Tag Archives: Atari Flashback Classics

Atari A to Z Flashback: SwordQuest FireWorld

Just… don’t. I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t. I just… please. Help me.

SwordQuest FireWorld is one of the most miserable video games I have ever played. And, as anyone who knows me well will attest, this is not something I say lightly. Forget E.T., forget Pac-Man, this is the true festering dog turd of the Atari 2600’s library.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: SwordQuest EarthWorld

There’s “games that haven’t aged well”, and then there’s the SwordQuest series for Atari 2600, a range of three games (out of a proposed four) that primarily existed for the purpose of running an extravagant competition.

Without the draw of the competition aspect, it’s easy to see these games for what they really are: poorly designed, needlessly obtuse, frustrating, boring messes that learned nothing from earlier attempts at top-down adventures on the platform such as Adventure and Haunted House. And there’s three of them to endure! Oh joy. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that…

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Swordfight

The evolution of the fighting game is interesting to observe, because it got its start a lot earlier than a lot of people might realise.

One very early example that is still surprisingly fun to play today despite its simplicity is Swordfight for Atari 2600, originally intended for release in the early ’80s, but which never ended up on store shelves for various reasons. We can enjoy it now, though, thanks to Atari Flashback Classics — and if you’ve got a friend willing to learn the ropes, it’s a good time!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Surround

The “snake” game, known over the years as “Blockade”, “Light Cycles” and doubtless various other forms of address, is one with enduring popularity. And indeed, as we’ll see with this launch title for the Atari 2600, it’s been around pretty much since the dawn of video gaming.

Surround is an unofficial home port of the game that started the whole genre: Gremlin’s Blockade for arcades. Surround has one big benefit over Blockade, however: its Video Graffiti mode, which allows you to draw gigantic hairy peni– I mean, tall men riding broken bicycles. Yes. That.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Football

What happens when you give the guy who made Star Raiders the task of making an American football game for Atari 2600? You get the best damn American football game on the Atari 2600, that’s what.

Here’s Super Football, a game that I was dreading playing until I discovered that it was the work of Doug Neubauer, a guy who really knows his stuff when it comes to both technical mastery of the Atari 2600 and designing great games. And he only went and did it — he made an American football game for the Atari 2600 that I actually enjoy playing. Wonders will never cease!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Challenge Football

Sports games, sports games, will I never be free of sports games? Apparently not, as we’ve got another one today. This time it’s not actually all that offensive, however — though it’s still a two player-only affair.

Super Challenge Football is, like its Baseball counterpart, an adaptation of an Intellivision game for the Atari 2600. Unlike most American Football games, this game allows you to program all your linesmen individually, making for a somewhat more understandable game for American Football newbies like myself.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Challenge Baseball

And you thought we were done with sports games! Nope, there’s a few more… only a few more though, including a couple from Mattel’s “M Network” label, where they ported Intellivision classics to Atari 2600.

Super Challenge Baseball for Atari 2600 is a port of the Intellivision’s Major League Baseball, a game which paid up for the MLB license and then didn’t use any player names, likenesses or team names. You can understand why they dropped the licensing for subsequent rereleases. It’s a two-player only game, so I recruit my long-suffering wife to suffer some more with me.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Breakout

Yep, here we are again with Super Breakout, this time for Atari 5200. This was the pack-in game for the system for quite some time, and left a fair few people rather underwhelmed — the system was certainly capable of better.

That said, it’s still a competent enough version of Super Breakout, and comes complete with all the different ways to play you’d expect from that game. There are certainly far worse ways to spend your time with your Atari 5200!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Breakout

Super Breakout for Atari 2600 is one of the best adaptations of the classic block-breaker out there — and much more fun than the arcade version due to its far more reasonably sized paddles!

It also plays host to a spectacularly overblown and completely unnecessary narrative setup. Because when you’re knocking bricks out of a wall, what you really need is some sort of narrative motivation, right?

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Baseball

People complain these days when a sequel is too similar to its predecessor.

Count yourself lucky you didn’t fall for Atari’s 1988 release of Super Baseball, then, which is actually just a very slightly tweaked version of RealSports Baseball from the early ’80s. Complete with all the flaws of that original version, plus a pretty much impenetrable difficulty wall in single-player mode.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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