Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration Review

And what artifacts they are! Hologram reproduction from the canceled Atari handheld. A theatrical trailer for Yars’ Revenge? Presented in all its gritty glory. The entire code for Combat on the Atari 2600? Fits in one screenshot (file size many times larger than the original code). Missing the final game in the Sword Quest series of action-adventure cartridges in partnership with Airworld, DC Comics? Created from the ground up by Digital Eclipse and included. The crash of the video game market in the 1980s interrupted the series finale, so Digital Eclipse made a game to correct that historical mistake.

but what about the game

Technically, there are better ways to play many of these games, and it’s on the original hardware. They almost completely avoided joystick layouts in their arcade games (e.g. Centipede’s trackball, Asteroids’ all-button control panel, Tempest’s spinner), and it got even weirder on home consoles like the Atari 7800 and Atari. jaguar.But outside of rooms full of restored hardware, including classic gaming competitions and arcades, it doesn’t get much better than this environment Play these games over this collection. Games are discussed in documentaries and presented alongside design documents and art. Each game gives you a reason to try it. Much better than a folder of ROMs. Unlike the arcade games mentioned above, some of these charges Better in this format. I may be picky about getting classic arcade controls right, but I’m not a big fan of the Atari 2600 joystick. I’d rather play most console and PC games with fluid controls mapped to modern directional pads and analog sticks.

The Atari 50 emulation has some of the more common modern improvements found in many collections, but not all. It adds one save state per game, lets you remap controls, enables pretty good CRT-like filters, and bezels recreate art to fill your widescreen. But you can’t rewind these games or watch and manipulate the flawless playthroughs we saw in his Cowabunga Collection in 2022. It amazes me that these particular features have become standard in the Digital Eclipse collection. We also believe that they will become universally expected. This includes games beyond the arcade age. I believe all Atari platforms have Asteroids and/or Missile Command (many are included here).

The list itself is dominated by Atari 2600 games (there are 40 of them), followed by arcade games (25 of them). The remaining 103 total options are combinations from Atari consoles such as the Atari 5200, 7800 and handheld Jaguar. Lynx, and Atari 400/800 PCs. Of these, my favorites are all arcade games, but they are the worst in emulation. With a few exceptions, the Atari 2600 games no longer excite me. I have played them all and they are very simple. I need Manuals, thankfully all provided here. I get their place in history and find amazing creativity and programming tricks very interesting. That’s what the Atari 50 collection offers for your enjoyment and perhaps education.

What intrigued me the most was the ‘Reimagined’ game, a completely new variation on this collection, and some of the later Atari efforts like the 3D Jaguar game. These didn’t disappoint… well, maybe some of them did. Options such as Cybermorph and Club Drive were disappointing games and commercial failures.but they attractiveJaguar 3D games were representative of an era that predates the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, and few people were involved due to limited interest in Jaguar hindering its widespread adoption. These Jaguar games are goofy and full of rough edges, but I’m very grateful for the opportunity to play them.

License revoked

There are some things that are sadly likely to be missing from the Atari 50 collection. Star Wars, Atari’s arcade classic, and its vector sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. Raiders of the Lost Ark 2600; Jaguar Aliens vs Predator. All of these, and many more beloved games under popular licenses, are not included here. Now that we have ET the Extra-Terrestrial, the license wasn’t completely exorbitant, but the story of Atari is incomplete without an iconic pop culture-inspired game. These are sometimes acknowledged in documentaries, but even the extras lack a slice of the glorious era when the Atari and Star Wars logos appeared alongside some of the coolest, high-tech games of the time.

Document Deluxe

A highlight of Atari 50 are interviews with Atari employees, developers, and other creators. There’s great footage of his Pong factory in the early 1970s and an interview with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell then and now. Long, lofty tales, like the first prototype of the Pong machine crowding the local bar quarters, or Atari’s laissez-faire attitude toward drug use in the office, are treated as separate tales and impressions. It will be treated in its own segment presented. rather than definitive history.

As the years go by, especially in the 1990s, less and less people get excited about talking about Atari in the included documentaries, and that era is not as well documented in this collection as the 1980s. While it’s amazing to capture Atari’s most prominent voices of the past, the selection of interviewees isn’t entirely representative of the talent of the time. For example, there were many prominent female developers during the Atari era, but unfortunately none of them are featured in these documentaries. Atari’s art and marketing departments represented the company’s finest creativity, yet their stories remain tantalizingly untold. Similarly, decades of journalists, historians and collectors may have been tapped to add the missing context here.