This has to be the best retro compilation I've ever played. I thought I knew most of what there was to know about Atari, but this game proved me wrong. I couldn't have been more happy either. Digital Eclipse managed to dip up some truly fascinating tidbits of Atari history. 30 (!) pages of design documents for major havoc? Sign me up!
Rarely do we see compilations made with this much passion and true care. Most of them we get nowadays are nothing more than rom collections with basic menus and paltry options.
The games themselves in this collection range from masterworks to fascinating artifacts of a bygone era. Most of them (I would say the majority at least) are still incredibly fun to play. Sure I may not play cybermorph or Sprint 8 as much as I will say Tempest 2000, but having the chance to finally play those games for myself was still a treat. In fact this is the first time any Atari Jaguar games have been rereleased officially.
The presentation is damn near flawless. The arcade games are probably the standout in this regard. Presented in their original ratios with the cabinets faithfully reproduced. The same goes for the console games, only here the borders are television sets, computer monitors and more. You can also pause the game at any time to read the manual or arcade flyer (depending on the game of course).
Overall, Digital Eclipse has somehow outdone themselves yet again. All I can hope for now is for more game companies to give these talented folks free reign over their back catalogs.
Rarely do we see compilations made with this much passion and true care. Most of them we get nowadays are nothing more than rom collections with basic menus and paltry options.
The games themselves in this collection range from masterworks to fascinating artifacts of a bygone era. Most of them (I would say the majority at least) are still incredibly fun to play. Sure I may not play cybermorph or Sprint 8 as much as I will say Tempest 2000, but having the chance to finally play those games for myself was still a treat. In fact this is the first time any Atari Jaguar games have been rereleased officially.
The presentation is damn near flawless. The arcade games are probably the standout in this regard. Presented in their original ratios with the cabinets faithfully reproduced. The same goes for the console games, only here the borders are television sets, computer monitors and more. You can also pause the game at any time to read the manual or arcade flyer (depending on the game of course).
Overall, Digital Eclipse has somehow outdone themselves yet again. All I can hope for now is for more game companies to give these talented folks free reign over their back catalogs.
Reviewed on Dec 30, 2022