Radical Games #78: River Raid (Atari 2600)

One of the best-selling games for the Atari 2600 of all time, where you shoot down ships, helicopters and planes that get in your way and fill up your fuel when you fly over the fuel cans. It is quite difficult at times especially when there's narrow spaces you have to go through and such but other than that, quite fun. In the video, I went pretty far even though I didn't think I'd play this game for more than a minute.

Now for an interesting fact about the game itself... in 1984 it caused controversy in Germany when it was under the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons) as it caused aggression, erratic thinking, headaches and physical cramps to young children playing it. It remained "harmful" to them until 2002 when it was successfully removed from the index so it can be rereleased for the Activision Anthology for the PS2 that year and given a fairer rating by Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle.

Also, this is the first gameplay video uploaded that's not in the usual 240p. Not sure if I want to upload more videos in 360p or not...

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• radical
• games
• river
• raid
• atari
• 2600

[megamanrocks99]

Never thought I'd see THIS on your channel,Brydo!

Normally retro-gamers just use NES games,but you go back even further and use a friggin' ATARI 2600 Game.

And I love you for that :P

[CrashManEXE]

@megamanrocks99 - I've done videos of a few other Atari 2600 games by the way, like E.T. and Demon Attack.

[20windfisch11]

I liked the Atari 8bit computer version more, the canyons looked better and there were tanks on the bridges which shot into the hole when you destroyed them too early. Regarding the BPjM stuff, River Raid was in fact one of the first games to get on their index.

[Highretrogamelord89]

@CrashManEXE

From what I know "Blue Max" was forbidden, because you had to bomb buildings, so it teached children how to become terrorists and leads to acts of terrorism (lol!).

Anyways, the Computerspielemuseum Berlin (Computer Games Museum Berlin) has the multiple-site reasoning for the Index decision, so I guess there is a lot more to it.

Also the game was on the Index for 25 years and was removed from it in 2010.

Yeah, that's right, they removed it for the first time last year!

[CrashManEXE]

@Highretrogamelord89 - That game's title is from the informal name of the German order Pour le Mérite. Is that the reason why it was forbidden in Germany? :|

[Courantha]

haha my brother and I had a lot of fun with this game (oh and I like the 480p it looks very nice)

[TheRealPentiumMMX]

I used to have this game many years ago, and enjoyed it

[Highretrogamelord89]

@Highretrogamelord89

Oh and yeah, the BPjM sucks, but so does the USK. (The USK ruins game covers)

Another retro game that got forbidden in Germany was "Blue Max" for the C64.

Of course, there were more games, but to forbid "River Raid" and "Blue Max" is just laughable.

[Highretrogamelord89]

Quite fun game. :)

[nesmario123]

atari the good console to have fun :3