Atari 5200 (1982) Library | Trying all 69 Games

[@mikesweeney5619]

There's something you MAY not know about Space Invaders.When you go so far into the game (been too many years to remember HOW far) the Alien ship comes down,and picks up your cannon,and takes it away.On the next stage all the aliens/colors are different.Atari 5200 was the ONLY version to ever do this...

[@luvmenow33]

You had to use the two sticks for Space Dungeon. It came with a cool thing that you slid your two sticks into that connected them together. Those games were awesome. 5200 had a trackball too.

[@majorhemroid]

I grew up on the 5200 and still have mine For some games, the controller was bad until you got used to it For others, you wanted the analog stick for the movements Robotron & Space Dungeon came with a coupler. Space Dungeon was a fantastic game that got very hard The trackball was far superior for those games that used it. Breakout, Centipede, Missile Command etc There are places that will recondition and videos to teach you how to repair them Also there was the 2600 adapter, much like the Game Boy adapter for the SNES, which allowed you to plug in the 2600 controller to use. It was a great system, but the controller's build quality left a lot to be desired

[@FrameRater]

I agree, it is an awesome system, simply held back by poor planning on the controller's build.

[@1423big]

I never knew there was an adapter for 2600 games! I have some 2600 games, but no 2600. I should track down the adapter. I have multiple controllers I need to fix. Need to get around to doing that...

[@Boswd]

@@1423big Oh yeah when both of , 5200 And the ColecoVision weren't selling that well one of the reasons for this was so many people were invested into the 2600 and for the 5200 not being backwards compatible was one of their first mistakes that they try to rectify. The 2600 was so popular that even the clickovision came out with an adapter to play those Atari games. The bottom line it was an ET or any of those games that caused the video crash It was parents to say no to upgrade your systems. I And among many of my other friends all wanted the 5200 and some one of the ColecoVision But most of the parents said no They were expensive and at the time when they first came out you couldn't play your old Atari games so that meant having to rebuy so many more and parents back in the day said no.

[@bilyonarelifestile2226]

star raiders is best game

[@Swanlord05]

@@FrameRater the controller looked aweson.....I wish someone would just rebuild it with modern guts

[@chiroquacker2580]

The 5200 joystick is an example of what happens when you let the accountants design them.

[@Swanlord05]

Beautiful controller....bad innerds

[@andrewerickson6690]

Too bad they didn't do better

[@Swanlord05]

@andrewerickson6690 i wish someone could put modern guts in the 5200 controller I'd buy it in a hot second!

[@somedude6647]

I don’t think it should be hated, it was the norm up until the crash of ‘83. Admittedly the joystick could be better but anything still is miles better than the Intellivision controller, and Nintendo got it right with the NES.

[@nickpalance3622]

The 5200 joystick does not strike me as ruined by accountants. They’d probably have preferred the CX-40 joystick which was also used by the 8-bit computers which in turn are essentially the same hardware (chipset etc, sans keyboard and SIO port and composite out etc). Speaking of CX-40, I have here a few of those AND a few CX-10 joysticks. The CX-10 was the heavy complicated (inside, that is) 2600 joystick that shipped with the “heavy sixer” 2600. I never knew about them until the past decade or so. Back in the day we had the “light sixer” (Sears TELE-GAMES version) with the ubiquitous CX-40 and I got to know the insides of that well in my attempts to repair those. They were simple (ie cost savings) and in general cheap. Lousy feel once you try a Wico. Wish I also had a TAC-2 back in the day (didn’t know about them for a few years). I had the bat handle and now have several 😊 plus the red ball. The CX-40 iconic and that’s about it. ANd accountant friendly. Can’t forget that.

[@antonnym214]

For those of us who were there at the time Pole Position was in the arcades, and then bought the home versions, it was NEVER kind of bad. It was not only great, but it paid for itself in saved quarters.

[@jameshausler5259]

YEs, it was one of the better titles for the system. The controllers were actually very nice when they were brand new and, of course, working!!!

[@a1b1c184]

I was thinking the same thing. It's a problem I find myself having with many of these reviews. I'm not sure if he's reviewing the game itself or just the 5200 version and how that port compared to others. I would be fine either way but I think you need to pick one and review all the game that way. A lot of these obscure games no one's heard of before get really good reviews while others games that many really like are getting just average reviews. It leads me to believe some games that are known are getting reviewed based on that port while other games get the advantage of their game play making a difference. It's like trying to use 2 different criteria types to do this.

[@marafolse8347]

@@a1b1c184 I actually like that doue standard. I feel like if you're watching a 5200 game roundup you know all these arcade games. May as well tell me how good they are in comparison

[@FrameRater]

Returning to this years later, I now disagree with several remarks in the video. Pole Position 5200 deserved a better score, though I don't think it's a great port still. The smooth framerate of the track clashes with the choppiness of everything else. Felt weird to play. Also it seems like the road is moving backwards as you move forwards? At the time of making these videos, I'd only recommend the best version of a game. In assuming most viewers wouldn't be using 5200 hardware, the idea was that you might as well emulate the arcade version instead.

[@MDLuffy1234YT]

​@@FrameRater you not turning up at 17:53 when you had the chance to hit 2 ghosts at once caused me incalculable pain.

[@thomaspleacher2735]

I was born in the early 90's and often worry that people in the future aren't going to care about the games I grew up with (such as NES, Sega Genesis, N64, MS-DOS, etc.) Your enthusiasm for games that came out before either of us were born gives me hope that they won't be forgotten.

[@thomaspleacher2735]

@@thedude5295 When I was 7 years old my step-Granddad used to tell me stories about this scary radio show he used to listen to in the 50's called "Suspense". He would re-enact the most frightening episodes for me in a dramatic voice. I found it interesting but at the same time I felt like I couldn't entirely relate to what he was telling me, probably because radio was no longer a centerpiece of entertainment media by the time I was born. Never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that Sega and Nintendo would become my personal version of that.

[@janX9]

I've heard people in the KZbin comments section claiming to be 12 years old and saying their favorite console right now is Atari or Nintendo. This gives me hope that there will always be a love for older systems. Luckily there are many kids today that understand that graphics aren't everything and that gameplay plays a major role in whether a game is good or not. Whether a game be on Atari, smartphone or PS4, there are still kids happy to play on either platform *:)*

[@lurkerrekrul]

@the dude - I was talking about video games with someone and a boy about 10-12 was listening in. When the subject of the N64 came up, he said "That was like the third generation of video game consoles, right?"

[@lurkerrekrul]

@janX9 - I wish I could find it again (probably deleted), but I once watched a video from a kid with one of the Xbox systems who had downloaded an Activision 2600 classics collection. I don't know how old he was, but he sounded young. He spent the entire video complaining about the games and wondering why a company would release such "horrible" games. He was completely clueless to the fact that they were old games and that at one time, they represented the state of the art in video gaming.

[@lurkerrekrul]

@the dude - I'm the same way mostly. I don't really think in "generations", I just see it being used by others when talking about video game consoles.

[@vectorbeam]

About Ballblazer, you can have a CPU opponent and you can choose its skill level You can even set both players as CPU (with varying skill levels) and watch them duke it out.

[@SkulShurtugalTCG]

This was incredibly insightful and fun to watch. Thanks for going through all this effort!

[@jewelianperez7038]

Indeed! I should definitely start collecting the console

[@bobfromsoireegames4309]

It's an underrated system tbh

[@Lightblue2222]

@@jewelianperez7038 it's a great system with its only issue being its controller reliability. The Atari brand controller loves to stop working.. but I found the 5200 Wico stick to be very reliable. Wico also has a switch to make it self center which helps on most of the games. So if you pick up a 5200 make sure to get a Wico stick. And fyi imo its far better than the 2600 Wico, moving is nearly effortless due to touch sensitive analog.

[@MattMcIrvin]

That Defender port is essentially identical to the 400/800 version, which was probably the single game I got most addicted to during the 1980s--I physically broke the space bar on my 800 playing it, just mashing that smart bomb.

[@solarflare9078]

I remember what Retro Core said about the 5200 version about Pole Position: "The first thing you'll notice is the horrible color palette used. The 2600 version looked more pleasing! The second thing you'll notice is the choppy scrolling" These two things really do hinder the 5200 port of Pole Position (there was a third thing he said about having no brakes, but it was because of a controller configuration error)

[@nathanwalker7983]

“Graphics? Yep, it has em.”

[@sideburn]

Minor 2049er was one of the best games back in the 80s. And ballblazer was amazing as well as the others by Lucas film games.

[@ironleeFPS]

Basically this console was Atari’s version of Colecovision. That’s the way I see it anyway. But Coleco did it at the time period of the 2600.

[@brianoconnell6459]

The interesting thing about Rescue on Fractalus (I know one of the key developers), is that it did something no other console ever did at the time: The topography was all generated at random. Hence part of the name, "fractal".

[@davidstaffen6783]

Isn't the game also noted for having one of the first jump scares in video games should you fail. An alien would break though the front window

[@werpu12]

@@davidstaffen6783 I think it also was the first game which was pirated before it came out. Someone broke into the servers of Lucasarts and stole the game (yes they were that advanced that they had servers and remote access while most others did not even know what a network is), it quickly became distributed over BBSes worldwide and basically had a worldwide distribution before it even was out comercially on the Atari 8 bit computers (which got it first)

[@DTM-Books]

@@davidstaffen6783 Yes! That space alien scared the daylights out of us.

[@jewelianperez7038]

I guess you can say it's a *"nice"* lineup of games

[@gohtwm]

EHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEH

[@Brawl-er9qe]

I was specifically looking for a comment about the amount of games being the funny number, I didn’t have to scroll very far

[@stephenmanuel9860]

Nice.

[@defunctyear23]

Come on!

[@kingdedede7]

Hehehe 69

[@justinhenryhaynes]

This was my first console! I was 10 and I had no idea there was a video game crash as a video gaming kid - I just knew there were games. The Wico sticks worked well enough. You still had to calibrate them, but it’s how I played all the games I had. You plugged a y connector in and for each joystick port you ended up with 2 x controllers. The original for the start / pause / reset and keypads, and the Wico sticks for fire 1 and 2 and joystick. There were techniques… the joysticks made games like Centipede, Star Wars and Super Breakout work well because it was fully proportional rather than analog. At least that’s how we described the difference in the 80s. Game cartridges came with templates you could put over the number pads that had the buttons labeled for that game. If you look on the controllers you can see the slots where the tabs from the templates fit in. When you first got a 5200 original controller it worked fine!! But it went downhill. So here were my experiences for those who may be interested: When the controller was brand new, I held it in my left hand (non dominant), and held the rather short joystick in the right like a pencil. Notice how fat the joystick is? It stays where you put it. It does not spring back to center. Holding it like a pencil gave me the fine control I needed. There were two kinds of games - those that only registered directions (up, down, left, right and diagonals) and those where the joystick corresponded to exact positions with resolution higher than the number of pixels on the screen. So in Star Wars you could put that crosshair *exactly* where you wanted instantly. Same with the paddle in super breakout or the character in centipede. But then the joystick gets older. 2 things happen: the buttons stop registering because they are cheap rubber membranes with conductive material on the other side that wears out/off. Maybe the contacts oxidize too. So you press fire and nothing happens. To you have to use a stick or the tip of your Wico stick to press the Start button to get it to start.. The second thing is the center of the joysticks move and you cannot adjust them!! So in Star Wars, you literally will not be able to access part of the screen because the joystick is uncalibrated. The Wico sticks had sliders on the side so you could center them. They were also longer and nicer and you could adjust whether they were free or spring centering. The centering is better because it gives you something to calibrate to and when playing it gives you a tactile feeling of where you are. Thanks for the reviews! Nice to see some of the games I played when they were new and old ones that were new to me! If I had known about the Fractalis game back then or those with audio sampling my mind would have been blown.

[@cathrynm]

The controller is what killed it. PacMan would have been the killer app/game for 5200, but the controller just made it bad. First major stumble for Atari, and they never really recovered from this.

[@nickpalance3622]

Oh sure. Like the 2600 PAC-MAN was better and sold 2600s. Wait .. the first part I say is false (subjective) but I’ve heard that the second part is true. Can’t verify that one way or the other. My 5200 had Pac-Man as the pack in (vs Super Breakout 😅) and I liked it. Suboptimal, yes, but not a deal breaker. The Colecovision sold better and also pursued arcade home ports as its main draw. And the joystick was worse IMHO. I had a CV too. Lucky I guess. A friend of mine only had an Intellivision as his step-up console and I’d take my 5200 any day. Unless I wanted to play AD&D (Smokey Mountain). I can imagine 5200 and Coleco owners thinking “at least we’re not stuck with Intellivision controllers”. Kinda like “at least we’re not the Detroit Lions” (except this year .. my pastor is a fan and not that he didn’t believe in God obviously but after this season he KNOWS that God exists and still performs miracles… just that God seemed to love the Cowboys more which funny enough is the fave team of the 2nd ranking pastor at my church)

[@Erebus494]

I've always been curious about what the 5200's games looked like, since it's been made so obscure by its bad controller and unfortunate timing near the crash of 83. Thanks for this video! It's been great to watch both this and the 7800 one.

[@plawson8577]

1984.

[@splatbubble]

@@plawson8577 We loved our 5200. Pac Man at home being nearly perfect was... amazing. Unfortunately our sound chip packed up, which, back then, made our system pretty inoperable. 7800 made us feel better, but I will always miss the goofy witticisms that introduced every stage of Space Dungeon!

[@Xegethra]

Berzerk and H.E.R.O are ones I love. Even on the 2600.

[@DoomRater]

On the subject of controllers, I decided to look up the schematics of a controller to see what would be involved in DIYing a controller. Looks like someone has gone out there already and done the hard work of building a working schematic that uses modern potentiometers in today's joysticks and adapting them so they function within the 5200's specs. Nice. This took 5 seconds of Googling too, and surprise surprise, it's by a Doctor. He published his work last year, so I would have been out of luck had I tried this search only a couple years ago. Thanks Scott Baker!

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

At least someone decided to do this.

[@lurkerrekrul]

@DoomRater - Um actually, the Atari 5200 FAQ hosted on AtariAge.com has instructions for building a Y-cable that will let you plug in a standard 15-pin analog joystick. It only requires connectors and a couple capacitors. It also has schematics for making an interface to connect Atari 2600 controllers, although you'll lose the analog capabilities, since the 2600 controllers were digital. The FAQ is dated 2001. ;)

[@JetScreamer_YT]

My favorite console. I rebuild the sticks on ebay.

[@fourthhorseman4531]

My favorite as well. I still break mine out for some Pac Man every now and then.

[@GarlicMonoxide]

Got a link? I know someone who's interested 😉

[@fourthhorseman4531]

@@GarlicMonoxide Best Electronics sells rebuild kits: www.best-electronics-ca.com/5200.htm

[@JetScreamer_YT]

@@GarlicMonoxide Sure. Thanks. rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F123891330092

[@Tom_Van_Zandt]

It's cool this is your favorite console, but I don't understand how it could be. The controller is literally the worst controller ever made, by far, and it only had like 69. The 2600, in my opinion, is Atari's best console by far. But of course this is all 100% opinion. I like the 5200, but I wouldn't even put it in my top 20. It's cool people are still making games for it. I love that these classic retro consoles are getting a 2nd chance. I love the PacMan Arcade that was released on AtariAge. Also, I've purchased several refurbished 5200 controllers on ebay by people all claiming they've made them better than new and they have all been the same clunky piece of garbage that I got with the console. The controller isn't an opinion. It's garbage. That one 3rd party controller is light years better..Wilco or whatever it's called...

[@ecernosoft3096]

I LOVED mountain king. I have the 2600 version since only my dad had a 2600. My mom grew up with a 7800 and as a result, I have one. She also had some really wealthy parrents (You could say the same for my parrents too) and got a whopping 80 games. I think she was also a collector in the '90s. Most of the games were 2600 ones. My dad showed me his only game he kept: Mountain king. I really liked it! Too bad I didn't get this version...

[@dustinramsey1198]

This is awesome! I always enjoy seeing the 5200 games getting some love lol.

[@besotoxicomusic]

I really like the no bullshit approach to this video.

[@Danominator]

Wow, this project must have been a huge undertaking! Congrats on another amazing video.

[@KidFresh71]

Great reviews. I appreciate the optimism! As mentioned in your presentation, a lot of these games I enjoyed on my Atari 800. My favorites: Berzerk, Dig Dug, Frogger, Joust, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Pitfall, and Q-Bert. Missile Command & Space Invaders deserve honorable mention, for being early pioneers. And Super Breakout was indeed fun to play, with a paddle controller. All that being said, my favorite Atari 800 games were Infocom's interactive text adventures.

[@emmettturner9452]

"Puh NAM uh Joe?" Is that how you pronounce "Panama Canal?" ;)

[@FrameRater]

Think of it like this: I'd never heard the word before, it looked like "banana".

[@emmettturner9452]

@@FrameRater LOL! Just figured everyone has seen "Panama Canal" before but, yeah, it isn't some thing you see too often if you don't live in Panama or wherever. I know I've seen it printed on-screen in Team America: World Police, at least, but I don't recall if they said the name out loud ;)

[@otaking3582]

Tmw you realize the 5200 had more games than the Virtual Boy...

[@Chaos89P]

About 3 times as many. Probably less.

[@amuzulo]

And infinitely less headaches! 😂😂

[@2manyW]

AND it sold less.

[@Nestalgba92023]

@@2manyW What?! Since November 1982 to 1986?

[@tem684]

@@2manyW I think the 5200 sold around 1M units, with the VB selling slightly less with around 700K

[@SoulforSale]

Worth mentioning the 5200 used the exact same chip set as the Atari home computers from the era

[@s4mpson]

5200 was my jam as a kid. Space Shuttle is the only video game my father will play. Still has the cartridge in his collection of stuff. Yay for emulation.

[@eddiehimself]

Funny how SEGA and Nintendo both made games for this system, obviously before the NES and Master System came out.

[@sycoraxrock]

We had an Atari computer, and - since a 5200 is basically an Atari 400 without a keyboard - a lot of these games are the exact same versions I grew up with. Good to see ‘em get some love. I can confirm that Space Dungeon is a great game and that you should have been able to shoot in multiple directions.

[@DustinRodriguez1_0]

THIS IS WHAT THAT THING WAS! I had a vague early childhood memory from the 80s of my cousin having some gaming thing that as kids we weren't supposed to mess with (I suppose it was my uncle that had it, not my cousin actually...). I had figured out the game we tried to play on it was Defender years ago, but I could never figure out what the special controller I remembered was. It was apparently an Atari 5200. I remember it was kept separately in a cabinet and the notion was that the system was too complicated for us children to figure out. Which they were right about, I remember not being able to make heads or tails of Defender. I wonder if they knew the controller was easy to break and that's why we weren't supposed to play with it (which of course we did not listen to. I don't think we hurt it, but we definitely hooked it up and tried it when no one was around)...

[@jaredt2590]

The issue and the reason the market collapsed was that this console in addition to being junk didn't give players really any new games. People had bought nearly all these games before or could buy them for what they already owned. If you buy a new console you want new games.

[@dougcasey5012]

I had a 5200 with a 2600 adapter. The 5200 controller broke immediately. Everyone bought a different analog stick controller (red and black I think...or maybe red and white) but still had to use the original controller to press start. The rubber start button eventually came off, so we had to press start by sticking a butter knife into the start...thing.

[@DoomRater]

Wizard of Wor's controller in the second player option is not a mistake, it's a carryover from the arcade port which did the same thing, put player 1 on player 2's side. I have a licensed Midway Arcade machine by Big Games Electronics and that forces me to use the right side of the game to play as player 1.

[@EssexAggiegrad2011]

So glad people aren't just hating on the 5200

[@mikebell2112]

Gorf had solid colors in the arcade, too. When it came out, it seemed like a bunch of hyper mini versions of existing games, so it seemed normal that the graphics were like that.

[@jeremycline9542]

How the heck do so many of the games look better than the 7800's?

[@werpu12]

More colors... the atari was capable fo 256 colors but only 4 per line, the hardware was well known by then and most of the games simply were copies of the atari 400/800 line of computers which has been existent since 78 and had literally the same hardware. And yes many of the games aged better than on the c64 because of the colors (but it had bigger sprites, back then this did matter now both system graphics look dated, but more colors simply look better now). On paper the 7800 was better except for the sound, but the programmers most of the times could not make the best out of the hardware. The 5200 was a great system but it simply was killed by its controller! Atari did so many mistakes after the VCS they literally sank every console after that by 1-2 stupid decisions just to save a few cents of money somewhere!

[@nickpalance3622]

After Jack T bought Atari he should’ve immediately done the XEGS that eventually came out but too late. Warner should have done that. Same recipe as the Coleco Adam but better execution and a proven track record of software and support. Many people bought the Intellivision Master Component expecting the Keyboard Component to arrive and on time and on budget AND be good. But yes the 7800 relying on the 2600 TIA chip for sound was big mistake. And the Proline joystick was also a dud too. But at least an 8-direction 9-pin port digital joystick. But generally regarded as yet another lousy joystick from Atari. Back in 89/90 (?) I didn’t know that the STE computers had advanced joystick ports that would go on to be used by the Jaguar in the 90s. What if Atari tried a good stick then? Okay enough what ifs. Atari and Commodore didn’t make it. “Alternate Reality” was only a game (well, two of an incomplete set … another disappointment)

[@bluesosa3224]

I HAD THE 2600 & THE 5200. COOL BEANS, GJ.

[@geo-fry6372]

I'm extremely lucky to have a 5200 with 2 working controllers. I've gotta say, it is a highly underrated console.

[@EssexAggiegrad2011]

Yup

[@ecernosoft3096]

@@EssexAggiegrad2011 Yup! Just wish it wasn't 290$....

[@Nestalgba92023]

@@ecernosoft3096 I remember it was US$269.

[@luvmenow33]

I absolutely LOVED my Atari 5200 & Aside from it failing the actual way the controller works in my opinion is not as bad as everyone claims. It did not take me very long at all to get into the rhythm of censoring the joystick on my own once you get that down there’s really no problems

[@pastaman64]

69 games, huh? Time to prepare for all the predictable nice jokes in the comment section, then.

[@heavysystemsinc.]

Nice.

[@FlyingV555]

Pasta Man64 yeah seriously the 69 joke is not funny anymore

[@isabellajustice2910]

@@FlyingV555 why do you hate fun

[@uiopuiop3472]

do not do it its secret poo poo word

[@thehappysun9234]

can someone tell me why 69 is a joke number?

[@moeschizlac]

There was a 3d version of "Pitfall" on PS1 back in the day.

[@hitmixhyepock9405]

I loved this system when it came out. The graphics were so mind blowing to us...the difference between the 2600 and the 5200 was like vhs and dvd. My family played this system together for a few years...from 4th ish grade up to probably 7th or 8th grade. My dad quit playing when i beat him in football like 120 to 14. I played farther into games than i would have in the arcade. I got to a level in galaxian when they disappear and come in in flashing slow motion teleport. My father amd i pearned how to fix the controllers at least 4 times before we had to buy a new one....but still 60 dollars in 1987 was a lot of dollars. But in my memory the games had the most amazing graphics, because i remember playing pacman on the 2600 a few years before. I had Qix Kangaroo Football Pacman Defender Galaxian Qbert Star Raiders Super Breakout

[@Isaacfess]

Yeah the AVGN video tore this console a new one. And it deserved it, (mostly). Great reviews Frame!

[@AlexEvans1]

Most of AVGN's criticisms were crap, but then being negative is his brand.

[@cheeseboi588]

Alex Evans Criticism is subjective.

[@lilg8017]

schtick

[@bullhornzz]

Aww man, I had a 5200 as a kid. I loved it when it worked but those controllers broke do easily. Playing centipede with the traackball controller was FANTASTIC!

[@orioncgaming720]

Yay! Glad to see you talking about this console, I saw your community posts about wanting to do this video so good to see something came of it. I was wondering if you could next talk about the Virtual boy library, and hopefully mention the games planned for the system. It’s a small library with some interesting talking points

[@FrameRater]

In terms of systems with small libraries, this video was rather successful compared to recent attempts so I will likely be doing this for other systems as well. And yes, including Virtual Boy.

[@nearvanaman]

What a flashback...Astro Chase. Haven't thought about that game since I played it in the 800 XL about 35 years ago. Not through all the games yet but appreciate the work you put in 👍

[@ctrlaltrees]

Great video on this underrated system! You got yourself a new subscriber. I just wanted to add that the controllers are more than bearable if you install the gold contact upgrade kit from Best Electronics. Working on a video covering this process myself at the moment.

[@MattMcIrvin]

It's interesting how the Activision games tend to just replicate the graphical presentation of their Atari 2600 predecessors, without much if any enhancement. They're fantastic-looking games for the 2600, designed to get the most visual punch as possible with that platform's technical limitations, but I would have expected something more here. But the main issue, really, is that the majority of the 5200's games existed in nearly identical form on the Atari 400/800/XL/XE computers, which used regular Atari 2600 controllers--the best of both worlds. The 5200 was cheaper than an Atari 400, but not by enough to really justify its existence, especially given that the controller was far worse. Years later, Atari would try again at turning its 8-bit computer line into a game console with the XE Game System, this time with the 2600-style controllers and a zapper gun, but it was too little, too late--if that had come out as a game console in 1979 as they'd originally intended before repurposing the platform as a home computer, it would have been astonishing.

[@F1JV]

Matt McIrvin...I was wondering about the look of the 5200 games vs. the ATARI 800XL computer that I bought instead(owning a VCS + a Starpath Supercharger as well)...the 800XL is MUCH BETTER graphically. Every arcade game was near a perfect port...thinking Popeye...Donkey Kong...Dig Dug. I thought they would have been closer...this makes me just want a 7800 to have 1 system for it + VCS games “maybe” in the future. I went from my ATARI 800XL to SEGA Genesis...ATARI Lynx II...ATARI Jaguar...Jaguar CD...SEGA Dreamcast...then last console bought...Original XBox. All my systems were bought during their lifecycle...if I buy an ATARI 7800...it will be my first system NOT bought brand new.

[@werpu12]

Depends, River Raid looks way better on the 5200 and Atari 8 bit computers, Hero is a slight improvement and the 5200 is in fact my favorite version. I cannot stand for instance the c64 version, which introduced background artwork which made the game unbearable to look at. The Atari 8 bit version (which the 5200 is) hit the spot of looking slightly better biut keep its clean visual design without clutter. Pitfall and Pitfall 2 are another matter both games look as good as they are, I guess activision did not rethink the design there. And given on what Sega did to Pitfall graphically I frankly prefer the simplistic clean design.

[@werpu12]

@@F1JV There is no difference, the 5200 is basically the 800xl hardware as console, same chips same ram, the games were straight byte copies of the original 800 ports with adaptions on how you can get into the game. I grew up with a 400, but now I have both systems on the MiSTer and compare it system by system, they games are really the same except for having to press other keys to start and smaller adaptions to the controller schemes (H.E.R.O. for instance uses two buttons, which I like a lit). It would be neat to have a side by side comparison to show that!

[@BURRITO44]

Great video I own this system The worst aspect are the awful controllers My controllers still work Paid $ 88 at the Wiz in a March Blow-out sale back in the 80s.

[@OrangeHarrisonRB3]

Wow Choplifter has stunning animation for the time.

[@parttimehuman]

Space Dungeon was super fun. It came with an adapter so you can link both controllers together. left hand for ship movement and right for directional shooting. Played it a TON.

[@klax001]

Great review, would have been cool to maybe hear some more sound from the games though, especially when you directly mention something regarding the sound, but then dont even let us hear it in the video. Just my two cents. Keep up the great reviews!

[@HailAnts]

My cousin got this mostly just for Robotron! The game cartridge came with a plastic holding rack that you snapped the two controllers into so you could play it like the arcade..

[@WalterTGB]

Finally, a video that is perfect for me to write a list of all the good 5200 games

[@amphitheaterpublic1582]

Space dungeon requires two controllers. The game came with a plastic adaptor so you xan control the firing and movement.

[@ttheone3518]

the interresting thing is that most of the games of the atari 5200 are just clones of games on the atari 8-bit line of computers. sometimes they change the gamelpay, some of the sounds or colors, but they always seem very similar. i prefer playing on the atari 8-bit line of computers as they were much better suported than the 5200 in terms of software. i think that's why most games also don't take advantage of the second button on the controller, as it was meant to be played on the atari computers, which uses more or less the same joystick as the atari 2600

[@DuckAlertBeats]

I really like these videos but can I offer a suggestion? I feel you should have maybe five or ten seconds of gameplay after your commentary on each game, so we can hear the music, sound FX etc, especially when you mention something interesting about the music or sound! Regardless, thanks for the videos, good stuff!

[@NorthKoreaUncovered]

My favorite Atari console of all time. Thank you for doing this! I’ll agree that the controller is terrible. Especially with the non self-centering joystick.

[@lurkerrekrul]

I didn't have a 5200 when they were new, I got one later, after the video game crash. I liked it, although I only had a handful of games for it. I actually didn't mind the controllers that much. They would have been much better if they self-centered, but I didn't have too many problems with them. I got two working ones with the system and one with a dead button. Ballblazer - Every other port of the game has something like 10 levels of computer opponents, so I'd be surprised if the 5200 didn't have a 1-player mode as well. Keystone Kapers - Although there's no actual reason to do it, it's tradition to jump right before you catch the thief so that you perform a (theoretical) flying tackle. :) Mountain King - This was even more impressive on the 2600. The graphics were less detailed and the jumping was more fiddly, but the map was just as large. Also for some reason, the 2600 version had the best fading in and out of the music while you searched for the flame. It was really easy to follow it. All the other versions only seem to have 2-3 volume levels and then the music cuts out entirely when you get a little far away. I was really disappointed that that aspect of the game was handled so poorly when the graphics and controls were so much improved on the 5200/Colecovision/C64 ports. Rescue on Fractalus - One of the most impressive things about this game is that the terrain isn't just randomly generated, its a persistent map. Meaning if you were to revisit the same area, you would find all the same hills and valleys as before. I don't know if each map is randomly generated at the start of the level, or if they're always the same, I just know that it doesn't just randomly generate the landscape as it goes. Another Lucasfilm game, The Koronis Rift used the same fractal technology and that game DID have set maps. Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator - This is a port of an arcade game that used vector graphics, so they really didn't have much to base the home version's graphics off of. Vanguard - Nicer graphics, but the 2600 version played better. For some reason, the 5200 often doesn't seem to fire when I need it to, which causes me to get killed. I never had that problem on the 2600 version. I'm sure it wasn't the controller because the buttons worked fine in every other game.

[@PKMNwww411_MkII]

15-pin connectors are the same ones used on IBM PCs at the time.

[@scottbreon9448]

Yup. Although most IBM PC joysticks during this time were also sub-par. PC joysticks never started getting good until around 1988-1989

[@Unknown13x]

I had the 5200 when I was a kid. And their version of Space Invaders was actually good. After the first 2 waves, the top row of Aliens would be replaced with different Aliens, that did different things. After every 2 waves, a new set of Aliens in one row, would replace the old Aliens, and some of them shot faster, some of them needed to be hit twice or turn invisible, or had a hard covering for a few seconds before you could shoot them again. After wave 20, the last set of new Aliens would eventually replace all the old Aliens and the new ones. They were a gold wired shape Aliens, that had every thing that I mentioned before. And if your one of those people who played this version of Space Invaders, then you know that this version was ahead of its time and how fun it was to play. 😃

[@Lightblue2222]

I see your playing Pole Position digitally. Perhaps if you try the analog control youd find it a bit more interesting. Drives very much like the arcade, unlike other versions. Full turns make the tires squeak and you loose speed. The gradual turning on a joystick feels amazing.

[@Lightblue2222]

It looks like your missile command may be messed up too. The appeal to this system is the analog controller. A non centering stick and Missile Command is 700 times better than any digital version. Instead of pushing around a curser, you direct it as fast and accurate as a mouse. Point it where u want and bam.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

Riverraid on the 8 bit Atari is still such a nice bump up from the 2600. Ball Blazer has a computer opponent mode.

[@BaneMcDeath]

Man... when excellent games are decided I have to picture Bill & Ted doing air Guitar..... "EXCELLENT!!!!"

[@JonTalbain777]

This was my first system! I remember my controllers holding up okay, but I was an only child so maybe it didn’t get enough play to really push them. My favorite games were River Raid and Space Dungeon. Guess I should have held onto it, but I was only a kid and it was way before the internet. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

[@kranibal]

You’re awesome! Absolute joy watching!

[@philstuf]

OH GAWD! River Raid. My hand just got phantom pains from recalling 100's of hours holding back on the stick on the 2600... Gonna start having flashbacks now...

[@marklechman2225]

Wizard of Wor requires you plug player 1's stick into the right port because player 1's character comes out of that box on the right. Player two comes out of the box on the left. Makes things much less confusing when playing co-op.

[@EdsterIII]

I had this system. It was a TANK. It was huge. BUT it was fun for it's time. Pac Man was awesome. This video is MEMORIES, THANK YOU. Also I had Miner 2049er for the Commodore 64. Another fun game.

[@blackenedheart9592]

Love this channel. I really enjoy his reviews on every single game on each system because I've never heard of a few here and there

[@nettack]

The Butterfly reference during 007 makes me want to play some Dance Dance Revolution.

[@aVeryBmovie]

100% agree!

[@westchestertechnologies6687]

Actually the 5200 was not meant as the 2600 successor. It was designed as a more high end aficionados arcade machine. However the surprise unveiling of the Colecovision forced Ataris hand and they had to drastically reduce the price and now go head to head with a new competitor they were not prepared for.

[@Lucklaran]

Dreadnaught Factor was my personal favorite.

[@TheMGMfan]

Two things I want to mention: 1.) While you're right that the footage of Pac-man on the ColecoVision shown in that commercial isn't actually of the ColecoVision version, but rather the 2600 version, it's worth mentioning that it's actually the closest thing to an official ColecoVision version of Pac-man; the system never officially got the game (Atari owner the rights to publish home versions of the game, and while they did have a label for publishing games on other companies' consoles, Atarisoft, and even made a port of Pac-man for the ColecoVision, it was canceled), so the only way you could play it on that system before homebrew was to use the Expansion Module #1, which was essentially an Atari 2600 that was attatched to the port on the front of the console, albeit with different but similar components, likely to make it more legal (although it didn’t stop Atari from suing, which ended with a settlement that essentially gave Coleco a license to their patents), and play the 2600 version of Pac-man through that. Atari probably decided to use 2600 footage and say it was ColecoVision footage because with no proper ColecoVision version of the game, the 2600 version basically was Pac-man on ColecoVision, ergo they weren’t entirely lying, which might honestly be one of the best examples of insidious genius I have ever known about. 2.) I actually got a 5200 from a coworker of my mom years ago, complete with multiple controllers, and I'm pretty sure none of them work anymore; the reason for their terrible reliability is likely that their circuitry is actually made out of a flexible material which apparently isn't that reliable. Also of note is the unorthodox nature of hooking it up; the console itself doesn't have a port for the AC Adapter, instead you plug the RF Cable to a special box, then plug the AC Adapter into that. The benefit is that it automatically switches between the TV signal and 5200 signal, which was unheard of at the time. There's also a second model that looks the same, but with only two controller ports instead of four, a conventional RF and AC system (although this also meant the removal of the autoswitch feature), and a slight modification to the cartridge port to accommodate for its own 2600 adapter, which was added to the last units of the first model and even earlier units that didn't have them can be modified to be compatible with it.

[@HalfMoonProphet]

30:41 What the hell happened here?

[@BabusGameRoom]

It's just a really ooood game

[@dl6085]

But it could almost be rully oood

[@poble]

it's such an oood game

[@dl6085]

@@poble At least it's not buud

[@bakermob29]

I was 7 years old when this came out. I remember my dad waited in line for hours to get it.

[@alexandreandrade5365]

Now we need a 10 hours video called "trying every Atari 2600 comercial game".

[@JessicaFEREM]

The person designing the controller must've been like Our new console needs more buttons to compete with the computers *looks at phone* aha finally *CTRL+C and CTRL+V's the phone's buttons*

[@ParenteGrande]

I owned a Colecovision when I was younger and on some games the number pad is used to change the shooting direction.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Yep! It was an interesting time when these companies thought numeric keypads were going to be the new thing in gaming (Intellivision had them to). I loved the ColecoVision when we got it back in '83.

[@ParenteGrande]

I'm still wondering if he tried using the numeric keypad on the controller to chane the firing direction on those games that needed two controllers?

[@ParenteGrande]

Christopher, I got mine around the same time and had to share with my little sister. I can still hear the cabbage patch kids game music. It haunts me in my sleep at times.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

@@ParenteGrande Heh, we had the Smurfs game for ours so that music's in my head a lot!

[@FrameRater]

Good point ParenteGrande. I'm not sure if Robotron would work that way since it already fires with the joystick, but Space Dungeon likely works the way you're stating it.

[@SarahLJP]

15:44 My mom once got Montezuma's revenge while visiting Mexico.

[@chriscorsello]

This video was posted 2 years ago yesterday! (So you may already know some the these things I am about to say) I am old enough to remember when the 5200 was current! Mostly I wanted to talk about the controllers. The biggest fatal flaw was that they were NOT self centering. That was a huge mistake. On the other hand, the innovation that Atari was trying to put forth was the analog nature of the joystick. Like a mouse or a track ball how fast and far you moved the joystick would effect movement in some games. This made the joystick AMAZING for trackball games: Missile Command, Centipede, Star Wars: The Arcade, Super Breakout and Kaboom (both originally paddle games.) So the engineers had a really interesting idea, but it was only good for those 5 games. I had a 3rd party controller- a Wico joystick. Most retailers wouldn't even let you out the door without buying one to go with system. The design was similar to Wico's 2600 controllers, but it had switch so you could set it to re-center or not for those 4 games. Also, it has a "splitter cable" built in. The idea was you plugged your original controller to the splitter so you could use the numeric key pad on the original controller and the superior joystick for controls. I'm pretty sure I have it still in a box in my basement, along with at least 4 of the original 5200 controllers.Thanks for the video, brought back lots of memories.

[@timlloyd7434]

I grew up with the 5200 and never cared for the 2600 (despite it's grand library) because the graphics looked like sh*t by comparison. I'll admit that the analog joysticks were a bit stiff (even when brand new), making them less than perfect. That said, they were still analog and not digital and lot of the 5200 games catered well to them. My biggest gripe with the controllers were the red buttons on the side. Being a young kid at the time, those damn things were so hard to press and my thumb and fingers would get sore trying to press them!🙂 Great video! I very rarely agree with others' ratings on games, but these ratings were ON POINT. All 69 of them! Also, dude sounds like Randal from Clerks😄 👍

[@JGKingCrusher]

I loved my 5200. The controller was actually quite excellent... when they worked. Once they crapped out, finding another was soooo difficult. My favorite games on it was pac man and Breakout. Breakout worked so well with that controller because the stick did not spring back to zero. It stayed where you put it, which allowed better control of the paddle for breakout... But once again, when it broke, you were up a creek. Dang... Love my 5200. Also, the new Atari collection available for pretty much everything has 5200 games! I was so happy!

[@jasonleman1396]

I only saw this system growing up once as a kid in the early 80s, (I had a friend who had every system he had this and one of the atari computers)

[@aeris2001]

Have loved your 5200 and 7800 game review videos. Atari Jaguar and Lynx full game review videos would be AWESOME!!!

[@travisbebee7767]

First time viewer and this was amazing and very entertaining good job man

[@Jarod_Schultz]

There is a Track and Field controller for the 2600 that works for track and Field and also Decathlon. It may work using an adapter for the 5200. Redeption 5200 is one example. The Starplex controller may also work. It has an Asteroid arcade layout. A Sega Genesis controller will also work. You shouldn't use a joystick for olympic running games because you can damage it like you said.

[@johntaylor6837]

If they come out with a flashback version of 5200 i would get it.

[@johnking4941]

Good call I was thinking about that too. My intellivision flashback is done I believe. It has just completely stopped working. Very sad I hope this doesn't happen with you and any of your flashback

[@wizard3z868]

emulation is the way to go

[@eltravo2112]

Great nostalgic review although I myself had a Colecovision. You’re speaking voice sounds like Randal Graves from the movie Clerks 😃

[@travistaylor3186]

The 5200 library I enjoy more than the 7800. The 7800 I can only play when the audio is muted. The 5200 is basically an Atari 400 computer

[@neodecker]

I had a 5200 when I was a kid. I don't remember having any issues with my controllers, but I mainly used the trackball (which outlsurvived the system). If I remember the trackball also made the duel stick easier. I was lucky enough to have a Great Grandmother that brought me a ton of the games when she got it for me, since afterwards it was almost impossible to find games. I also ended up going back to the 2600, due to supply of games, and aftermarket support.

[@MikeDijital]

Fun fact. Zaxxon is actually you fighting space bases on asteroids

[@cubeflinger]

Man you've been popping up in my feed for so long I had just assumed I'd subscribed. I have now!

[@Naturenerd1000]

Seems like there were alot of unique excellent puzzle games when they were limited to these simple graphics.

[@mpacino1224]

It was such a visual upgrade for me from the 2600. I always wanted it. My friend's brother had one and I was always playing it. She was so mad.

[@bmkretrogaming7634]

Great video! I just acquired an Atari 5200 myself. Though it's going to be sent off for minor modification, and I'm getting a reliable controller for it. There are actually a number of decent replacement Atari 5200 controllers these days. Beyond controller issues which should have been the simplest thing to remedy back in the day the initial lack of backwards compatibility with the Atari VCS/2600 game library, and no cross compatibility with the Atari 8 bit computer games despite the Atari 5200 being based upon the Atari 400/800 computers were the major gripes. At least Atari released the Atari 2600 adapter, and had plans to release updated controllers. Too bad it was all too little too late to change the Atari 5200's fortunes.

[@QunMang]

As a kid I thought I wanted this after seeing the Cloak & Dagger movie and it's seemingly perfect port of the arcade game of the same name. Of course it turned out that the game being played in the movie *was* in fact the arcade game and no port actually existed. I was happy with our Colecovision though. By the way, that Pac-man (mis-labeled) port in the commercial was actually better than the one released for Colecovision (that's right, it got nada though there was an unreleased prototype and a much later homebrew).