22 out of 22 people found this review helpful.
Did they even try to make this game interesting?
Date of Review: Aug 12, 2001
The Bottom Line: Old games are fun, for about 5 minutes. Then you remember why you sold your Atari to buy some bubble gum.
I owned an Atari. My friends, this is not an Atari. Or maybe the real problem is that it really tries to be. Unfortunately this game turns out to be little more than a history lesson.
Gameplay
6/10
The game contains
Asteroids
Asteroids Deluxe
Centipede
Crystal Castles
Gravitar
Millipede
Missile Command
Pong
Super Breakout
Tempest
Warlords
Where is Moon Patrol? Where is Defender? Where is Pitfall? What about Pole Position? I mean come on. We get two basically identical versions of Asteroids Centipede and Millipede but none of those titles? That's ridiculous. Also, 4 of these games are already available for PC in Microsofts Return of the Arcade pack which came out years ago. A little more variety would have made for a much better experience. Plus, these games are all less than 10k in size, why didn't they pack more into it? They clearly had space.
Before I get into the games themselves I should point out there is a bit more to this disc than just the games. There is an Archives section which is pretty cool. In here you can scroll through pictures of box art, original advertisements, original scripts etc and some videos with developer interviews. This stuff is very cool but I wish they had done more with it. Some videos of commercials would have been great for example. The disc also sports a jazzy interface with each game its own specific "cabinet" design (basically a background, but this is all fluff and really means little to the game.
My main problem with all the games is that nothing is upgraded. I expected at least a couple of newer versions of the games with updated sound and graphics but no. You get exact clones of the originals. I suppose some people would have been angry with updated versions by I think it would have been great to see both side by side and compare. Instead all I get are a bunch of games that I already played 12 years ago. Oh well.
Asteroids/Asteroids Deluxe
Still fun to this day in my opinion. You drive a capital A around in space all the while bleeping at jagged outlines of things. Left and right rotate your A, up makes it move forward. Pushing A on the pad fires off your bleeps. When you shoot the jagged outlines they break into smaller jagged outlines which you must then shoot. Asteroids Deluxe is the same game but with a solid triangle instead of an A, a new background and slightly upgrade bleep effects.
Battlezone
You play a tank in a wireframe universe. You must shoot other tanks in this universe. The analog stick moves you, R fires. I don't care much for this one.
Centipede/Millipede
One of my favorite games on my Atari 2600. You move left to right in a little cross which can shoot. You must shoot spiders, mushrooms and of coure, centipedes. This game just isn't as fun without the big roller ball though that you used in the arcade. Millepede is the same game but now you shoot Millipedes.
Crystal Castles
Think of it as 3D Pacman. Come to think of it, Pacman should be on this disc too. Oh well, this game is awful.
Gravitar
Basically the same as Asteroids but you can fly to other areas, not just blank space.
Missile Command
Point, click. Point, click. Missiles rain down on your city and you must shoot them down. No matter how old this game is I find it fun. When you hit the missiles there is a big explosion which can then hit other missiles. Wee ha.
Pong
If you don't know what Pong is you either need to get a life or get less of one. One of the, if not the, first video games for home use you move bars around hitting a ball.
Super Breakout
Like Pong only you have to hit bricks instead of other paddles. I like this game but this version is really, really hard. Arkanoid for the NES is superior in every way.
Tempest
You fly around in a circle shooting into the screen. This game is really the first attempt I know of to simulate 3D in a video game. Not a bad game at all.
Warlords
Very cool game, my favorite in the package. Its like a 4 player version of Super Breakout (but with only 2 players, the other 2 are computer controlled unfortunately). Each player has a corner to defend. The ball bounces back and forth breaking through someone eventually. Its really quite fun.
Graphics
3/10
Not only are they Atari graphics but they are really small Atari graphics. You can turn off the "cabinet" backgrounds which enlarges it a bit but still, everything looks really really small. Oh, right, also, they are Atari graphics. I'm all for nostaligia but please, flying As? Give me a break.
Sound
-42/10
The infernal beeping has nearly driven me to madness. Why, oh why, must it beep so? The only thing worse than Atari graphics is Atari sound. This is one thing they could have easily cleaned up without destroying the integrity of these games. I really wish they had because it drives me nuts.
Rent/buy?
So, overall its a pretty good collection of games. The problem is there is nothing new here (Warlords was new to me actually but you get the point..). The archive mode is interesting and all but after going through it once you won't again. Some more diversity in the game choices would be have really nice as well but whatever. You can easily get these games in a number of PC collections and can find most of the archive stuff on various websites. I really loved my Atari 2600, it was my first system after all, but this disc just did not bring back that love. I want my Moon Patrol!
