Very few things are as much my jam as Atari 50. I love old game compilations and I love weird multimedia archaeology where there's just tons of little bits and pieces to sift through, and this is just those two things together, plus a few weird little games made for the collection attempting to draw a line between these old games and the current day. Like, Haunted Houses is in many ways just really honing in on the point that the original Haunted House is the prototype of every single Slenderman game.
On one hand, it's not quite the same as an actual documentary. There's not so much of an overarching narrative here. On the other, the fact that you actually get to play the games for yourself is a huge advantage over what a traditional documentary could offer. It's not really the "story" of Atari but, as the title suggests, a celebration of all this stuff. All the games and the people they could pull in to interview about the drugs they did in the 70s. It put me in the right mindset to appreciate the fact that Missile Command is a bleak political statement on top of being an arcade quarter-muncher. That Yars Revenge is a pile of very strange, oblique mechanics justified by a super cool comic in the manual. That current box art sucks in comparison to the shit they were commissioning back then because the only real way to build a context for the gameplay was to put a picture of a space ship on the box.
Naturally, you can never really recreate the context. My home is not an arcade and my controller is not a track ball. Oh my god the track ball games are basically unplayable in any other form. Those aren't really problems anybody could fix though.
The "reimagined" series is interesting to me because each one is coming at the task from a very different angle. You've got a version of Haunted House that turns it into a very modern indie game type of thing. You've got a version of Yars Revenge that just puts a fancier coat of paint. You've got a hypothetical fourth Sword Quest game made to the specs it would have originally had to follow. The Vector Games combo was probably the most interesting to me, even if it's mostly spectacle. It was a nice spectacle!
I want to rate the collection as a whole and maybe drill into some of these games in the future because the collection is sort of separate from the individual games and rating it on the fact that I find most of them to be uncompelling would be missing the point. But I do want to dig more into some of these games. I've been rotating them in my mind since I passed by them in the collection. Missile Command, Sword Quest, Star Raiders... honestly, I've seen all of these games before and not left with that impulse until Atari 50. I don't think I could possibly come up with higher praise than that.
On one hand, it's not quite the same as an actual documentary. There's not so much of an overarching narrative here. On the other, the fact that you actually get to play the games for yourself is a huge advantage over what a traditional documentary could offer. It's not really the "story" of Atari but, as the title suggests, a celebration of all this stuff. All the games and the people they could pull in to interview about the drugs they did in the 70s. It put me in the right mindset to appreciate the fact that Missile Command is a bleak political statement on top of being an arcade quarter-muncher. That Yars Revenge is a pile of very strange, oblique mechanics justified by a super cool comic in the manual. That current box art sucks in comparison to the shit they were commissioning back then because the only real way to build a context for the gameplay was to put a picture of a space ship on the box.
Naturally, you can never really recreate the context. My home is not an arcade and my controller is not a track ball. Oh my god the track ball games are basically unplayable in any other form. Those aren't really problems anybody could fix though.
The "reimagined" series is interesting to me because each one is coming at the task from a very different angle. You've got a version of Haunted House that turns it into a very modern indie game type of thing. You've got a version of Yars Revenge that just puts a fancier coat of paint. You've got a hypothetical fourth Sword Quest game made to the specs it would have originally had to follow. The Vector Games combo was probably the most interesting to me, even if it's mostly spectacle. It was a nice spectacle!
I want to rate the collection as a whole and maybe drill into some of these games in the future because the collection is sort of separate from the individual games and rating it on the fact that I find most of them to be uncompelling would be missing the point. But I do want to dig more into some of these games. I've been rotating them in my mind since I passed by them in the collection. Missile Command, Sword Quest, Star Raiders... honestly, I've seen all of these games before and not left with that impulse until Atari 50. I don't think I could possibly come up with higher praise than that.
You get the best version of atari games, appart of an interactive view on atari history, is an amazing compilation
An incredible collection of mostly terrible video games.
Atari 50 works because it understands so deeply why anyone would ever want to play 40 year old Atari games: historical context. Between the games you're offered a large helping of video interviews from Atari programmers, high quality scans of magazine advertisements and design documents, and it's all organized within a few different timelines, generally separated by console and/or era. You get to see and then play the fall-off from arcade games to home console games, from home console games to handhelds, you really get to internalize what the appeal of 2600 games was and why that formula ended up killing Atari in the 90s as they struggled to keep up with the changing industry, among many, many other historical subthreads.
I'm not going to mince words about the quality of the games themselves--most of them are bad, even in the context of their own releases, with most of the home console games just being shittier versions of decent-at-best arcade games, and it might be a bit overkill to try and write something about all of them like I did (I certainly got burnt out in the Jaguar/Lynx era where almost everything is dogshit). Plenty of these games are good, you get to play classics like Missile Command and Warlords, but you also get to play quite a bit of trash, including all four SwordQuest games, Canyon Bomber, and fucking Scrapyard Dog for the Atari Lynx.
But you knew this walking in! You're playing an Atari collection, not a Nintendo collection--you know this is a story about a fall, not a success. Atari 50 thankfully holds shockingly few bars in terms of its honesty, throughout the interview clips you'll hear half a dozen programmers saying that coding for the 2600 sucked ass and no one wanted to do it, that nobody had a concept of console generations and Atari got stuck in a loop out of incompetence, and once Nintendo showed up to the party the story was as good as done. Unfortunately as the game goes on the presence of the interviews especially get lighter and lighter, but there's always plenty of scans of related media from the time, recordings of old commercials, the whole deal.
You play Atari 50 because you want this context in a way deeper felt than just factoids. It's easy to know the surface story of Atari, but actually playing it alongside all of the secondary context-setting material makes this by far one of the best history lessons you can get about video games as a medium, especially with regard to its origins and the arcade era immediately following it.
Atari 50 works because it understands so deeply why anyone would ever want to play 40 year old Atari games: historical context. Between the games you're offered a large helping of video interviews from Atari programmers, high quality scans of magazine advertisements and design documents, and it's all organized within a few different timelines, generally separated by console and/or era. You get to see and then play the fall-off from arcade games to home console games, from home console games to handhelds, you really get to internalize what the appeal of 2600 games was and why that formula ended up killing Atari in the 90s as they struggled to keep up with the changing industry, among many, many other historical subthreads.
I'm not going to mince words about the quality of the games themselves--most of them are bad, even in the context of their own releases, with most of the home console games just being shittier versions of decent-at-best arcade games, and it might be a bit overkill to try and write something about all of them like I did (I certainly got burnt out in the Jaguar/Lynx era where almost everything is dogshit). Plenty of these games are good, you get to play classics like Missile Command and Warlords, but you also get to play quite a bit of trash, including all four SwordQuest games, Canyon Bomber, and fucking Scrapyard Dog for the Atari Lynx.
But you knew this walking in! You're playing an Atari collection, not a Nintendo collection--you know this is a story about a fall, not a success. Atari 50 thankfully holds shockingly few bars in terms of its honesty, throughout the interview clips you'll hear half a dozen programmers saying that coding for the 2600 sucked ass and no one wanted to do it, that nobody had a concept of console generations and Atari got stuck in a loop out of incompetence, and once Nintendo showed up to the party the story was as good as done. Unfortunately as the game goes on the presence of the interviews especially get lighter and lighter, but there's always plenty of scans of related media from the time, recordings of old commercials, the whole deal.
You play Atari 50 because you want this context in a way deeper felt than just factoids. It's easy to know the surface story of Atari, but actually playing it alongside all of the secondary context-setting material makes this by far one of the best history lessons you can get about video games as a medium, especially with regard to its origins and the arcade era immediately following it.
Atari 50 is advertised as a retro game collection, but I think it's best described as an interactive documentary about Atari's game history. The collection contains 100+ games. While that sounds like a bonanza the truth is that most of these games have not aged well, although I'll list my favorites at the end of this log. But each one is accompanied by an encyclopedic blurb describing every game's history, development, game manual, box art etc. There are also video interviews with past Atari developers and from recognizable names in the gaming industry. While there is fun to be had here, Atari 50 is really about telling the story of Atari's early years (which by extension were also the first years of gaming) and the environment they were created in.
I think the thing that impresses me the most about Atari 50 is that it doesn't try to mask itself in nostalgia. It's here to educate you on gaming history, and that involves telling some harsh truths. The blurbs and interviews are very frank and honest about how many Atari games were rushed and not always great products. This contributed to the video game crash in the 80s that almost destroyed the industry. To see a brand reflect on both the good and bad parts of its history is increasingly rare and Atari 50 is all the better for it. I really recommend Atari 50, as unusual as it is. I can't remember the last time a game collection was packaged with such polish and TLC. I'd love to see this format done with other long running gaming publishers/developers like Namco or Konami or even Nintendo. Although that last one is probably a pipe dream (Get it?).
Games worth seeking out in Atari 50:
Black Widow, Centipede, Millipede, Food Fight and Quantum for arcades
RealSports Boxing and Aquaventure for the Atari 2600
Millipede for the Atari 5200
Dark Chambers and Ninja Golf for the Atari 7800
Ruiner Pinball for the Atari Jaguar
Neo Breakout, a new take on Breakout developed for Atari 50 by Digital Eclipse
I think the thing that impresses me the most about Atari 50 is that it doesn't try to mask itself in nostalgia. It's here to educate you on gaming history, and that involves telling some harsh truths. The blurbs and interviews are very frank and honest about how many Atari games were rushed and not always great products. This contributed to the video game crash in the 80s that almost destroyed the industry. To see a brand reflect on both the good and bad parts of its history is increasingly rare and Atari 50 is all the better for it. I really recommend Atari 50, as unusual as it is. I can't remember the last time a game collection was packaged with such polish and TLC. I'd love to see this format done with other long running gaming publishers/developers like Namco or Konami or even Nintendo. Although that last one is probably a pipe dream (Get it?).
Games worth seeking out in Atari 50:
Black Widow, Centipede, Millipede, Food Fight and Quantum for arcades
RealSports Boxing and Aquaventure for the Atari 2600
Millipede for the Atari 5200
Dark Chambers and Ninja Golf for the Atari 7800
Ruiner Pinball for the Atari Jaguar
Neo Breakout, a new take on Breakout developed for Atari 50 by Digital Eclipse
really interesting and fun time. getting stories about the programming and context behind games for the 2600 makes them way more palatable to me as i have no real history with these consoles. even if a good majority of the games here i don’t see myself playing just to play (other than the arcade collection, most of which are still dope) i had a sick time learning and i love video games :)
Going into Atari 50, I was far more interested in it being an interactive museum than the collection of games themselves. Perhaps its due to me being a filthy zoomer, but I'm always more engaged with learning the history of video games than playing through those early games myself, despite the respect I have for them.
Having finished the main 'museum' part of the Atari 50 and very briefly dipping my toes into the majority of the 115 games in its collection, I have to say that my initial assessment was correct, and I came away loving learning the history of the company far more than playing the games. Though that's not entirely fair since learning that history and the context behind each game allowed me to enjoy playing them far more than I would have otherwise.
That's perhaps the biggest triumph of Digital Eclipse's work here.
Don't get me wrong, my lack of interest in these games is not from an 'ew, it's old, so it's bad' perspective at all, but more that a lot of them are quite primitive by design, and the 5–10 minutes on average that I spent on them ultimately amounted to a feeling of 'huh, that's neat! Anyway…'.
As I said, learning the context behind these games, the sheer passion these pioneers of the industry had for their craft, and the feeling of putting a piece of themselves into these games and putting them out into the world are enough to make even the most hardened cynic smile. It's truly wonderful to bear witness to.
So yes, in summary, even if you couldn't possibly give a shit about Atari's games, you really should check Atari 50 out anyhow. The attention and respect Digital Eclipse pays to teaching you the most important chapters of the history of video games is really compelling, and its interactive museum presentation is well worth the asking price of <$20, even if you can emulate all of these games very easily nowadays.
8/10
Having finished the main 'museum' part of the Atari 50 and very briefly dipping my toes into the majority of the 115 games in its collection, I have to say that my initial assessment was correct, and I came away loving learning the history of the company far more than playing the games. Though that's not entirely fair since learning that history and the context behind each game allowed me to enjoy playing them far more than I would have otherwise.
That's perhaps the biggest triumph of Digital Eclipse's work here.
Don't get me wrong, my lack of interest in these games is not from an 'ew, it's old, so it's bad' perspective at all, but more that a lot of them are quite primitive by design, and the 5–10 minutes on average that I spent on them ultimately amounted to a feeling of 'huh, that's neat! Anyway…'.
As I said, learning the context behind these games, the sheer passion these pioneers of the industry had for their craft, and the feeling of putting a piece of themselves into these games and putting them out into the world are enough to make even the most hardened cynic smile. It's truly wonderful to bear witness to.
So yes, in summary, even if you couldn't possibly give a shit about Atari's games, you really should check Atari 50 out anyhow. The attention and respect Digital Eclipse pays to teaching you the most important chapters of the history of video games is really compelling, and its interactive museum presentation is well worth the asking price of <$20, even if you can emulate all of these games very easily nowadays.
8/10
Ironically, I wouldn't recommend this game collection for its games.
If you get this, it should either be because you have a connection to these consoles or you're just interested in the history aspect, in this case I'm the latter.
The collection is presented very well. The series of 5 timelines are a joy to go through, though to nitpick, the separation of systems means that it isn't one linear timeline, so for example one timeline may end in the mid 80's but the next will start back in the late '70s. I really enjoyed the amount of extra visual content such as advertisements and original artwork used for some games' front covers. The sheer volume of these is good evidence that a lot of love and effort was put into the collection.
The emulation is also fantastic, from the arcade games all the way up to the Jaguar with no notes, even on the Nintendo Switch. Digital Eclipse even went to the trouble of adding radial menus for some games that used the keypads found on the 5200 and Jaguar controllers. If I had to nitpick again, I wish you were shown what the controls were before starting each game, as they can vary wildly, especially for arcade games. Additionally, more than a single save slot for each game would've been nice.
The video documentaries are a mixed bag. At the start they do a fantastic job, talking to all the relevant people about the start of the company through the creation of the 2600 and are great viewing. However after the 2600, the amount of videos really starts to decline. Simply not enough time is spent talking about the Lynx and Jaguar especially, and this is also reflected in the choice and amount of games for these systems. It's also incredibly jarring to go from the last Jaguar games on the timeline almost straight to a seemingly completely irrelevant video interviewing the author of Ready Player One, for some reason?
Included alongside the original games is a small series of "Reimagined" games. These are what they say, new creations heavily inspired by existing games in the collection. These can range to just flat out remakes like the enhanced version of Yars' Revenge, to something pretty much brand new but inspired, like with the new version of Haunted House. These are a nice extra and are very well made but sadly none of these really held my interest.
As for the games, these are very much before my time and the amount of them that were genuinely fun to play is very few, but not zero. This is my personal opinion, and as mentioned if you have a personal connection with the 2600 and its first party stuff in particular you will probably enjoy the selection. Even so, the 2600 in particular has charm in its crude visuals and sound effects even if I didn't particularly enjoy any of its games. The selection is a bit mediocre (do we really need four versions of Missile Command?), there's some glaring omissions, such as any 2600 game made by Activision, but it's obvious as to why it isn't included and can be looked beyond. Activision are mentioned on the timeline too, so they did what they could.
Here are some games that I thought were genuinely quite fun even as a zoomer, or at least I thought were noteworthy, along with some reasons why:
Lunar Lander (Arcade, 1979) - Brutally difficult, but the objective is so simple that it becomes quite addicting. If I remember correctly, this was the first arcade game made by Atari to use vector graphics, and it works beautifully here, especially if the collection is played on an OLED screen.
Cloak & Dagger (Arcade, 1984) - Loosely based off a film of the same name that I haven't seen, this game really surprised me. The gameplay is a simple top-down shooter where you get to an exit, but the way it's presented is amazing. I absolutely adore the animations between levels and the idea of a huge bomb on each floor detonating if you take too long is a great gimmick. Plus giving basic hints between levels is a nice touch when many arcade games from this era could be very cruel.
Ninja Golf (7800, 1990) - A very simple golf game, but it switches to a beat 'em up when you have to run to where your ball lands. It sounds silly, and it very much is, but it's shockingly fun and I can't recommend it more.
Club Drive (Jaguar, 1994) - The visuals are impressive for the time, even if it's immediately outshined when you compare it to other systems that were around the corner. However, once you get past the questionable controls and car handling, the super relaxed presentation and focus away from racing others is a genuine breath of fresh air and it feels great. There isn't a whole lot of content but the variety of areas on offer is really sweet and the entire game just more than makes up for it in vibes.
Overall, the collection is incredibly well made but I'd say it's hard to recommend because to me personally there isn't a whole lot of games here that are worth playing for a decent amount of time and the documentary aspect is a bit mixed.
If you get this, it should either be because you have a connection to these consoles or you're just interested in the history aspect, in this case I'm the latter.
The collection is presented very well. The series of 5 timelines are a joy to go through, though to nitpick, the separation of systems means that it isn't one linear timeline, so for example one timeline may end in the mid 80's but the next will start back in the late '70s. I really enjoyed the amount of extra visual content such as advertisements and original artwork used for some games' front covers. The sheer volume of these is good evidence that a lot of love and effort was put into the collection.
The emulation is also fantastic, from the arcade games all the way up to the Jaguar with no notes, even on the Nintendo Switch. Digital Eclipse even went to the trouble of adding radial menus for some games that used the keypads found on the 5200 and Jaguar controllers. If I had to nitpick again, I wish you were shown what the controls were before starting each game, as they can vary wildly, especially for arcade games. Additionally, more than a single save slot for each game would've been nice.
The video documentaries are a mixed bag. At the start they do a fantastic job, talking to all the relevant people about the start of the company through the creation of the 2600 and are great viewing. However after the 2600, the amount of videos really starts to decline. Simply not enough time is spent talking about the Lynx and Jaguar especially, and this is also reflected in the choice and amount of games for these systems. It's also incredibly jarring to go from the last Jaguar games on the timeline almost straight to a seemingly completely irrelevant video interviewing the author of Ready Player One, for some reason?
Included alongside the original games is a small series of "Reimagined" games. These are what they say, new creations heavily inspired by existing games in the collection. These can range to just flat out remakes like the enhanced version of Yars' Revenge, to something pretty much brand new but inspired, like with the new version of Haunted House. These are a nice extra and are very well made but sadly none of these really held my interest.
As for the games, these are very much before my time and the amount of them that were genuinely fun to play is very few, but not zero. This is my personal opinion, and as mentioned if you have a personal connection with the 2600 and its first party stuff in particular you will probably enjoy the selection. Even so, the 2600 in particular has charm in its crude visuals and sound effects even if I didn't particularly enjoy any of its games. The selection is a bit mediocre (do we really need four versions of Missile Command?), there's some glaring omissions, such as any 2600 game made by Activision, but it's obvious as to why it isn't included and can be looked beyond. Activision are mentioned on the timeline too, so they did what they could.
Here are some games that I thought were genuinely quite fun even as a zoomer, or at least I thought were noteworthy, along with some reasons why:
Lunar Lander (Arcade, 1979) - Brutally difficult, but the objective is so simple that it becomes quite addicting. If I remember correctly, this was the first arcade game made by Atari to use vector graphics, and it works beautifully here, especially if the collection is played on an OLED screen.
Cloak & Dagger (Arcade, 1984) - Loosely based off a film of the same name that I haven't seen, this game really surprised me. The gameplay is a simple top-down shooter where you get to an exit, but the way it's presented is amazing. I absolutely adore the animations between levels and the idea of a huge bomb on each floor detonating if you take too long is a great gimmick. Plus giving basic hints between levels is a nice touch when many arcade games from this era could be very cruel.
Ninja Golf (7800, 1990) - A very simple golf game, but it switches to a beat 'em up when you have to run to where your ball lands. It sounds silly, and it very much is, but it's shockingly fun and I can't recommend it more.
Club Drive (Jaguar, 1994) - The visuals are impressive for the time, even if it's immediately outshined when you compare it to other systems that were around the corner. However, once you get past the questionable controls and car handling, the super relaxed presentation and focus away from racing others is a genuine breath of fresh air and it feels great. There isn't a whole lot of content but the variety of areas on offer is really sweet and the entire game just more than makes up for it in vibes.
Overall, the collection is incredibly well made but I'd say it's hard to recommend because to me personally there isn't a whole lot of games here that are worth playing for a decent amount of time and the documentary aspect is a bit mixed.
It’s pretty interesting to find out a bit about Atari’s history as someone who didn’t grow up during their era. Unfortunately I was letdown by how few interviews there were with the developers and founders of the company. It makes up about 90 minutes of viewing. There are also short paragraphs giving a little detail into select games and systems. Past the 2600, the quality and frequency of information drops significantly.
There’s something about this collection that felt like a puff piece. The interviews with the current ceo felt gross (especially the one with the founder Nolan Bushnell). It feels like they glossed over a lot of the negative aspects of Atari’s management. It’s really a giant collection of games with a barebones overview of how it was actually run. I will say it’s pretty cool that they made some new games based on past hits.
There’s something about this collection that felt like a puff piece. The interviews with the current ceo felt gross (especially the one with the founder Nolan Bushnell). It feels like they glossed over a lot of the negative aspects of Atari’s management. It’s really a giant collection of games with a barebones overview of how it was actually run. I will say it’s pretty cool that they made some new games based on past hits.
Digital Eclipse levels up their production bigtime here with a new format that presents the games alongside all of the supplementary material in a comprehensive timeline. This is essentially how I wished they'd done these things from the start, because while I didn't overly mind having to go into separate archive menus to peruse all the interesting stuff they pack these collections with, I did find myself jumping back and forth between those and playing the games in chronological order, effectively constructing the timeline for myself (this was especially necessary with the recent TMNT collection). This linear presentation of all of the material together (with the option to just go to another menu and play all the games whenever, of course) is an important evolution for their projects, I think.
The games and the story of Atari themselves as depicted here is engaging enough to carry this as its own thing, although the fun does peter off significantly when you get into the latter-day stuff because, um, the Jaguar is dogshit. However, for someone like me with absolutely no experience with the Atari of old and the desire for a curated entry point, this really fit the bill. I feel like I learned a lot!
There's no way to avoid lots of stuff being left out and the realities of securing some of the more notable titles, but I think this is probably the absolute best this collection could be while keeping in mind what must be a lot of limitations. As always, very excited to see where Digital Eclipse goes next - they continue to move in exciting directions.
The games and the story of Atari themselves as depicted here is engaging enough to carry this as its own thing, although the fun does peter off significantly when you get into the latter-day stuff because, um, the Jaguar is dogshit. However, for someone like me with absolutely no experience with the Atari of old and the desire for a curated entry point, this really fit the bill. I feel like I learned a lot!
There's no way to avoid lots of stuff being left out and the realities of securing some of the more notable titles, but I think this is probably the absolute best this collection could be while keeping in mind what must be a lot of limitations. As always, very excited to see where Digital Eclipse goes next - they continue to move in exciting directions.
Overall, I definitely appreciate this game conceptually, being a large collection with full manuals, along with ads and developer commentary. I understand that not every game can have equal interesting development stories, but still, the commentary stuff definitely feels front heavy. There are specific interviews about 2600 games but I think in terms of Jaguar and Lynx there's only general console interviews, that's unfortunate.
In terms of the actual games themselves, honestly they aren't that great. For the arcade/2600/5200/8-bit games, most of them feel decent for being pre-NES but also massively outdated compared to the NES which is in itself very simplistic. After that, the games tend to just be actually inferior to their contemporaries for the most part. A lot of the best games on Atari consoles were the 3rd parties and homebrews, this collection does have a few 3rd parties and a single homebrew (Yoomp!) I believe, but Miner 2049 is no Pitfall. I'd like to see more of those, but I guess copyright's to be blamed there. Copyright's also probably to blame for Alien vs. Predator not being here. Battlezone also feels like a weird absence? A couple of games got referenced but not included too, like Kee Games getting a section but none of their games, Quadrapong, hell if they've got Basic Math why not include Juggle's House. Among the new games, Neo Breakout and VCTR SCTR are fun. Getting into real fantasy request territory it'd have been cool if they made recreations of Atari's pinball tables, but again that's more of a "wouldn't it be cool" thing so I won't hold it against them.
Even with how mediocre the general quality is, I do ultimately think rereleasing mediocre games is important. I think there's value to most games and (nearly) all games deserve rereleases. Plus it's interesting going through history like this. Really what I'd love would be for a company that made games I'm generally fond of to get this treatment. Something like Midway/Bally would be a good comparison to Atari I guess. Overall this reminds me of a substantive collection game from the PS2 era.
Games from the collection I particularly enjoy:
I, Robot
Millipede
Missile Command
Missile Command 3D
Neo Breakout
Tempest
Tempest 2000
Turbo Sub
VCTR SCTR
Yoomp!
If I were to be petty I'd knock at least a whole star off of it for talking about Ready Player One.
In terms of the actual games themselves, honestly they aren't that great. For the arcade/2600/5200/8-bit games, most of them feel decent for being pre-NES but also massively outdated compared to the NES which is in itself very simplistic. After that, the games tend to just be actually inferior to their contemporaries for the most part. A lot of the best games on Atari consoles were the 3rd parties and homebrews, this collection does have a few 3rd parties and a single homebrew (Yoomp!) I believe, but Miner 2049 is no Pitfall. I'd like to see more of those, but I guess copyright's to be blamed there. Copyright's also probably to blame for Alien vs. Predator not being here. Battlezone also feels like a weird absence? A couple of games got referenced but not included too, like Kee Games getting a section but none of their games, Quadrapong, hell if they've got Basic Math why not include Juggle's House. Among the new games, Neo Breakout and VCTR SCTR are fun. Getting into real fantasy request territory it'd have been cool if they made recreations of Atari's pinball tables, but again that's more of a "wouldn't it be cool" thing so I won't hold it against them.
Even with how mediocre the general quality is, I do ultimately think rereleasing mediocre games is important. I think there's value to most games and (nearly) all games deserve rereleases. Plus it's interesting going through history like this. Really what I'd love would be for a company that made games I'm generally fond of to get this treatment. Something like Midway/Bally would be a good comparison to Atari I guess. Overall this reminds me of a substantive collection game from the PS2 era.
Games from the collection I particularly enjoy:
I, Robot
Millipede
Missile Command
Missile Command 3D
Neo Breakout
Tempest
Tempest 2000
Turbo Sub
VCTR SCTR
Yoomp!
If I were to be petty I'd knock at least a whole star off of it for talking about Ready Player One.
Nice collection of old Atari classics, i also liked the interviews with the game programmers a lot!
It's basically an interactive documentary, it's just so cool. I want something like this for other game companies in the future. Sega would be awesome.
In many ways I think this is a golden standard on what a game collection should be. Instead of just throwing a pile of emulated games at you and calling it a day, this game is more akin to a pop culture museum where you can walk though the eras of the company and experience the growth in gaming culture. The always present elephant in the room is yeah, almost all of these games either suck or age so poorly it's really not worth playing them for more then maybe 10 minutes, so if you purely just want to play some games there are countless better game collections out there. That being said, this game really is wonderful. I loved seeing the history of Atari and how they began the gaming industry only to struggle due to being the first to the point they fell out of any good graces. The only real complaint I have is at times I wish it went more in detail, I know there is just only so much it could do but like I wish there were more old ads, and talked more about the issues working for Atari behind the scenes of the games. I am glad it at least showed some of the drama and Atari mishandling their talent. Overall I definitely recommend this to anyone who wants a gaming history lesson.
The best game collection that will ever exist.
Played all the way through the documentary / history mode. Such a great idea. I’ve been wanting to buy an Atari collection for a while to play through a few games like Adventure, but I was always hesitant because the vast majority of Atari games are not really worth playing beyond like 5 mins. Presenting them in a format like this is such a smart idea though, it gives context and history to what your actually experiencing. Being able to look through high quality box art scans, manuals and even design documents in some cases is such an amazing value. I think the star of the package has to be the documentary bits though. They feel like small rewards as you continue through the timeline of Atari games every time you hit one. I plan on using this game as a means to play some of the games included more in depth at a later time, but as a historical package, I feel like I’ve already gotten my money’s worth. I hope to see other franchises / companys do stuff like this in the future, its like a living coffee book.
What an insanely impressive collection. Atari 50 is an anniversary celebration and game collection that should be studied and taken note of for any game collection in the future. Despite game selection being a mixed bag of peaks and valleys, the one area this game truly aces everything is in its presentation. Sure, you can play all games at any time you want, but you can also go through an interactive timeline of important moments in Ataris history. From their founding and dominance of the arcades, to their struggle to retain relevance in the 90's. These interactive timelines don't just let you play the games, it let's you look at concept art and design for these games. Old commercials from the Era, full print news ads, direct interviews with the original programmers of these games! Hell, they even let you play a decent chunk of cancelled games who had finished prototypes. Developer Digital Eclipse truly went above and beyond to pay tribute to the first game company that started it all, and in return, despite the quality being everywhere, genuinely gave me a newfound respect for the company. If $40 for this collection seems too steep for you, grab it when it's on sale because this does still warrant going through.
A peerless collection and documentation of Atari games and franchises, packaged in a sleek whole. Full review
An absolutely stand-out project.
This is part documentary, part fan-tribute, part game collection. The level of effort put into it should be a benchmark for any similar projects in the future; the amount of high-quality scans of original materials, the level of effort put into including 3D recreations of many relevant props, the quality of the interviews, and overall presentation are all great. The fact they went so far as to create original re-imaginings and sequels to several games in the collection is really cool too.
I'd be lying if I said I'd rate most of the games highly, the 2600 collection in particular was fairly dire, but there's also still some fun to be had with the likes of Basketbrawl, Fatal Run, Tempest, and the many versions of Asteroids, Breakout, and Missile Command included.
Genuinely a really wonderful way to celebrate the history of Atari while also acknowledging the mistakes that lead to its eventual decline as a major player in the games industry. Would love to see this project taken as a template and used for other companies in the future, particularly Midway.
This is part documentary, part fan-tribute, part game collection. The level of effort put into it should be a benchmark for any similar projects in the future; the amount of high-quality scans of original materials, the level of effort put into including 3D recreations of many relevant props, the quality of the interviews, and overall presentation are all great. The fact they went so far as to create original re-imaginings and sequels to several games in the collection is really cool too.
I'd be lying if I said I'd rate most of the games highly, the 2600 collection in particular was fairly dire, but there's also still some fun to be had with the likes of Basketbrawl, Fatal Run, Tempest, and the many versions of Asteroids, Breakout, and Missile Command included.
Genuinely a really wonderful way to celebrate the history of Atari while also acknowledging the mistakes that lead to its eventual decline as a major player in the games industry. Would love to see this project taken as a template and used for other companies in the future, particularly Midway.
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration does a great job at demonstrating the importance and impact of the earliest video games, including context for the video game crash in the 80's, interesting perspectives of developers of the company, and like five or six different versions of Missile Command.
I've gained a tremendous respect for the Atari 2600 as a system, and while a bit jank by today's standards, there are some actually excellent games on there. Adventure is cool. Haunted House is cool. The 2600 version of Missile Command is a stellar port.
I've also gained a hilarious level of understanding into how bad the Lynx and Jaguar systems were at the time, especially when compared with the SNES and Genesis. Technically very cool systems, but their original games weren't very good or fun. Tempest 2000 for the Jaguar barely counts in my eyes because it's a remake of the original arcade game, but I can't stress enough how genuinely fun that game is, even in the current year.
I wouldn't pay $150 in the 90's just for Tempest 2000.
Tremendous respect to Atari for showcasing some of the worst video games I've ever played. This is a genuine compliment. I'm being as real as I can be. Nintendo would never.
Anyway, thanks for inventing video games for us, Atari. Very cool. :)
I've gained a tremendous respect for the Atari 2600 as a system, and while a bit jank by today's standards, there are some actually excellent games on there. Adventure is cool. Haunted House is cool. The 2600 version of Missile Command is a stellar port.
I've also gained a hilarious level of understanding into how bad the Lynx and Jaguar systems were at the time, especially when compared with the SNES and Genesis. Technically very cool systems, but their original games weren't very good or fun. Tempest 2000 for the Jaguar barely counts in my eyes because it's a remake of the original arcade game, but I can't stress enough how genuinely fun that game is, even in the current year.
I wouldn't pay $150 in the 90's just for Tempest 2000.
Tremendous respect to Atari for showcasing some of the worst video games I've ever played. This is a genuine compliment. I'm being as real as I can be. Nintendo would never.
Anyway, thanks for inventing video games for us, Atari. Very cool. :)
A very neat collection of Atari games, classic and new! I personally didn't spend too much time exploring the timelines, but there's loads of interesting history between images, videos and of course the games.
As someone who is too young to have grown up with an Atari, I appreciate atari 50 as a tribute to the past, although some games have aged worse than others... (looking at you, cybermorph
As someone who is too young to have grown up with an Atari, I appreciate atari 50 as a tribute to the past, although some games have aged worse than others... (looking at you, cybermorph
Treating this more as a book to be honest, because while the games are nice to have here, no one actually wants to play old Atari games. You buy this for the history and interviews. And all of that is fascinating. It is undeniable that this is extremely well made and really cool. They even made their own version of Swordquest Airworld and put in a bunch of cancelled games. That's sick.