Hi, in this video I'm going to recommend my top 20 Atari VCS games that are still worth having a look at today, and the Atari versions are probably actually the best versions of those games. Not quite making lists at 22 is Warlords, released in 1981. It basically is a break up, four players, everyone against everyone. The reason why I can't quite recommend it as a game is it's a four player paddle game which are very difficult to emulate. If you have real hardware and a pair of paddles though, I would highly recommend Warlords and that would actually make my list. At 21, Video Olympics, not quite making the list for the same reason as Warlords. Video Olympics is essentially Pong. Pong is a pretty simple game by today's standards and probably not fun for very long, but Video Olympics has four player Pong which is actually quite a lot of fun. It's really easy to play, easy to get into for people that aren't really into video games, but again it's a four player paddle game. If you have two paddles and Atari I would have to highly recommend Video Olympics. 20, so the first game that actually does make my list is Drawbreaker. A Twitch Reflex, Simple and Pac-Man Pac-Man released in 1981 by John Harris. There were versions on other computers, but the Atari version is at least equal to all of those. At 19, Solar Fox. A weird mix of a space shooter and a Pac-Man game. Although there is an arcade game which is technically superior, this is such a simplified version you kind of have to think of it as a different game and it's quite a fun game in its own right. At 18, Skydiver, really typical of a lot of games that came out on the Atari. A very second generation game. Very simple, but still a lot of fun. Two players each controller, a Skydiver, trying to land on a pad more accurately and quicker than the opponent. A lot of fun, really simple. Number 17, Yars Revenge. Couldn't really have a list of the top 20 without having this one in. It's such an original game and such a classic. Can't honestly say that I was a huge fan of it or I didn't really have it that can the day and haven't really got into it since, but it's such an unusual and again second generation game that it really is worth having a look. Number 16, Frostbite. Frostbite is like a cross between Frogger and Cupid. It wasn't on any other system. You're basically a little Esquimo jumping from iceberg to iceberg to gather up. Ice bricks to build your igloo. Really simple, but really fun, lovely graphics. Really well put together, simple game. Number 15, Turnwell. A shooter we went up and down left and right on the screen shooting enemies coming at you. Much the same as Tempest, but on a more two-dimensional plane. Some enemies can only be shot in one direction. Some enemies leave bonuses behind which you can rush it down the column to pick up. Really simple, really fast, twitchy shooter. Number 14, Fishing Dopey. Another second generation game. Just not almost a terrible game, but just somehow gets through with its simple charm. You're basically paying against the computer or another player to catch as many fish as possible. The fish towards the bottom of the screen are worth more than the fish at the top and you have to avoid the shark. Very simple, you're not going to play it for Alice, but for a couple games it's quite a lot of fun and it has a lot of charm. Number 13, Kaboom. Another paddle classic. Because it's only a one-play paddle game, easy to emulate. Basically you're controlling your water bucket, catching bombs being dropped by the prisoner from above. Number 12, Battlezone. This one might be Bice. I had this game back in the day and I absolutely loved it. And one of the things Bifight is interesting about it is the fact that it's a tank game and it's three-dimensional. Because the Atari was originally designed to play two games. Tank and Pong. It's really quite fascinating that they managed to make a proper three-dimensional game like Battlezone on it. Very primitive by today's standards. Is it better than the arcade game? Kind of yes and kind of no. The arcade game had much better atmosphere and much better graphics, but the Atari version was much faster and action-packed. Number 11, Hardback. Bit of a cheek because this is a homebrew list in 2019, but it's such an amazing game that I have to mention. It's basically an Atari version of the arcade game and Eda and they really got it spot-on. It's sort of a weird little pack-man game of sorts where you're controlling an ad-buck's tongue going down an ant hill, catching bugs, avoiding poison sentinies and stingers. An amazing game. A huge achievement. Very well animated. Just an amazing, amazing game. Number 10, Dragonstomper. The very first RPG on a home console. Requiring the start-up Supercharger to play, which is basically a memory expansion for the Atari, it was the first of its kind. Very very very simple by today's standards. Still kind of playable, kind of interesting game. Number 9, Pitfall and Pitfall 2. I kind of have to rope them in together. Again, really simple by today's standards. Kind of repetitive in a lot of ways, but an amazing achievement. Pitfall came only a year after Donkey Kong and introduced a whole idea of a sprawling, long-play platforming game. Pitfall 2 was another huge technical achievement on the Atari. Huge sprawling levels released in 1984, a year before Super Mario, featured multiple characters, swimming, save points. Yes, it's a bit repetitive by today's standards, but still a landmark game and worth checking out because of that. Number 8, Spacing Borders. Atari had a great version of Spacing Borders with a lot of really interesting variations in it. Do you want to have invisible aliens? Do you want to have zigzagging bullets? Do you want to have cooperative play? Turn the game on with the reset button down and you'll get double bullets. Number 7, Faze of Patrol. Another star path Supercharger game, which basically means you need the star path memory expansion to play it, it's a ripoff of Star Raiders, but it's my favourite ripoff of Star Raiders. Really fun game. I kind of miss these first person, very simple spaceshooters that just were around for a while, but in the 8th generation and kind of disappeared after that. Number 6, River Raider. Another of those games that somehow managed to be complete within the Atari. Most Atari games really seem like a compromise, like they aren't quite doing what they really would want to do. Kel Shorin programming River Raider really looked at what the Atari could do and made designer game around those constraints. River Raider is really quite a fun shooter even today. Number 5, Combat. The Packing Game. Fight against your friends, win tanks, jets, biplanes, it's a simple game but it's a lot of fun and again what makes it fun is all the variations. You can have bouncing bullets, you can have invisible tanks and again you can have biplanes or jets, lots of variation and fun. Number 4, Phoenix. Demon Attack is probably better known as essentially a ripoff of Phoenix, but Phoenix on the Atari is a really excellent conversion. I actually think it's better than the arcade game. It's really quite fast. It manages to have has three distinctly different levels in it, where aliens behave differently or birds in this quest. It's a really fun, brilliantly designed bottom shooter. Number 3, Berserk. Halo, Doom. All these shooters owe some of their heritage to the game Berserk, which started that whole genre of one man against them. So one man finding his way through hordes and hordes of robots. Again it's unusual and they kind of got the graphics better in the Atari version than they were in the arcade game. Very very simple, but a great game. Number 2, Hero. A flying platformer of sorts. Hero is an absolute masterpiece. How they manage to make this on an Atari without any support chips is absolutely beyond me. A beautiful game that looks better on the Atari than it does on the near of the competing systems. Most of the competing systems added graphics, which quite in my opinion made it look a lot worse than the original version of it. And number 1, Adventure. Adventure is the first open world game, the first graphical adventure game, and absolute masterpieces. It's a puzzle game. It's one of the only games on the Atari, which I actually play quite regularly. Might be difficult to look at in today's standards. You're moving a square around. It's very basic, but the random elements of it and the way it has a real world that exists outside where you are is groundbreaking. And it isn't has limitations in it that I become part of the game. So flickering, which is annoying in most games, is a part of adventure, but it actually is a part of the game as well. You actually want the game to flicker in certain times if you want to avoid the dragons and you don't want it to flicker if you need to pick things up and so forth. So it actually is part of the strategy of the game. An amazing game. And that is my top 20 Atari VCS games. Thank you very much for listening.