to play because we never got anywhere but for that reason we used to play the heck out of it. Wasting hours just trying to figure it out. Same for Raiders. They were just so unusual and ,seemingly at least, more complex than any other games of the time.

[@BeadsArtBrasil]

Hi man! Great video. What about Montezuma's Revenge, keystone kapers, Defender, yars revenge and, of course, HERO. I'm waiting for the part 2. Hugs from Brazil.

[@TheDI]

Thank you! this Top 10 list was from the games that I owned when I was a kid. There are many great Atari games out there and I look forward to working on more videos as the Atari 2600 was near and dear to me as the BBS Door Games that I also cover HERO was a great game but I had that on my C64 instead of the Atari Yars Revenge I had on the plug and play Atari 2600 joystick and I was sad I never had a chance to play it on the original hardware Again thank you for the praise!

[@drivenbyrage5710]

Yars Revenge was my favorite.

[@TheDI]

I never got to play Yar's until I got the Atari plug n play controller and it was a very good game

[@anthonyc8963]

I LOVED Frogs and Flies....I completely forgot all about that game....I played it for hours and hours and days and days...

[@TheDI]

I loved the higher difficulty level where you could steer the frogs jump curve in mid air and move around on the lilly pad but could also land you in the water The game was brilliant

[@chriscowey7464]

Nice list, where is Battlezone though :p

[@TheDI]

Battlezone was at my local Mom and Pop pizza place growing up and I preferred that one at the arcade over playing on the Atari because I never saw Battlezone on the Atari until I was a lot older I remember barely able to see using the barstool to play it

[@one7decimal2eight]

You left out Air Sea Battle

[@TheDI]

Air Sea battle was a great game. I didn't own this one but my friend did

[@foooooob]

Where´s Pac Man? Space Invaders? Super breakout?? Defender??

[@TheDI]

In my defense this was my top 10 of what I owned as a child. all 4 of the games you listed are great indeed I know many people poo poo on Pacman but it was still a pacman game and it played well

[@abdias1977]

Dissapointed the Solaris isn't on the list.

[@TheDI]

I never saw Solaris until my Co-worker said he had it when he was growing up and I looked it up and it is a seriously cool game In my defense this was the top 10 of the games I owned growing up

[@joshuapitner1034]

Say it with me...Intellivision 😂

[@TheDI]

A great system as well. My neighbors and the Intellivision and my uncle had the colecovision I had the C64 and the Atari 2600

[@frankschalk7790]

The Atlantis ship looked more like a colonial viper

[@TheDI]

I think it would depend on the amount of dithering and scanlines from the TV tube but at a pixel perfect look it is an X-Wing side profile with the s-foils locked in attack position

[@frankschalk7790]

@@TheDI sorry, but the set of pixels at the very top clearly defined the outline of the colonial viper. Still stand by that 40 years later 🤓

[@PlutoniusX]

No crossbow? No Defender? No Vanguard? No Yars Revenge. At least you got River Raid.

[@neumaticimpact]

I'll have to check out Crossbow. Haven't heard of it.

[@TheDI]

Yes, these great games was not in my list as I did not have them growing up and did not get them until later. This top 10 was of my personal favorite out the games I had.

[@PlutoniusX]

@@TheDI I get it. I am just giving you a hard time. :)

[@albert_vds]

River Raid is awesome, I played it on the Commodore 64.

[@RelaxMode1]

i had "asteroids" and "air sea battle" i played them tons of hours!

[@Groose1972]

Some of my favorite Atari games when I was young: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Demon Attack, Phoenix, Cosmic Ark, Vanguard, Berzerk, Donkey Kong, River Raid, Combat, Decathlon

[@jimgoebel5348]

My 10: Adventure Chopper Command Tapper Pitfall 2 Phoenix Berzerk Space Invaders Starmaster Indy 500 Stargate

[@TheDI]

Ppretty great list here I remember Indy 500 pretty well I played it at a friends house adventure a great classic never had the chance to play chopper command but it looks like a Defender style clone and fun to play i've also never played pitfall 2, phoenix, starmaster, or star gate Tapper I had on my C64 and Berserk was on my uncle's colecovision

[@jimgoebel5348]

@@TheDI I've maxed out Chopper Command twice. Once, in the 80's, and again a few years ago

[@SoulforSale]

E.T. has many RPG elements. Normies dont get it.

[@derekdash2179]

Still enjoy 2600 games!

[@jasonmann3775]

Great list I would put Raiders and Adventure in my top 3 too. Also pitfall, river raid and combat in my top 10. Some titles I would add space invaders, skiing, circus Atari (2 player paddles), defender, and Superman. The only game I didn’t like was dragster. We were not picky back then! ET, pac man, and donkey Kong were fun at the time.

[@TheDI]

I'd say any game we got was a treasure if it was good or not because they were pretty expensive. So ET was $39.95 in 1982 and adjusted for inflation in 2024 it would be $127.68 not too far off from todays games with all DLC's I roughly remember having about 16 games but I would say most were gotten in 1983 when the prices tumbled i'm pretty sure my Dad picked them up very cheap at Sears. Space invaders, Pac-man and defender were great I never played the Superman game or Atari Circus or Skiing. I often think that some of the games I had never seen was because there was no distribution for them where I lived which might be possible but it's just a guess. I didn't like Dragster either. it just never clicked with me and the game was over in just 12 sec's or less.

[@richboutin4044]

Top 10 for me: Frostbite Seaquest River Raid Asteroids Vanguard Frogger Missile command Haunted house Video pinball Spider fighter

[@TheDI]

Many of these I have not played so I checked them out Haunted house I had the sequel for it on the Wii it was fun to play Frostbite it's like frogger meets qbert and it looked pretty good for an atari game seaquest has its challenges in a defender meets river raid vibe vanguard was really cool it has a defender meets robotron 2084 meets atlantis thing going on spider fighter holy crap this was space invaders/galaga on steroids I loved the steering bullets you got a pretty great list there

[@chrishensley5384]

My list in no particular order: Asteroids Space Invaders Demon Attack Kaboom Berzerk Pitfall! River Raid Frogger Warlords Hero

[@TheDI]

kaboom and warlords I never played before I think we only had one paddle game and that was indy 500 both are very cool as warlords was breakout as a defend your castle game Hero I had on the C64 and the atari port was pretty good and all the others are great as well I think we had 15 games and most likely we got most of the in the video game crash in 1983 from sears when thy went dirt cheap on clearance

[@sparkle935]

Frostbite, enduro, phoenix...

[@TheDI]

These 3 games I had not seen before for Atari. I often wonder if some of these never made it into our area to buy due to distribution chains at the time. who knows

[@sparkle935]

@@TheDI yes, I think phoenix is demon attacker in the USA, and frostbite is a little guy jumping across the ice bergs to build his igloo, while enduro is a day and night car racing game, all good games, neil

[@Carlb328]

Maze Craze is super underrated. Wizard of Wor, Seaquest, Spider Fighter are great too.

[@TheDI]

Playing the completely invisible maze was quite the thing for me and my brother I loved all the artwork for many of the Atari games such as Maze Craze I always thought the robber looks like the comedian Gallagher

[@grandesacra]

Hányinger kerülget. Nem jó élmény nézni.

[@TheDI]

Köszönöm a megjegyzést, nagyra értékeljük (Thanks for the comment, much appreciated)

[@jayb9687]

Yar's Revenge was a good one.

[@TheDI]

I never got to play Yar's Revenge until I got the Atari plug and play joystick it's pretty good and very unique

[@cavalleri]

Wow, ET! Brave call sir.

[@TheDI]

Thank you! I wear it like a badge of honor

[@axk637]

Good choice ! I loved Phoenix , Jungle Hunt , Mario Bros. , Pitfall , Moon Patrol , Space Attack.

[@TheDI]

you have a pretty good list here as well Mario Bros was a well done port for the Atari Jungle hunt has a nice Attract mode where you could see the different game screens