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 For the arcade/2600/5200/8-bit games, most of them feel decent for being pre-NES but also massively outdated compared to the NES which is in itself very simplistic.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.