The Ultimate Coleco/Atari 2600 Tier List - ALL RELEASED GAMES RANKED

Step into the time machine as we journey back to the golden age of gaming with an enthralling exploration of Atari 2600 games published by Coleco! Join us on this retro gaming adventure as we dust off our vintage consoles and rediscover the magic of some of the most cherished titles ever released.
In this video, we'll be diving headfirst into a selection of captivating classics brought to us by Coleco and rank all thirteen titles on a tier.
Prepare to be captivated by the gameplay, charmed by the pixel art, and immersed in the soundscapes of iconic titles such as:
1. Donkey Kong: Embark on an unforgettable journey to rescue the lovely Pauline from the clutches of the infamous Donkey Kong. Jump over barrels, ascend ladders, and conquer the platforms to claim victory. Can you reach the top and save the day?
2. Venture: Brace yourself for an epic dungeon-crawling quest filled with treasures and treacherous monsters. As a brave adventurer, you'll face off against evil wizards, ghostly apparitions, and fierce dragons. Can you survive the depths and find the fabled "Hall of Wonders"?
3. Mr. Do!: Join Mr. Do! on a delightful fruit-collecting adventure in his quest to outwit menacing monsters. Dig tunnels, drop apples, and unleash your power ball to clear the screen. How high can you score in this addictively fun arcade experience?
4. Zaxxon: Strap into the cockpit and take control of a powerful fighter jet in this groundbreaking isometric shooter. Dodge obstacles, blast enemy spacecraft, and prove your skills in the deep space fortress. Can you make it through the deadly Zaxxon defense system?
Get ready to be enthralled by these timeless classics as we analyze their gameplay mechanics, graphics, and historical significance. We'll also share captivating trivia about their development and the impact they had on the gaming industry at the time.
#atari #coleco #atari2600 #genxgrownup
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00:00 Coleco
01:09 The Criteria
11:28 Halfway Point
21:00 Summary

[@McLovin_2007]

I'm a Millennial Grown-up, and played Atari 2600 in 1990, near the end of it's production. I still play it today. I love homebrew games.

[@GenXGrownUp]

That's great. There's some remarkable stuff happening in 2600 homebrew these days. I think you caught my look at Champ's Zoo Keeper, didn't you? That's just amazing.

[@McLovin_2007]

@@GenXGrownUp Yes. I've seen that game. I also like Space Rocks, Scramble, and Juno First.

[@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145]

It's amazing how long the 2600's lifespan was!

[@edwardmclaughlin719]

@@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145 Is

[@LITTLE1994]

Nice

[@JTSDAD67]

Ignorance is bliss and I loved the Coleco version of Donkey Kong on my 2600 when I was 10. Didn't get off the farm much. And my #2 favorite game beneath Pitfall is Venture. That was awesome!

[@flatfingertuning727]

The interviews I read with Garry Kitchen said that he would have liked to use an 8K cartridge, but the required bank switching circuitry would have made it necessary to use a board with four chips rather than one or two. Who knows how history might have been different if he'd been able to offer Coleco a design using one just one common off-the-shelf 74LS153 in addition to the ROM chip, using a circuit that debuted in 2006. Details like the hammers required a lot more cartridge space than anyone who didn't look at the cartridge would suspect. The reason games like the Smurfs look so much better than Donkey Kong is that there aren't any complex background graphics sharing the same scan lines with the multi-colored characters. I think the second board could have been improved if half of the frames had a firefox that moved between rows 1 and 2, and another between 3 and 4, while the other frames showed a firefox that moved between 2 and 3, and between 4 and 5. Getting rid of the hammers could probably have freed up enough cartridge space to make that possible, but the hammers are such an iconic part of the arcade game that I think Garry Kitchen was determined to get them in if at all possible. BTW, an interview with a now-deceased programmer for Atari 2600 programmer--I think it was Garry Kitchen--mentioned that he was experimenting with ways of making the 6502 do "two things at once". There are some bit patterns which, if fed to an NMOS version of the 6502, will activate different parts of the internal circuitry, associated with two instructions, and thus behave as a combination of those instructions. I don't think there's any record of exactly which instructions Garry Kitchen found, but my own Toyshop Trouble exploits a few in order to push the limits of what the 6502 can crank out.

[@GeneSimmonsBoots]

Toyshop Trouble is FANTASTIC!

[@adm712]

Christmas 1982-I remember my mom taking me to buy "Donkey Kong" for 2600 and then to the diner for lunch. I still remember hearing the Paul McCartney/Micheal Jackson song "The Girl is Mine" on the jukebox as I'm dying to go home to play Donkey Kong. As for the game itself..well..you rates it best. But I give it an "S" just for the great memory

[@GenXGrownUp]

I will stick by my rating for the VCS Donkey Kong, but I give your awesome memory from the time a great big S !

[@patsfan4life]

Yes, it’s an S for pure nostalgia that’s for sure

[@mikemayberry7121]

I would have put Donkey Kong in C and DKjr in F, but that's just me. Great video!

[@GenXGrownUp]

I understand both of those. 😉 Thanks for watching!

[@derekm573]

As a kid these were the only versions of Donkey Kong and Donkey Jr I was aware of, so I loved ‘em 😅

[@GenXGrownUp]

Nice!

[@kassanovajoneze]

I can't believed I bought/had the majority of these games. Great memories. Love these post. Like alot of your subscribers, we all grew up playing these games. My favorite was Donkey Kong

[@neohermitist]

My younger brother, may he rest in peace, could play the 2600 Donkey Kong for 4 hour straight. I remember vividly those nights at 2 am.

[@sandal_thong8631]

It was fun playing for half an hour or hour at another kids' home, but I didn't buy it when new, and it just wasn't that much fun when I could play it as much as I wanted. Doo-ooo-ooo-oo-oo-oo.

[@radiorob7543]

I like the audio on this channel. Loud, and clear.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thanks for the compliment. 😀🔊

[@robertbeckman2054]

I am a GenX’r myself, but don’t remember any of these arcades that were ported, except for the plane that goes around in time. I was in the arcades between 1983 and 1992. These must have been earlier games, or games they didn’t make a lot of cabinets for.

[@markracer3281]

Thank you, SIr Jon! Can't wait for the next vid... And you are awesome!!!

[@nickatmacomb8965]

These tier lists are great. Keep them up!

[@GenXGrownUp]

Glad you like them!

[@TomMannCenturia]

Great the love shown for the 2600 and it's games on these vids. Thanks very much.

[@PCKid32]

Another gem. Since I go back to my 30s when the 2600 came out and worked for the local Atari distributor in Western Australia I don’t recall us getting the 2600 Coleco games. Since I owned every game that came out I don’t recall any of these. Very strange. Great review all the same Jon.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thanks. As always, really appreciate you watching. As you see, you didn't miss out on any uber-gems in the Coleco library, but there are a couple worth seeking out still today if you missed them the first time around.

[@sdamon]

I’ll grant that it would have been nice to have more features added to Carnival, but what what’s there is pretty darn fun. It’s a solid A for me, and my favorite Coleco 2600 game. But overall, a good review of the Coleco lineup! 👍

[@waynerowlinson6177]

I bought a Coleco Gemini (Atari 2600 clone) in about 1983. It came bundled with Donkey Kong and Mouse Trap. I spent every penny I had on the console, so it was quite a while before I even had a third game. I played the heck out of both of them and enjoyed them a lot. I agree with your giving Mouse Trap an S as it was a great game. I likely would give Donkey Kong an A, possibly for nostalgia reasons, and partly because it was a game I could play for a while without dying constantly. My Gemini died after a couple of years, but I still have the games, along with many other 2600 games, and an Atari that has made it 40+ years.

[@danielespeziari5545]

Thanks for these videos, they are always a delight to watch

[@GenXGrownUp]

That's kind of you to say. I appreciate you watching. 😀

[@JustMe99999]

"It's pretty tough to miss the targets"... proceeds to miss lots of targets. :)

[@GenXGrownUp]

Just goes to show you I don't over-edit in an effort to make myself look competent!

[@TheMultiGunMan]

Nice! Keep up the good work. These videos are excellent.

[@frankc4755]

Great job Jon! Keep them coming. Hope you think of doing one for the M Network games!

[@nickatmacomb8965]

Yes please do those! There were some good ones.

[@Gen-X-Memories]

I'll drag anybody out to the woodshed for a beat down when playing Super Challenge Football.

[@fezlarenterprises8053]

Another great video. Quickly becoming my favorite KZbin Channel!!

[@GenXGrownUp]

Another great comment. Quickly becoming my favorite KZbin subscriber! 😉

[@ldogin]

Those table top little games looked great!!! The game play was so so but the art work and the colors were awesome. They look perfect on display. Nice!

[@andyleclerc3600]

I have a soft spot for DONKEY KONG, because my parents gave it to me for Christmas the same year they gave me the 2600. You did feel like you were king of the world when you unwrapped that thing😊. I got ROC'N''ROPE soon after,and was a go-to, but it took almost until my 2600 showed its age and needed to be put to rest before I found MOUSE TRAP, but it was worth it.

[@backpackingtony1779]

This is the first I’d your videos I’ve watched. Already I’m a subscriber! Your research, narrative and editing are top notch! Keep up the great work!

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thank you for the kind words and for mashing that button. I look forward to seeing more of you in the comments of future (and maybe past) videos! 😊

[@TheLadsBandLive]

Colecovision was insane at the time. The arcade ports were lightyears ahead of anything else. It was like a DeLorean brought it back from the future.

[@jayme69]

Great video as always Jon! Glad to see Venture doing well on the tier list. It's a fantastic game on the ColecoVision and I actually got to play it recently on the ColecoVision Flashback Collection on Steam which is really worth a look. Keep up the awesome work :-)

[@GenXGrownUp]

That beige/white cartridge with the little ribs do look a bit impersonal and industrial. Imagic carts just looked like a cool spaceship or something!

[@DTM-Books]

I like how the hardware publishers (Atari, Mattel, Coleco) would make videogames for their rival consoles, but deliberately do as bad a job as possible. I knew one kid who had a ColecoVision, and I was totally jealous of him. I think he was a rich kid, he even had the Atari 2600 adapter.

[@alcampbell469]

Awesome, thanks.

[@ButterSpider3]

Another home run! I only own 2 of these titles. And I am dying to get hold of Venture! (SFGE flea market, here I come!). It was great to get a peak at several games that I knew nothing about. As well as to know which ones not to waste my time (and money) trying to find. Thanks for another great share and rundown. Loved it!

[@Wiigameplayandmore]

This was a fun video have a great weekend

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thank you! You too!

[@davidsonowski414]

When I had my Coleco vision which I still have Venture was my favorite

[@cicerothenekoknightplaysall]

Another great video 🎉

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thank you! 😁

[@ThomasTalbotMD]

You did well on the rankings. I played TONS of Venture back in 80s.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thanks, Thomas. 😀

[@cicerothenekoknightplaysall]

Roc n rope looks rocking

[@vintuitive7627]

Mr. do reminds me of Dig Dug which I still love to this day. I bought all the old games in packs for my ps1 back in the day. I also have them of hand held Nintendo games. My favorites back in the day were Kangaroo which is basically donkey Kong with a kangaroo, and DragonsLair.

[@Incense3]

I loved DK. Those sounds effects are iconic and the gameplay was solid. I got it on my C64 which was much much better, but hearing the *bwang*.. *bip*. *bip* *bip*” will always be something that means I’m playing a really good game to me.

[@canholo6456]

I had an Intellivision and an Atari 2600 because my dad was an early gamer, but I really wanted a ColecoVision. Great video as always!

[@GenXGrownUp]

I hope to explore Intellivision & CV more in the future. Thanks for watching!

[@canholo6456]

@@GenXGrownUp Unfortunately, the Intellivision controller was a a little rough. Atari did it better imho. I think Night Stalker still holds up though. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I loved it as a kid.

[@DanTheMan2-zt8dj]

cant wait

[@occamsrazor9183]

I had original Atari, and mostly not any other consoles until Nintedo and Playstation came out years later👍...

[@thedinobros1218]

Honestly, there is a certain charm to the Atari 2600 ports of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. They are bad in a charming and fun way.

[@errollleggo447]

Thanks for the vid. I couldn't stay for the whole live stream. Anyway, you should take a peek at the Time Pilot for the 8 bit Atari, unofficial I believe. It's amazing!

[@GenXGrownUp]

You know Atari 8-bit my jam. I'll go take a look.

[@errollleggo447]

@@GenXGrownUp Trust me, you will be like "Wow!"

[@GenXGrownUp]

@@errollleggo447 Just checked it out. Pretty claustrophobic, but startlingly accurate!

[@errollleggo447]

@@GenXGrownUp In my mind, I don't see how it could be better than arcade. Like you said maybe a bit more open.

[@andymanaus1077]

Drat it Jon, now I have to stay up until 1am for the premiere. Just kidding mate, I'll see you at 1am. I'm a night owl anyhow. Love your work. 😁

[@GenXGrownUp]

Sorry. 🥲

[@pixelsncreatures]

A friend of mine had a Colecovision and I loved Venture. I got it for the 2600 and it was good enough, lol

[@kenwheeler3637]

These list are lots of fun. Hope you end up doing many more. The 2600 port of DK might not be great but at least it beats the INTV one.

[@GenXGrownUp]

That's what I hear. I never had an Intellivision, but I'm starting to learn about it lately.

[@JohnHenrySheridan]

Awesome!

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thanks!

[@john2001plus]

I was very pleased with the Carnival arcade game. I think that the 2600 port is pretty good.

[@jrassinier]

Love that you know Connecticut Leather Company. That's good research!

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thanks, but it didn't require a bunch of digging. 😀 Appreciate you watching!

[@charlesbronson4282]

Total Awesomeness!!!

[@jeremiahthomas8140]

Another great tier video. Surprised by some of your grades.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thanks. Surprised me, too.

[@XV250]

Some people always like to hate on Donkey Kong, but back in the day I thought it looked and played fine, it just needed the third screen. I can still fire it up and play it for maybe 15-20 mins. It deserves a lot better than a lowly 'D'...

[@b.o.4492]

Loved Donkey Kong by Colecovision on my friends VCS.

[@Mika73x2]

We used to rent Atari 2600 and Colecovision from video rent store at Finland. Never actually played those Coleco games with Atari 2600 only with Colecovision. Absolutely love those Kid vid games with all those songs etc. those so cute and lovely that they made those for children. But those games I used to play with Colecovision and arcade. Absolutely love Time pilot, Mr Do, Mouse Trap, Ladybug, Smurf rescue. Was totally blown away when see games like Smurf at Coleco after Atari 2600. Did Little Jonny notice if Smurfette drop her dress at Atari 2600 version if you leave her room? Course Colecovision version does.😂 At arcade used to play also Mr Do bootleg version Mr Lo. And Colecovision Donkey Dong version was maybe best home port there was. Yes and if Atari 2600 version look horrible you should check how Vic20 version Mini Kong, Crazy Kong etc look. Those so awful. But because that was home computer we had we also played games it had. And Colecovision was closest thing get Arcade at home. Vic20 used play at BW travel tv so didn’t even have colors.😊

[@urbanknish]

Video idea: How did the games offered by competitors stack up against each other? In other words, how did Atarisoft do on Colecovision and Intellivision vs how Coleco did with Atari and Intellivision and so on? Another idea: How did software from labels like CBS look on each system? Is this too much of a rabbit hole? Probably. But thinking about how Zaxxon looked on Colecovision vs Atari...

[@kbramlett6877]

I never owned an actual Atari VCS/2600, but what I did have was the adapter for my Intellivision II which allowed you to play all 2600 games. The cool thing about the adapter is that you could either use the Intellivision's controllers or plug any 2600 compatible controller into the adapter via the ports on the front of it. This worked out great when Kay-Bee Toys was blowing out a ton of 2600 games for $5.00 or less.

[@GenXGrownUp]

I remember those blow-out sales well. Every Kay-Bee had a big basket of sealed 2600 games sitting right at the entrance of the store!

[@kbramlett6877]

@@GenXGrownUp Those were the games I called the "Take me please" price so we can just get rid of them.

[@wallacelang1374]

I only got four of Coleco's Atari 2600 VCS game cartridges: • Carnival • Donkey Kong • Mousetrap • Venture These are all good games and yet I never felt that Coleco ever really chose to make their Atari game titles to a satisfactory level of both playability and sounds/graphics capabilities. In fact Coleco did do a decent job with the titles they had, but they were out done by Activision and Imagic when it comes to the Atari 2600 VCS.

[@GeneSimmonsBoots]

Mouse Trap was my Pac-Man back in the day. I played it a ton more than the PM port.

[@jessragan6714]

Ooh, ooh! Do Sega next! I can't say I was overly thrilled with Coleco's 2600 library. The games really do feel like afterthoughts, although Smurf and Roc 'n Rope did have fairly nice graphics. Also, thanks for the footage of the Kid Vid games! I never played those ones.

[@Asterra2]

As a kid, I was very familiar with the reality that games on the 2600 were almost always a poor source of entertainment, and I also recognized that this issue stemmed from the platform's limitations, even if today I have the hindsight to recognize that the system was (mostly inadvertently) 5+ years ahead of everything else of its era. But _Smurfs_ was a really good example of what you could manage to create _in spite_ of those limitations. Nowadays, what I marvel at most, and apparently missed as a kid, is the music. Consider: How many 2600 games can you name that have music _at all?_ Maybe 5 or 10% of them? Mostly a little ditty lasting a couple of seconds? It's for three reasons, and they're all super important. 1. ROM space. Each note you plug in for a tune takes up, more or less, a byte of precious ROM space. When games averaged 4K total, this mattered a lot. 2. The VCS only had two voices, meaning if you were going to have music, 99% of the time you'd limit it to a single voice, and this would still impact the flexibility of sound effects. 3. Without question the biggest problem was that the VCS was extraordinarily limited in what frequencies you could plug in, and the available frequencies were simply not engineered with 12 tone polyphony in mind. This is the reason why music on the system invariably sounds a little or a lot out of key, especially the higher pitch it is. With all that having been said, I look at _Smurfs_ and marvel at what they accomplished. They're using both voices at all times. They sneakily allow sound effects to take over _only_ for the split seconds where they're needed, and immediately re-interject with the musical tones. They figured out _exactly_ what notes they could work with and still have things sound reasonably in key. I frankly want to ask why more games didn't do this. The answer, unfortunately, is that it was something that took legitimate effort, and if you understand the 2600's library well, then you already know that legitimate effort was not the norm. Devs of the day had their standard, and their standard was: The 2600's voices are for sound effects and 2-second, 1-voice tunes to accentuate occasional moments; that's what everyone else does, so that's what we do.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Wow. Very insightful and all rings true. Thanks for watching and taking the time to share all this cool backstory.

[@southtexasatlatl]

Regarding Time Pilot, that's a Vietnam era F4 Phantom, not a spaceship. Good video!

[@l.marhault]

Having had a ColecoVision as a kid, I never discovered the Atari VCS versions of the CV games until many years later, during that brief period in the 90's when Nintendo was just starting to dominate the market and everyone was giving their 8-bit console carts to thrift stores. I generally agree with your choices here, but I have to confess that I look more kindly on DK than DK, Jr.; I'd boost DK up to a B just for addictive gameplay. I'd also love to see you rank the Intellivision versions of some of these games.

[@andyauthor2007]

Little Andy didn't have any of these games growing up, but he had friends who did so the only time he played them was at a friend's house. I tried to get Smurf but the mail-order catalog my mom ordered it from never got the game. They kept on telling her "next week." Next week came and it was "next week." The week after that "next week." My mom canceled the order so little Andy never got to play Smurf on the Atari.

[@GenXGrownUp]

I had plenty of opportunities to buy it, but passed because Smurfs just felt too "kiddie" to me. I missed out on the Gargamel Rescue game.

[@andyauthor2007]

@@GenXGrownUp Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't specific enough, I was referring to Gargamel Rescue. My mom just cancelled the order because she was tired of them saying "next week." I never got to play the Gargamel Rescue game. I never had an interest in the "kiddie" game, in fact I never knew that game existed until I saw you put it on your tier list. Gargamel Rescue is the game I was referring to.

[@LITTLE1994]

The Atari 2600 is the grandfather of all the successful game consoles, including NES.

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

got curious about the Bernstein bears stuff. great channel

[@GenXGrownUp]

That Kid Vid tech used for Berenstain & Smurfs Save the Day was pretty clever. I know it's just tones being converted to 9-pin input, but pretty awesome nonetheless! What a way to expand on the multimedia experience, eh? 😀 Thank you for watching.

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

@@GenXGrownUp yes really cool

[@marconu]

I don't know why, but I can't agree with any classification you make... It seems that the favorite games in our time are the ones you like least. And vice versa. It's impressive!

[@GenXGrownUp]

That's pretty uncanny, but nothing wrong with differing opinions. Imagine, if we had been neighbors in the early '80s, how awesome our game trades would've been! I'd trade my "junk" for your "gems" and we'd both think we were robbing the other blind! 🤣

[@exidy-yt]

I was going to RAGE if Venture didn't get at least an A. It may have only been 2 levels out of the arcade's version, but they were extremely well adapted and fun. As you might be able to tell by my username, I was a massive fan of Exidy's arcade games in the late 70s/early 80s, aka my formative years and a port of Venture on the 2600 was huge for me. If only they had done Star Fire II, sigh. (there's a good homebrew version out now tho!) Excellent list ranking of Coleco games, and I can't say I disagree with any of them. Now to check your Imagic and Parker Bros lists! (Empire Strikes Back better be S-tier!)

[@stephens4175]

have you done the Intellivision games for the VCS?, I love these, many memories as well as discovering some I never knew about, vintage Awesomeness!

[@GenXGrownUp]

You're talking M Network games? If so, I've not done those yet, but I expect I eventually will.

[@stephens4175]

@@GenXGrownUp yes that's what I was trying to remember, dam old age

[@GenXGrownUp]

@@stephens4175 can relate

[@retrojoe85]

As a guy with an Atari tattoo printed on my heart in some way, thank you for these videos!

[@ShadeofJeremy]

Another good tier video Jon. Of the games I've played from Coleco I can pretty much agree with you on them. One thing about that Smurf game. What is up with the jump mechanic? Pushing up on the stick instead of the fire button still throws me off. That said, I do love the game and it is my favorite. Though Mouse Trap is a very close second.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Thanks, Jeremy. Yeah, such a weird jump system. Why never use the fire button at all? And then that double-jump deal where you have to basically charge a jump with a shorter jump and time it out. Once you get used to it it's fine, but not at all intuitive.

[@ShadeofJeremy]

Exactly. It's a strange choice and I could see it working if the fire button were used for something else. Like maybe your Smurf throwing something.

[@GenXGrownUp]

@@ShadeofJeremy It's pretty smurfed up.

[@ShadeofJeremy]

@@GenXGrownUp Smurfin' right.

[@syntaxerror9994]

I got Mouse trap from a thrift shop and was blown away when I finally figured out the hold mechanic. I wish more Atari games did that.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Smart stuff. It is surprising that the control mechanic isn't used more frequently.

[@quantumfx2677]

Zaxon arcade was a quarter eater and what was even worse was super zaxon! One of the hardest arcades ever to play!

[@QunMang]

I can honestly say I never played a Coleco Atari VCS game, as by that time we actually had a Colecovision and I played many of these titles on that machine. The Colecovision version (and the NES version as well) are still missing one of the four Donkey Kong levels. I find it very interesting that the DK Junior VCS port had three levels like other ports, but the missing level wasn't Mario's Hideout but instead the third level. Easier to make Mario's Hideout on the VCS than the other one I would guess?

[@R4D4_]

Love the ranking videos! When you're finished with them, here's a related video idea-compare some original release VCS games with their modern-day homebrew or hack counterparts. Examples Pac-Man to Pac-Man 4k (or 8k), Donkey Kong to DK VCS, Zaxxon to Space Raid, etc. Call it a redemption video 😂.

[@GenXGrownUp]

That's a good idea!

[@sithcritic8906]

Did you know you can jump into two types of tanks in Frontline? Feels like a sizable omission of gameplay review. Also, Frontline, Mr. Do, Roc N Rope and Time Pilot were all programmed by the same programmer for both the Coleco and 2600 ports.

[@GenXGrownUp]

I did know, and I mentioned it in the voice-over that you can drive tanks - maybe you missed it. Just didn't get to it in the footage. It was factored into my B rating.

[@Skorpio420]

I finally realized a few years ago that Donkey Kong's neckline wasn't a frown...

[@lunarmodule6419]

Fun thx

[@robertbeckman2054]

I’m writing this comment before I watch the video,as I want to share my remembrance of my friend who had a Coleco. They seemed rare. Before the NES, they blew everything else away…I started to see what looked to me like actual arcade recreations. After the NES came out, Coleco was relegated to become the “poor man’s NES.” But why? They were both 8-bit, right. Anyway, I’d better watch your video to find out how rose-tinted my childhood glasses probably were.

[@themidcentrist]

I have a strange love / hate relationship with the NES. I played my first video game on a home console (the 2600) circa 1980-1981 at a friends house when I was 4-5 years old. I think it was either indy 500 or haunted house. I don't remember exactly when or where I first played the NES, but the game was Super Mario Bros and it blew me away. The NES seemed orders of magnitude better than the 2600 and in many ways it was. Nintendo took a gamble entering the market after the crash and it paid off for them. They deserved success. And then they used their success and some dirty tactics to create a near monopoly in the North American market. And then the NES I bought with my own money at the age of 14 stopped working after a year or two due to Nintendo's horribly engineered and defective cartridge connectors and 10NES anti-bootleg junk. They had the best games, but the worst console hardware to play them on and the scummiest business practices to go with it. In the end, they DESERVED the kicking SEGA and the Genesis / Megadrive gave them and more. In the end competition made them a better albeit less profitable company. Ironically, not counting PC the Switch is currently my only current gen console. They make good consoles and great games, but to this day I despise the front loading NES and what it represented. (I must confess that I still own one, but I emulate or use a Japanese A/V Famicom to actually play NES games with 😉 )

[@StrikeValkyrie]

Fun video. I actually like the 2600 versions of Donkey Kong and Pacman better than the arcade versions. Back when I was a kid and you had to throw down dollars worth of quarters to play those games the VCS was a relief and a lot of fun without having to beg your mom for change. I still play both games to this day and I think they are funner than the original arcade games. If you compare the graphics they aren't as pretty, the levels are not as complex, etc.. I played them both much more than the arcade versions and had a great time doing it. I'm not one to argue over the graphics or complexity. I could play them more and enjoyed them more. I didn't have to go to some laundromat or grocery store to pay for them and I could just play as much as I wanted until I was done with it. My favorite versions of both Pacman and Donkey Kong will always be on the VCS. 😎

[@GenXGrownUp]

Love it. I cast no judgment on any fun anyone had with these games regardless of my rankings. As I noted here, DK kind of deserves an F in my mind, I gave it a D, but it was in heavy rotation during Little Jonny's play sessions anyhow!

[@Asterra2]

Donkey Kong's miserable state is actually the result of two things. 1: It was the very first game (not counting Space Jockey, from the same guy) developed by somebody who wasn't affiliated with Atari, Activision or Imagic. In other words, unlike games from those three publishers, whose devs all worked at Atari and had all the engineering info they needed, the developer personally reverse-engineered the VCS to make it happen. There's a nice anecdote about how he called up somebody at Imagic and told him he'd done this, and the guy simply didn't believe him until he had the opportunity to fly down and see for himself. In any event, it was a project with an inherently limited scope for this and other reasons. 2: Similarly to how Pac-Man panned out, Coleco's focus was in getting the game out posthaste, and its status as the first product of reverse-engineering gave them an almost unique opportunity. Obviously the same philosophy was at play here: Who cares if it's any good-the point is that it's Donkey Kong; that gives it 50% of its sales potential, and the other 50% will come from how fast we can get it out the door, not whether it lives up to expectations.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Sounds right - I bought it, thought it was rubbish, but never considered returning it. 😀

[@McLovin_2007]

I was also doubtful about the rumor which says Coleco intentionally made inferior ports of Donkey Kong on Atari 2600 and Intellivision so you would buy a Colecovision. I saw an interview with Dan Kitchen and David Crane on Brian's Man Cave, and they said it's just a rumor. From Coleco's perspective, they could make money regardless of what port you bought. And second, they would have hurt their reputation by making a bad game.

[@themidcentrist]

I theorize that Coleco was also thinking that the 2600 version of Donkey Kong would sell lots of copies based on the name alone, similar to Atari with E.T. and Pac-Man. Why put in more time and effort when it would sell lots of copies either way? If anything, I think they probably put in the extra time and effort on the Colecovision version since it was their killer app and they wanted it to show what the Colecovision was capable of doing.

[@GenXGrownUp]

All great points. Another avenue to explore that I didn't want to rabbit-hole during the video was the angle people assert that Coleco was maybe trying to make the VCS look not capable. But then, with all the great stuff from Activision and Imagic out there - it could easily backfire and just make Coleco look like a subpar developer. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

[@stonergene]

Do you have the original box that berenstain bears came in? Trying to see if the butterfly effect is a thing

[@Asterra2]

I have lots of personal anecdotes about these games. I got Mousetrap for xmas. Not sure if I asked for it or what. I definitely knew _about_ the game because I'd seen it in a couple of "video game books" published back in those days. Games I saw in those books, but then either never saw in arcades or only saw much later, always had a pretty mystical feel to them. As you note, this was maybe the 2600's best Pac-Man clone. I was blown away at the time at how they managed to generate a convincing cat "meow" with the 2600's limited capabilities. That said, this game was also my first solid exposure to the 2600's inherent inability to generate good random numbers. The patterns the cats will travel are limited, and _fully_ dictated by only two things: Eating cheese pellets, and swapping the doors-and the latter case only matters if it happens to cause doors to get in a cat's way. The fact that the cats are always on the move is, in effect, an _illusion_ propagated by the player always eating cheese. If the player stops eating cheese, then within a couple of seconds, the cats will enter a holding position where they go back and forth between two spots only. Even as a kid, it was easy to tell what was going on.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Oh, wow. I've gotta try this out and see if I can exploit it. Thanks!

[@sandal_thong8631]

Everybody wanted to play Pac-Man including Coleco Home Arcade or one of its clones like _K.C. Munchkin, Mouse Trap, Lock 'n' Chase,_ or _Alien._ Maybe Spielberg was right in thinking _E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial_ should be a Pac-Man style game! I didn't and don't have _Mouse Trap_ so can't rate it, but _Ms. Pac-Man (1983)_ finally got it right.

[@urbanknish]

It's too bad they didn't port Ladybug at the time. They did a serviceable job with Mr. Do, surprisingly. I never gave Zaxxon a chance because it looks so bad but I should play it. This list also reminds me that I should be playing more Venture and Time Pilot. Believe it or not, I never played Roc and Rope and that's a shame because it looks really cool. It's the Bionic Commando of it's day!

[@sandal_thong8631]

I played _Time Pilot_ in the arcade a couple times but didn't get very far. Too bad I don't have it in my collection. It looks like an advanced 1-player version of half of _Combat,_ a game shipped with the Atari forever, even though it made it look bad after 1980. I got _Armor Ambush_ from M-Network, which didn't have a 1-player version either though it's better than the first half of _Combat._ It looks like Mattel didn't have any 1-million plus sellers.

[@trayahzz537]

Mister Do was fantastic!! I played Mouse Trap a lot but it was a whole lot easier than 2600 pac man .the cats never really chased you, they just moved back and forth, then move to another area, move back forth again

[@ChrisUnlimitedGames]

Mouse Trap is one of my top 3 2600 games. It definitely deserves S rank. Those X's you mentioned are Dog Biscuits. Those are supposed to be bone shaped, and the mechanic of holding down vs pressing the button to initiate either a maze switch or transformation doesn't work to well if you have a very warn controller that doesn't recognize holding the button. I think Donkey Kong should be Rank C, especially since DK JR was so bad and ranks D.

[@jvanb231]

I felt really bad about 2600 Donkey Kong until I saw Intelivision Donkey Kong

[@lo1bo2]

As an adult I picked up Donkey Kong and enjoyed it for what it was. At least for a while.

[@slimtimm1]

Nawice!!

[@thatsnotoneofmeatsmanyuses1970]

I had more of these than I remembered. Personally Venture was the only one of these that I really think about fondly, and it was such a shadow of even the ColecoVision version (which I got to play maybe once at someone's house) that it always made me a bit sad to play it. People love to run down the no-name publishers, but I remember liking ZiMag's "Tanks But No Tanks", and Xonox's Artillery Duel/Spike's Peak probably more than most of the Coleco titles on VCS.

[@sandal_thong8631]

I played _Venture_ at the arcade and didn't really like it. So getting it for the 2600 at the thrift store years later was worth the $1 I paid for it.

[@kbramlett6877]

What made the arcade version of Mouse Trap so iconic is that in the maze there were four colored doors. Red, yellow, green, and blue. On the joystick panel, there were four square color-corresponding buttons. For example, if you get to a blue door, you press the blue button to open it. There is a fifth button, it is round with a picture of a dog on it. So, you know what that does. The arcade version was extremely challenging, but once you know the exact order of the colored buttons, the difficulty

[@GenXGrownUp]

Indeed. I remember it well. It was featured on the Pac-Man Fever LP!

[@kbramlett6877]

@@GenXGrownUp Buckner & Garcia made a comeback to write and perform the song Wreck-It-Ralph for the Disney movie of the same name. Well, sort of. Garcia passed away during the production of the film, but he was given screen credit. As for Mouse Trap, I play it on MAME. I use the ASCII PAD from ASCIIWARE via SNES to USB controller adapter. This controller has colored buttons just like the Super Famicom buttons. So having the red, yellow, green, and blue buttons on the controller makes playing the game so much easier.

[@GenXGrownUp]

@@kbramlett6877 I know. I spoke with Jerry Buckner about it when I hosted his SFGE panel a couple years ago. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fIO5o4Jnbpd6oq8

[@cypresscustoms]

Got to say. I played donkey Kong a lot also on the 2600. Even though it was a bit meh.

[@Asterra2]

Okay, so Venture. One of those games I first learned about in a video game book from back then. It was by far the game I most wanted to see in the flesh. Finally saw it in an arcade... and it was out of order. _Finally_ saw it once again in a skating rink, and this time it was functional. It did not disappoint. I place a lot of value on music, be it in games, movies or whatever. Always have. Venture was a then-rare example of a video game that used 3-channel music, and the music was so _weird._ I was endlessly fascinated with it, and wanted to get my hands on the inevitable 2600 game. And that day finally came. I was already 100% braced for what I knew would be a disappointing port in countless respects, as all 2600 ports were. And sure enough, Venture was very much in keeping with this tradition. The interior chambers had no music _at all,_ whereas in the arcade original, each one of those rooms featured a different BGM. The exterior? In the arcade version of Venture, this was the tune that I found so weird and fascinating. On the 2600, it was reduced to literally two notes, lasting exactly 0.5 seconds before looping. I almost couldn't believe it. To this day, I consider this 2-note "BGM" to be a perfect microcosm of the kind of "we don't care" attitude devs maintained when developing an arcade port for the 2600. I secretly hope that the genius behind 2600 homebrews like Mappy and Draconian will eventually tackle Venture, so I can see _and hear_ just how good the game could have been on the 2600.

[@GenXGrownUp]

I love hearing about personal relationships with great old arcade games like this. I agree, too - Venture is a great game to play on an original cabinet. Thanks for watching and for sharing your story!

[@KeithPhillips]

I think the additional DPC+ chip used for Pitfall 2 could pull off what you wanted in a Venture port.

[@Asterra2]

@@KeithPhillips Oh sure. That's kind of my fantasy. It's almost perfectly engineered to give me my 3 square waves. Though I suspect any hypothetical homebrew Venture would use the same mega chip they used for Mappy etc.

[@GeneSimmonsBoots]

You would've really appreciated Venture Reloaded then. It was available on AtariAge until a few days ago.

[@invaderboy7187]

thank you :-)

[@GenXGrownUp]

You are welcome!

[@Lifesizemortal]

will you do a system master list after you're done dividing the games up by publisher??

[@GenXGrownUp]

Boy, that would be a twelve-hour video! 😀

[@hunter141072]

I had Donkey Kong Junior for the 2600 and I remember that the game had a "bug" every now and then the game simply went black screen and you had to reset the atari and lose your score to keep playing, I always thought that something was wrong with my cartridge but another friend told me that the same happened to him, however I never met enough guys who owned the game to know if this was the case or if it only happened to me.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Hrm. I don't remember that happening to me. I definitely went on a half dozen marathons with the game (all the way until the fireballs on the rivet screen just ignore the rivet gaps and cross right over them), but I didn't see a blank-out. Fascinating.

[@nickfifteen]

I like your perspective on why Donkey Kong looks the way it does. I also feel the truth is somewhere between "Coleco totally sabotaged the Atari console port!" and "why would they purposefully destroy their bottom line like that?". Like, I'll bet Coleco execs were thinking during the initial pitch meeting: _"Donkey Kong on the VCS/2600 is gonna sell MILLIONS of units _*_no matter what_*_ ... So we can either spend 6 months and $10 million to develop it to then sell 11 million units... or we can spend 2 months and $1 million on dev time and still sell 10 million units."_ Given that example, it's pretty obvious rhat the second route was the better option (ie no reason to spend 3x time and 10x money for only an additional 10% units sold) . It also meant that the dev still did their best within those restraints, but there is only so much good one can do within a third of the time and a tenth of the budget.

[@GenXGrownUp]

Yep. The truth almost always lies somewhere in between the rumors! Thanks for watching. 😀

[@sandal_thong8631]

I think they did the same thing Atari did with Pac-Man: limited it to a 4K ROM instead of 8K to save money. As a result there wasn't much they could do to fit a good game in that space. Pac-Man could have freed up some memory by not having a 2-player version that had to keep track of the dots. And maybe changed the maze, sound and worked on the flicker. I don't know how much space a third screen would have taken in _Donkey Kong._

[@kins749]

Very fair, although Venture is my favourite and probably the only S tier game for me.

[@jeremiahthomas8140]

S-None A-Roc'N Rope, Time Pilot, and Mouse Trap B-Donkey Kong, Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle, Venture, and Smurfs Save the Day C-Berenstain Bears, Carnival, Mr. Do!, and Zaxxon D-Donkey Kong Junior and Front Line

[@matthewnada913]

I’m glad you gave Mouse Trap an S. I played it so much on the Atari. One of my favorite games. I always thought those X’s were dog bones

[@GenXGrownUp]

You're right - they are meant to be dog bones. I described them as X's for simplicity because that's what they look like.

[@matthewnada913]

@@GenXGrownUp it’s cool and almost ironic that us Gen X-ers see them as X’s

[@marklechman2225]

I still remember when Activision first opened the doors for third-party VCS games. Their stuff looked amazing and they set the bar high. Then came Imagic who were similar in that they strived to provide quality games, but weren’t quite as prolific or impressive, at least on the VCS. Then the rest of the big names started trickling in like Sega and Fox, which were a little worse, and then the floodgates opened wide and suddenly you had your shovelware from companies like Data Age and Apollo. It just got worse and worse as more companies flooded the market and then suddenly, games were filling discount-bins and could be had for a buck. But most of them weren’t even worth that. It’s a shame that more companies didn’t try to follow the model of making high quality games set forth by Activision and Imagic. Things could have turned out much differently.

[@jimmcclements5229]

Too bad Little Johnny hadn't met little Jimmie they would have gotten along famously! My favorite Coleco games are Carnival, Venture, and Zaxxon.

[@GenXGrownUp]

I give Little Jonny & Little Jimmie's theoretical friendship a great big S rank! 😉 Thanks for watching, LJ.