Pitfall the Mayan Adventure on the Genesis, Sega CD, and whatever else it was on, also has the hidden original Pitfall in the game, not just the SNES version.

For me, nothing beats that original Atari 2600 version. Truly a testament to excellent game design.

One thing I remember Pitfall the Mayan Adventure on the Mega Drive and SNES had was the original character sprite as the main character's "dad" I always thought that was hilarious

That Spectrum knock-off looks more like it was "inspired" by the Pitfall 2 arcade game.

Something I'd like to add: A fan named Andrew Langley made a Shockwave port of Pitfall for web browsers, then Activision used it (as opposed to taking legal action) as an official tie-in for the series' 20th anniversary.

It makes sense, I guess, for the ColecoVision and MSX ports to share most of their code, given how similar the hardware is.

There is also PS One port included in Pitfall 3D: Beyond the Jungle, and it have fun bonus voice clips.

6:25 - The hardware in the MSX is very similar to the Coleco - for those that don't know, in the last 5 - 10 years, there have been a number of MSX games ported to the coleco. Most requiring the Super game Module addon for more ram and improved sound.

Heh. That sound effect when Pitfall Harry grabs the vine is supposed to be a Tarzan yell from movies by Johnny Weissmuller😄 It was one of those games that every platform of the time had to have it's own version, like the original Doom👹😈

Also , it was one of the first to allow you to go "backwards" as well, not just always to the right......

There's a map online that will show the part to take in order to acquire all treasure items before the 20 minute time limit expires. So this game does technically have an ending. It's fun to try and finish the game on each port, the hardest one, I think, being the Atari 800/5200 ports due to the collision detection being unforgiving. Especially when jumping the scorpions. Pitfall II is also amazing and an even more technological accomplishment when considering the hardware limitations for the various systems. A super special bonus is that the Atari 800 and 5200 ports have an entire second game hidden, only accessible upon successful completion of the standard game. When the final task is completed a door opens and leads to a huge second half of the Lost Caverns that is even harder the the first. It's practically Pitfall III. There are maps available for Pitfall II as well.

It's such a cut above all the drek the 2600 got and impressive looking to boot. Classic for a reason. :D

Mark: You may not believe this, but I’ve never played Pitfall. Me: I don’t believe it.

I love to see those second-gen comparisons. The reason is that most consoles were very much different, and it included 3rd and even 4th gen also. And it is amazing how the 2600 initial version usually is the one that plays better!

One thing worth mentioning about the C64 port is that the PAL and NTSC modes have different colour schemes.

I like how the VIC 20 has Harry swinging the ropes faster than his walking pace, seemingly. 😂

I still love how Harry springs out of holes you climb up from! I have a lot of love and nostalgia for this game, but I didn't even realize it had ports at the time. I suppose it makes sense, Activision being an early 3rd party developer would have shopped the games around to other systems and consoles... it's really neat to see the little differences.

Lots of good versions of this cult classic. Thanks for the show!

That Spectrum version is written in BASIC - if it was done in 2003 then it's either the author making it just to show that it's possible, or even an entry into the CSSCGC? ETA yeah, it was written for a BASIC contest where it finished sixth according to WoS. The poor thing is bringing a wooden spoon to a gunfight here! Oh, and according to the instructions it's based on Pitfall II...

Man, that rope swing sound is iconic! Especially coming through the pokey chip of course. Thanks for showing the Spectrum version for a laugh!

I first heard of and played Pitfall on my Atari 65XE (Atari 800) as a kid. Though it was probably Pitfall II.

All David Crane's games feel nice to play. You may find some more appealing than others, but you can tell a lot of care was put into making them polished and fun.

I have the 2600 and Intellivision versions, as well as the version embedded in the Genesis/Megadrive Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. And I suck at all of them, but they are still fun to try. I also have Pitfall 2 for the Atari 5200, which by comparison is a huge game.

Mark: You may not believe this, but I've never played Pitfall. Mark: [tries to play Pitfall] Believability: [+500%] Not ragging on you at all, it really is a product of its day. It's very tight and snappy, but it also demands you master its timings quickly. It is possible to get all of the treasures, but even the most optimal route is going to take nearly the entirety of those 20 minutes.

i just realized how the vine swing noise is supposed to be Tarzan's yelling when he swings too pretty cool !

Surprised you didn't get to play this till now. I'm an 80s kid, but I grew up with a SNES at home in the 90s. My parents never met me have friends over to play. But my friend's brother left him his old 2600 and shoeboxes full of games. We played a ton of Atari games every afternoon when we'd hang together after school. This was in the early 90s for us. We thought it was fun, because it's all we had to game together with. Pitfall, River Raid, and Break Out were our frequently replayed games!

the first time I have played Pitfall was on XBox 360's Game Room (yep, I was one of the few that actually have bought games in it) and I was really impressed by how solid it looked and played even after all those years, it really is a game that doesn't age

Pitfall is a great comeback to those early game concepts that proven to be hugely influential. I have spent some time with Atari, although the game Id remember the most would be definetly River Raid.

I first played this game on the Intellivision II as a toddler. Wasn't until the end of grade school, that I got the Atari 2600 original from someone I knew at the school I went to.

A timeless classic that never gets old. I always love this game and has one of the best artwork for a box cover Mark. Thank you for sharing this with us brother man. 8^ Anthony..

The MSX uses almost the exact same hardware as the Colecovision. And the Spectrum version unironically looks like some tiger LCD game!

Despite knowing there was a pitfall game on the SNES, I had no idea you could unlock the original 2600 game on there. Odd that they sampled the atari audio though, and at such a low quality

I played (and beat once) Pitfall on Activision Anthology for J2ME. It does have an easier mode where you must follow a rabbit in the screen and infinite continues as well.

Such strong nostalgia for pitfall on the C64. God knows how many hours I sunk into that!

Very surprised you've never played pitfall ever before! -:bucket list achievement unlocked 😅

Think I only played this once on 2600 at a mates house when I was just a kid. I never really bothered to play it since, surprisingly considering how hugely popular it was. Nice one 😎👏

The second button was most likely because the Intellivision had a disc-shaped controller and possibly was done to avoid accidentally falling off vines.

Missing the Atari 800 port but I imagine it would be identical to the 5200

Good summary on how often Atari 2600 games look bad but play great vs other ports. All in the gameplay baby!!

good games are timeless

This game was genesis to me! (Especially the 2nd one - which is the music you used in the intro! - nostalgic hit!!)

This game had a pretty good unofficial port for the Tandy CoCo called Trapfall. I played that game a tonne back in the day.

From being an outcast at Atari to being Microsoft's biggest moneymaker, Activision has a rich but strange history. We love Pitfall! Also love the clever parody on South Park.

Dunno if someone already said that, but if you collect all 32 golde bars under 20 minutes, the game actually "ends". It's a victory condition. YOu need to use the warps "underground" to do it, and you need to have a VERY precise route to do it, and still the time limit is very tight, I don't think it's possible to do it with more than 40 seconds left in the timer. The Mega-Drive version of Pitffal Mayan Adventure also has the original Pitfall there, accessible through the same portal or a cheat code as the SNES version. It's also probably on the PC and 32X versions too :)

Is it weird that I didn't know that there were ports of Pitfall outside of the Atari before the SNES and PS1? Also the commercial for Pitfall had a very young Jack Black in it.

Pitfall The Mayan Adventure for the 64-bit Atari Jaguar also has Atari 2600 Pitfall! hidden inside it.

I love hearing people playing Atari games for the first time and still loving them. Proof positive that tight controls and a good gameplay design transcend time and trends. With the 2600 being the obvious original, C64 is the best port, followed by Intellivision and Colecovision. I'm kinda surprised that neither this nor Pitfall II saw an NES or Master System release. Would have been a sight better than that Super Pitfall tat.

I was wondering where I have could played this game since I had no Atari VCS or other console of that generation. Then, you made me recall a port was included in the pitfall Mayan adventure for the mega drive ! The speccy version looks and sounds like a tiger handheld. LoL

An amazing 2600 title, 1 I put so many hours into, I never tried on the more powerful Atari computer hardware when I moved onto that.

The Spectrum version made my day!

never a fan, but always love a good comparison vid :)

Although the controls are problematic, the port to the TI-99/4A from a dozen years ago, is truly impressive with all the levels/screens in their correct order. I've only played it and the original and although I prefer the controls on the 2600, once you get used to the TI-99 (where jumping left or right cannot be accomplished from a standing position) it is a noteworthy addition to your collection here (reviews for it can be found elsewhere on KZfaq for any who would like to see it.)

A great battle thanks Mark and one I'd thought you'd done already, this is one of those huge games I never played in the day due to my parents buying me a Philips videopac G7000, a machine I loved but when going round to friends houses in the 80's they all had Atari 2600, I'd be dead jealous but once I'd got home and was playing the likes kc munchkin and Terrahawks I'd soon forget what i was missing. Hooe you and the family are well. Chris

Good video.

Top game. I spent a lot of time playing it on the Atari VCS. I never got to the end because the one-screen-below-equals-three-above layout was more than I could keep track of in my head. In hindsight I should have made a map.

Rad!!!

The MSX and the Colecovision have roughly the same hardware. That's why their Pitfall versions are the same. :)

I knew there was a SNES version, but only because I saw it in the video's opening. That's pretty cool actually. A shame about the muffled audio. That was common, especially when cartridge space was so limited. I'm sure the 2600 port of Pitfall was lower priority as far as sample quality. I was very young in the 1980s and we had a 2600. I probably started playing it around the age of 3 or so. Pitfall was one of the highlights of the library and it was well made for how limited it is. I enjoyed it. Whenever I've heard people talk about Pitfall, whether back in the day or in the years since, it seemed everyone else also played the 2600 version. I wasn't aware of the various ports, so this was interesting to go through.

There's a Genesis port hidden away. Like the SNES version, it's got the visuals and gameplay, but the sound isn't right. It's better than the SNES sound, but a lot of the sounds are off. The jump sound is pretty close, though. Oh, and after watching you play the game, I can believe that you'd never played it before 😆

I had the clone 'cuthbert in the jungle' on the mighty (Welsh) Dragon 32. That was excellent

1:59 I seem to remember my first time playing is also thinking you can just run and get the gold.😁 Unfortunately the bog gets you.

Ahhh Pitfall!, the game that codified how humans should look in almost *every single American video game from the 80s & 90s.*

Nice video

David Crane did the port to Intellivision himself. And yes, it’s called Intellivision.

The Atari Jaguar version of Mayan Adventure also includes the original game

Was it a capture issue or did the C64 version look a bit choppy? Like 20fps or so. I should fire it up on my c64 to verify. Nice thing for a rainy weekend😊

It says a lot for the original when all official ports are pretty good. The Spectrum version, on the other hand .....

Somehow I always thought that Pitfall was exclusive to the 2600 (outside of emulated re-releases). I'm surprised there were this many ports.

The 2600 version is also hidden in the Mega CD version of Pitfall

I honestly only played Pitfall on one of those Atari 2600 chinese clone consoles and on the version hidden in the Mega Drive. But for a 1982 game, Pitfall was groundbraking!!

There's also the plug 'n play version which runs on NES hardware.

Pitfall! is to be played on an Atari 2600. It is the defining version to me.

Ah, the good old Atari Classic! Plus, I never knew there was a SNES port hidden in Pitfall: Mayan Adventure. I can try to play the instant rom hack version, though I pretty much don't do good at pitfall pretty often.

"You may not believe this, but I’ve never played Pitfall." Its like me saying "I’ve never played Super Mario Bros. or the original Thunder Force" Joking aside, I enjoyed the Atari 2600 version. Speccy version looks like something coming from Alternative Software, and also enjoyed it on Activision Classics for the PS1.

Surprised they didn't release an official version for the ZX Spectrum, the unofficial version looked like it was programmed in BASIC lol. Even though the Spectrum wasn't exactly the most powerful of computers, it could have still done a fairly decent version.

Very nice game, I think I also saw it on Sega sg 1000. there was some activision ports to that console along with h.e.r.o and others

There really is no excuse for the SNES version to have that horrid audio. It does sound like they just recorded the sound effects from playing the 2600 version and compressed the sound files so it fit on the cartridge, rather than trying to recreate them like most arcade ports on the system. Just weird if that was the case.

Classic Pitfall:)

Looking at this game now, I can see how incredibly influential it was. All the impossibly hard flick screen platformers where you go around collecting things that came out on the Spectrum in the following years obviously owe Pitfall a great debt. There must be some pretty impressive stuff going on in the code to get so much out of the Atari 2600.

Uncharted's great-grandfather

You are not alone 😅 . I think most people under 50 never played and before this video I always thought it was esclusive to 2600

There was also a pitfall clone that was on the Atari 2600 called Tom Boy. Shameless sprite swap.

for the snes one. that game present various ports from that game as well. a different game, that could been a part of a future battle of the ports, hihi. Im personally diddent like the game, but the ending is totally cool and fun throught (but im loved this original as well Atari 2600 pitfall II).

It's disappointing that the Coleco/MSX version doesn't play 1:1 like the Atari original, because it looks and sounds the best out of all versions. The running animation in particular is very smooth. I do find it weird that none of the ports added music to the gameplay, especially the C64 version. You know how devs for that system love to go crazy with arpeggios on the SID chip! The Atari 2600 was limited with sound, but every other system here had a 3-voice chip, so I'm not sure why they kept the sounds so basic.

The first time I played Pitfall, I tried to play it as a side-scrolling left-to-right platformer. Needless to say, I didn’t beat the game.

Which came first, Jungle King or Pitfall? Because Pitfall looks like a more complex game, especially for the 2600.

while the original is various The Mayan Adventure ports as well, which include the original game like SNES..... That could been a another battle of the ports game. hihi. Im allways liked this game and was one of game we had as kid. its a well designed game with the console limit and carefull uses of random generated screens. Yep when you run in the underground, its skips 3 screens each time.

There is a perfect version released on the vic 20, much better than the version you showed

also you can go the other direction it's a little easier.

i have to say yoiu play this game as about as well as I do lol a few years ago I read a article that argued the MSX is what the adam would of been if coleco hadn't used POS hardware

5200 hands down best version

ZX Spectrum version looks like a Tiger Electronics handheld version, but surprisingly worse!

You ever done a Jungle Hunt comparison?

Mark one more for the future please - PASTFINDER. cheers.

I hope you make one for Bomberman

I think the original atari 2600 was the best port. I liked the green background , it gave that more , you're deep in the jungle" feel vs. the blue sky version. Also wow the sound effects of the coleclvision are horrible.

Theres actually another Vic20 version requiring 16k thats a whole lot better

Interesting how 2600 version is more or less the smoothest playing of any of these. Pitfall is all about feel

Also a version on Sega.. by the way

Spent many an hour on the Atari 2600 and also the Mattel Intellivision versions. Preferred the Atari version better though. Excellent game though