Mattel’s “M Network” label brought over a variety of classic Intellivision titles to Atari’s 2600 platform.
One of these games that seems to have always proven quite popular is Astroblast, originally known as Astrosmash on its original host platform.
It’s a fairly simple fixed shooter in which you blast space rocks into smithereens while attempting to protect your planet… but hoo boy, is it ever addictive!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
After successfully making takoyaki out of Kraken last time around, there’s just one more crystal for the Warriors of Light to, err, light.
It’s not going to be easy to get to, however; it’s guarded by the fearsome Tiamat, who has taken up residence in the Flying Fortress, the former home of the Lufenian people. And, what with the Flying Fortress being… flying, even reaching Tiamat is going to be a bit of an ordeal.
Thankfully, all the things the Warriors of Light have done up until this point have prepared them adequately for this moment… so it seems the only way is up. Baby.
It takes guts to show up for a job you were hired for several months late… particularly when that job is saving an entire planet from destruction by a comet.
Unfortunately, your considerable tardiness (thanks largely to a delay on the planet Targ, as depicted in the original Mercenary) means that there are just three hours and ten minutes before the planet Eris is obliterated by the eponymous comet, and of course the solution to this rather pressing problem is anything but straightforward.
Along the course of your journey through this spectacular polygonal 3D open-world solar system, you’ll have to deal with the aftermath of eccentric professors having a spat with the head of state over a chess game, a severely incompetent post office, an overenthusiastic prison service and that most fearsome foe of all: British parliamentary politics. Damocles is a classic, and in this video I fuck it up completely. Enjoy!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
With Warriors Orochi finally down for the count, it’s time to start a new game!
Warriors All-Stars came out in 2017 and was originally intended as another Warriors Orochi game, but subsequently grew into its own standalone project that de-emphasised the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors characters in favour of… well, an all-star line-up drawn from a variety of different Koei Tecmo games.
And what a cast! We’ve got Sophie from Atelier Sophie; Arnice and Christophorus from Nights of Azure; Kasumi, Honoka and Marie Rose from Dead or Alive; and many more besides. With 15 possible endings ahead of us, we’ve got to start somewhere… so where better than with my favourite lesbian vampire (half-)demon, who seems a lot more cheerful than the last time we saw her?
Hey look everybody, it’s Asteroids! Again. You’ll be pleased to hear that this is the last time Asteroids appears in the Atari Flashback Classics compilation, at least.
Today we’re looking at the Atari 5200 version of the game, which didn’t actually see a commercial release despite originally being intended as a launch title for the platform. It’s based closely on the version released for Atari 8-bit computers, and is a solid adaptation of the formula for 1-4 players simultaneously.
I didn’t like this all that much when I was kid (primarily because I was bobbins at it) but nowadays I find its chunky shooting action rather satisfying!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
Two more crystals to go, and the next is deep beneath the waves in the Sunken Shrine!
But what’s this? A choice of paths to go? It seems one way leads to topless mermaids while the other leads to a slobbering tentacle monster, and never the twain shall meet — doubtless much to some people’s disappointment.
Which way will the Warriors of Light go? I mean, obviously it’s both, but which way will they go first? Find out today, only on the Final Fantasy Marathon, and along the way we can have a nice chat about my leaky roof.
Freshly minted as full-on heroes after Bahamut’s ministrations, the powered-up Warriors of Light resume their quest to illuminate the four crystals and save the world from the Four Fiends.
But the path onwards isn’t terribly clear; some investigation is obviously required, beginning with a strange town on the northern continent that appears to play host to people who are very excited about having legs.
Hmm! What could it all mean?
“Sam, you’re a dead man.” And how; Activision’s Borrowed Time, an “illustrated text adventure” from 1985, really, really, really wants you dead.
An early game from Interplay with involvement from Brian “Wasteland” Fargo, Borrowed Time is an early attempt to break out of the pure text format of adventure games with a graphical, mouse-driven interface. It’s not quite a full-on point and click adventure just yet, but it’s a first step in that direction.
It’s also a monstrously difficult game, fond of murdering its protagonist at regular intervals right from the very outset. You’re doing well if you manage to survive just leaving your office for the day…
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
This is it! Almost, anyway. The forces of Wei (and friends) are finally ready to take the battle to Orochi.
Each of the final battles in the four Warriors Orochi campaigns unfold similarly, but with various differences in the small events that occur during the battle itself. Ultimately, though, the goal is always the same: open the way to Orochi, then beat his ass down once and for all. Or at least until the next game, anyway.
Will the power of Wei prevail? Of course it will, but humour me, at least… next time around it’s the grand finale!
We’ve come across English Software a few times previously on this series; they were a real mainstay of the Atari 8-bit scene throughout the ’80s.
Over their lifetime, they released a wide variety of games — some of which, like Elektra Glide, have an enduring legacy of being well-regarded, even if their flaws are all the more apparent from a modern perspective.
And then they also released stuff like Hijack!, which isn’t a bad game so much as it’s a relatively unremarkable one. It’s still fun for five or ten minutes at a time, though, so let’s take to the skies and rescue some VIPs!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
