Been enjoying Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection a lot. Super good collection with great resources.
I’m surprised at how well some games hold up although some are still epilepsy beep nightmares like Black Widow. And then the Atari 5200 and Jaguar are mostly unplayable, but the stories are fascinating. I finally see that the Jaguar spirit was carried over into rudimentary game engines like MMF2 with their in-built, awful, digitised sprites and frantic action.
They’ve got great dev interviews that provide context and they really lay into the company. They discuss drug use, bad management, pay conditions. Overall, it’s refreshingly unsanitised without losing the sense of celebrating the craft. Like they were basically inventing new genres every month, whilst also putting up with all sorts of dumb corporate shit. There’s a really heartening restrospective that caps it off with a brief tribute to the 2600 modding scene. The whole package feels valuable and more emotional than the typical retro compilations tend to be, and I have absolutely zero nostalgia for Atari. I highly recommend it.
It feels like a videogame exhibit curated properly, which they almost always aren’t when there are videogame exhibits at actual museums/galleries. I went to the War Games exhibit at the Imperial War Museum recently and it fucking sucked. Curator just putting video games next to random war artifacts like it provides insight, while the opening room has to explain what videogames are to the normies for the umpteenth time. Just put Atari 50 at a bunch of stations instead.
Here are my highlights:
Yars’ Revenge – 1982 - Atari 2600
It reminded me of the few games I’ve ever actually made. They often shared a design philosophy of the extremely pared back one-screen design which is so common to the 2600. I never dabbled in 3D games because I felt like there was still so much to do in 2D. Yars’ gave me the warmest feeling of a faith in human creativity to make something odd and unique within strict limits. Most of the games in the collection just boot before you can see the manual so they were often jarring or made little sense so if you’ve never played/heard of it try guessing what is going on here.
The enhanced edition lets you put a fancy modern skin over the original code but I kinda prefer the 2600 look and the single droning roar over the new music. I love that the game naturally pushes you towards little strategies, either sniping with potshots and making quick hit and runs to activate the Zorlon Cannon, or going all in and using the screen wrapping to dodge the mess beyond the neutral zone. A game after my own heart.
[Neo] Breakout – 1976 [2022] - Arcade
Good sequel to Pong. Almost always fun no matter the version. I gotta give it to Neo Breakout which is the 2022 ‘reimagining’ even though the collision is borked. Balls act screwy at the corners of bricks and will sometimes bounce back exactly the way they came or through walls. You had one job ball!
Food Fight – 1983 - Arcade
I, Robot – 1984 - Arcade
I’d never heard of this before playing the collection and I think it’s actually a neat idea for a maze-style game with a unique fail condition (don’t be airborne when eye glows red). The 3D graphics gimmick actually hides a really simple and original arcade game. Sometimes it’s nice to move quickly as a robot and movement is progress a la Splatoon or Pac-Man. It’s like a more frenzied Qbert that turns into a very basic ‘over-the-shoulder’ shmup after each level. It comes with a 3D brush art mode too where you can draw with terrific polygons.
Missile Command – 1980 - Arcade
Arcade version of Missile Command is still the best even though later ones add powerups and a more forgiving ammunition system. This one is very fast, and you have to think about missile launch sites in a more strategic way since the left, right or centre bases can run out. It’s also the most beautiful and remains the best use of the phrase ‘the end’ in any game.
VCTR-SCTR - 2022
A medley of classic vector games. Playing the original Asteroids still sticks with me for how magical vector games look. It’s like games’ version of the organic lively look of hand animation. VCTR-SCTR does a decent job of emulating the look but is a bit of a pain to actually play. Moving through the different games (Asteroids, Lunar Lander, Battlezone(?), Tempest) is novel but the Battlezone bit is far longer and more difficult than all the others, so each run feels like you’re doing a ‘run’ back to this bit. Still, this is the closest to playing vector games without a proper display.
Centipede – 1995 - Gameboy
Of all the versions of Centipede I still think the Gameboy version (not in this collection) is the best since its sound gives the best sense of dangerous space. The arcade (and other versions), are just weirdly harsh and hollow sounding to me.
Tempest 2000 - 1994 - Atari Jaguar
This is the most 90s shit for the most 90s console and its hilarious the killer app of the Jaguar was an arcade remix. It’s really excellent though. The soundtrack is pure energy, and the game is much easier to actually play than the other versions of Tempest which are often stiff and finnicky. Rave on.
Malibu Bikini Volleyball – 1993 - Atari Lynx
The only one that stuck with me from the Lynx. A big part of it is the CD player function and the fact that some of the music sounds wistful and bittersweet – some might say boobly.
It’s fairly easy to progress as long as you serve first since the opposing team are not very good at dealing with your AI partner’s return shots.
Ninja Golf – 1990 - Atari 7800
It’s just OK.
Yoomp! – 2007 - Atari 800
There aren’t many 800 games in the catalogue but this stands out as being the only game from the 2000s in the whole collection. It has cool music synchronisation too but the game feels like a minigame somehow. Well-made but diversionary.
Star Raiders - 1982 - Atari 5200
Pretty impressive for its time but that’s a running theme for a lot of the earlier titles. It was much cooler to hear the devs talk about how obsessed they were with playing it. It must have felt limitless at the time.