Tag Archives: Atari Flashback Classics

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Stunt Cycle

Leave a comment

Back in the early days of the Atari 2600 — and indeed throughout gaming history in general — there have been plenty of games that never made it to market for one reason or another.

Stunt Cycle, an Atari 2600 version of Atari’s own home port of its own arcade game, was one such example. Its 2600 version was complete and ready to go, but never made it out the door. It also never quite became a Dukes of Hazzard game, like was considered for a while. But it did eventually see the light of day in 2003.

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Street Racer

Leave a comment

A lot of people think of the concept of “street racing” as a relatively recent thing, though that’s only really looking at the modern type.

In fact, it’s pretty much been a thing for as long as cars have been around, as the ancient old bangers on the front cover of 1977’s Street Racer for Atari 2600 will attest. So here we have a video game for up to four players about the concept — though this being 1977, the format of “the racing game” hadn’t quite been nailed just yet…

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Stellar Track

Leave a comment

One of the oldest video games out there is the old “Star Trek” game that people used to play on mainframe computers. Like many other mainframe games, this was ported to home systems in various forms over the years.

One of the most surprising ports of this game came in the form of Stellar Track for the Atari 2600, a surprisingly impressive and full-featured version for a platform not best known for its text-based games. And if you enjoy boring people with retro game trivia at parties as much as I do, you can also tell them that this was one of just three 2600 games that was exclusively sold at Sears through their Tele-Games label.

(Just kidding. I don’t go to parties.)

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Steeplechase

1 Comment

Sometimes, as we’ve seen numerous times on this series already, the simplest game concepts really do work quite well. And such is the case with Steeplechase for Atari 2600, one of three games to be exclusively distributed through Sears’ Tele-Games label.

Offering simple, easy to understand horse racing action for one to four players, Steeplechase is a fun game to bust out when you have friends over and can’t be arsed to explain anything that needs more than one button. This also makes it an ideal fit for those people in your life who claim not to “do” video games.

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Strike

Leave a comment

Mattel’s M Network label was set up so that Mattel, makers of the Intellivision, could have a piece of the Atari pie while also working on their own console.

Star Strike, released through the programme, is a port of one of the Intellivision’s most successful games; the original version sold around 800,000 copies in a single year, which is a huge amount for the time. Sadly, the 2600 version is… well, let’s just say it’s not quite as good as the source material.

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Ship

Leave a comment

Before Star Raiders, there was Star Ship. And it’s… umm… not quite as good.

That said, when you consider this came out in 1977 — a time when no-one really knew what a “video game” was, let alone what a “first-person perspective space combat simulator” might look like — then they didn’t do all that bad of a job considering the limitations of the hardware.

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Raiders

Leave a comment

After the relative disappointment of the Atari 2600 version of Star Raiders, it’s time to take on the proper version.

More accurately, it’s time to take on the Atari 5200 version, which tweaks a few things about the original Atari 8-bit version and adds proper analogue control, which is nice. It’s still an all-time classic, though, and if you can get your head around the controls in the Atari Flashback Classics port, there’s hours of fun ahead.

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Raiders

Leave a comment

Star Raiders is one of my favourite games of all time, and with good reason — it is one of the greatest games of all time. At least it is in its Atari 8-bit incarnation, where it was quickly regarded as the platform’s “killer app”, despite its early release.

Star Raiders for the Atari 2600, meanwhile… hmm. Well, they tried — though, judging by the masterpiece that is Solaris, developed by the creator of the original Star Raiders on home computers, they could have perhaps tried a bit harder. Stick to that original and best version, I’d say!

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Sprint Master

1 Comment

The term “racing game” these days is usually applied to games that unfold from a three-dimensional (or at least quasi-3D) perspective. But back in the ’80s, there were a bunch of fun top-down racers.

Sprint Master for Atari 2600 was a solid adaptation of the format that may or may not have been a conversion of Atari Games’ Super Sprint. The reason why this isn’t quite clear is because Atari Corporation (who released 2600 games) and Atari Games (who released Super Sprint) were, at this point, two separate entities with loose connections rather than simply two divisions of the same company!

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Space War

Leave a comment

Continuing a proud tradition of Atari 2600 games with the word “Space” in the title, here’s Space War from Atari Flashback Classics.

This is actually kind of noteworthy for an important reason: it’s a conversion of one of the first ever video games, albeit many years after said video game made its first appearance in the ’60s. There’s fun to be had for two players; you may want to give the single-player offering a miss, though!

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

header-5603011