tdstr
Played as part of Atari 50.
I don't want every single one of my Jaguar reviews to just reiterate that Atari fell flat on their face when it came to evolving with their competition, but that really is just the main conclusion to be made, isn't it? Launching the Jaguar with two largely uninteresting space games ripping off Star Fox in two different ways is crazy. Trevor McFur is just a boring shmup, with a striking lack of music for the vast majority of the game. The levels are long and repetitive without a ton of variation, and once you do finally beat a boss and get into a planet it's largely more of the same, just with a different scrolling background. It's no surprise no one bought this piece of shit console if this is what they were using to sell it, lol.
I don't want every single one of my Jaguar reviews to just reiterate that Atari fell flat on their face when it came to evolving with their competition, but that really is just the main conclusion to be made, isn't it? Launching the Jaguar with two largely uninteresting space games ripping off Star Fox in two different ways is crazy. Trevor McFur is just a boring shmup, with a striking lack of music for the vast majority of the game. The levels are long and repetitive without a ton of variation, and once you do finally beat a boss and get into a planet it's largely more of the same, just with a different scrolling background. It's no surprise no one bought this piece of shit console if this is what they were using to sell it, lol.
1993
Played as part of Atari 50.
We're in the final generation of Atari now so I'm going to start getting a lot harsher than I was on some of the earlier games. This is just a flashier but worse-to-play version of Star Raiders released well over a decade later.
In 1993, you could instead be playing Doom, Star Fox, Myst, the first Sam and Max game... the list could go on forever, but packing this antiquated space flight sim in with the Jaguar is probably one of the most obvious cases of Atari showing their ass and that they were completely unable to evolve with the medium. Ironically, they likely thought the exact opposite, given this was one of the only real 3D games on the market at the time, but there is just, almost nothing here to come back to or latch onto. Many companies struggled hard in the jump to 3D in the 90s, but given Atari couldn't even manage to successfully remain relevant past the NES it's no surprise they managed to botch the jump to 3D as well.
We're in the final generation of Atari now so I'm going to start getting a lot harsher than I was on some of the earlier games. This is just a flashier but worse-to-play version of Star Raiders released well over a decade later.
In 1993, you could instead be playing Doom, Star Fox, Myst, the first Sam and Max game... the list could go on forever, but packing this antiquated space flight sim in with the Jaguar is probably one of the most obvious cases of Atari showing their ass and that they were completely unable to evolve with the medium. Ironically, they likely thought the exact opposite, given this was one of the only real 3D games on the market at the time, but there is just, almost nothing here to come back to or latch onto. Many companies struggled hard in the jump to 3D in the 90s, but given Atari couldn't even manage to successfully remain relevant past the NES it's no surprise they managed to botch the jump to 3D as well.
2022
Sure, it's fine. Better than Unpacking, at the least, but it's got the same problems where there's explicit solutions to layouts that should be arrangeable however you want. Still overall largely unremarkable, good to sink an hour or two into on Gamepass and not much else.
1990
Played as part of Atari 50.
Lynx version sucks ass, go figure. They already weren't starting from the best of the best but the framerate in this is horrendous enough I had to tap out after only a couple minutes, whereas I was able to at least stick with the 7800 version for long enough for the levels to loop over. It's still very slow and boring.
Lynx version sucks ass, go figure. They already weren't starting from the best of the best but the framerate in this is horrendous enough I had to tap out after only a couple minutes, whereas I was able to at least stick with the 7800 version for long enough for the levels to loop over. It's still very slow and boring.
1991
Played as part of Atari 50.
Very repetitive and not very fun shooter. Slow turn speed is pretty annoying. It's not really in 3d even though that's what you're supposed to believe, which combined with the wonky inaccurate sprite scaling makes it nigh impossible to keep track of where enemies are. Not the bottom of the barrel, and it surely looks better than any Gameboy game, but it still isn't very good. All the Lynx games are gonna be bad, aren't they?
Very repetitive and not very fun shooter. Slow turn speed is pretty annoying. It's not really in 3d even though that's what you're supposed to believe, which combined with the wonky inaccurate sprite scaling makes it nigh impossible to keep track of where enemies are. Not the bottom of the barrel, and it surely looks better than any Gameboy game, but it still isn't very good. All the Lynx games are gonna be bad, aren't they?
1991
Played as part of Atari 50.
Super Mario Bros really feels like a game out of time, like how did they have that platforming shit locked down in fucking 1985? Obviously the rest of the industry saw that, saw the dollar signs, but couldn't crack the case of Why Mario Is Fun in the way they did with Pac-Man and Space Invaders. As a consumer, it was probably aggravating as shit at the time, and giving any of these games more than a cursory glance nowadays is still going to annoy you, but you have to admit it's funny. It's funny that you've got former giants like Atari making some of the most unplayable piece of dogshit games of all time in a futile attempt to make something even 10% as good as Super Mario.
Super Mario Bros really feels like a game out of time, like how did they have that platforming shit locked down in fucking 1985? Obviously the rest of the industry saw that, saw the dollar signs, but couldn't crack the case of Why Mario Is Fun in the way they did with Pac-Man and Space Invaders. As a consumer, it was probably aggravating as shit at the time, and giving any of these games more than a cursory glance nowadays is still going to annoy you, but you have to admit it's funny. It's funny that you've got former giants like Atari making some of the most unplayable piece of dogshit games of all time in a futile attempt to make something even 10% as good as Super Mario.
1990
Played as part of Atari 50.
A horribly wonky momentum system... level design so boring and repetitive it feels randomly generated... dogshit crazy bus style music and some remarkably ugly presentation... could this be the best video game of all time??
A horribly wonky momentum system... level design so boring and repetitive it feels randomly generated... dogshit crazy bus style music and some remarkably ugly presentation... could this be the best video game of all time??
1990
Played as part of Atari 50.
Compared to the 2600 version, in some ways it's better and in some ways it's worse, but overall it's about the same. Driving is a lot more slippery this time round and more annoying, but pickups and keeping your meters up are a lot less annoying in its place. The shops in towns just make me wish I was playing Oregon Trail instead though lol
Compared to the 2600 version, in some ways it's better and in some ways it's worse, but overall it's about the same. Driving is a lot more slippery this time round and more annoying, but pickups and keeping your meters up are a lot less annoying in its place. The shops in towns just make me wish I was playing Oregon Trail instead though lol
1990
Played as part of Atari 50.
Pretty crazy they were able to squeeze this out of a 2600, and it's fairly fun when you're driving, but don't bother trying to beat it. You've gotta pick up diamonds that fly by on the side of the road to refill stuff and if you don't then you're probably not making it to even the first city, and according to the manual there's, like, 32. Neat for a couple minutes though!
Pretty crazy they were able to squeeze this out of a 2600, and it's fairly fun when you're driving, but don't bother trying to beat it. You've gotta pick up diamonds that fly by on the side of the road to refill stuff and if you don't then you're probably not making it to even the first city, and according to the manual there's, like, 32. Neat for a couple minutes though!
1990
Played as part of Atari 50.
You really have to wonder why this isn't as fast as it is with the speed-up powerup by default. Once you and an opponent get it it's actually fairly decent, but on first starting it up it's slow, sluggish, and clunky. That isn't to say it isn't still clunky once it speeds up, but it's much more tolerable.
You really have to wonder why this isn't as fast as it is with the speed-up powerup by default. Once you and an opponent get it it's actually fairly decent, but on first starting it up it's slow, sluggish, and clunky. That isn't to say it isn't still clunky once it speeds up, but it's much more tolerable.
1990
Played as part of Atari 50.
In all honesty this game is more like "90% very mediocre beatemup, 10% golf", and it really isn't very good, but damn am I glad to be able to see something fucking new from this pack, lol. Even if it's repetitive and still has about as effective interest as most of the other games in this pack (roughly 5 minutes), the stupid shitposty premise is an incredibly welcome change of pace after playing a fifth version of Centipede and a fifth version of Asteroids.
In all honesty this game is more like "90% very mediocre beatemup, 10% golf", and it really isn't very good, but damn am I glad to be able to see something fucking new from this pack, lol. Even if it's repetitive and still has about as effective interest as most of the other games in this pack (roughly 5 minutes), the stupid shitposty premise is an incredibly welcome change of pace after playing a fifth version of Centipede and a fifth version of Asteroids.
2022
Played as part of Atari 50.
A couple bite-sized remakes of old vector Atari games back to back. Mostly unremarkable but it's fun, however the 20 seconds you play of lunar lander definitely loses most of its appeal by being less clunky to play, and it probably would have been better off just being a fleshed out version of the tempest-influenced section at the end.
A couple bite-sized remakes of old vector Atari games back to back. Mostly unremarkable but it's fun, however the 20 seconds you play of lunar lander definitely loses most of its appeal by being less clunky to play, and it probably would have been better off just being a fleshed out version of the tempest-influenced section at the end.
1984
Played as part of Atari 50.
Pretty wild for the time, although at the end of the day it's a bit disappointing it isn't really a shooter, and winds up more like a 3D version of Miner 2049er, if it was actually good. Not like crazy good, but it's fun once you get acclimated to the unintuitively slower pace and lag.
Pretty wild for the time, although at the end of the day it's a bit disappointing it isn't really a shooter, and winds up more like a 3D version of Miner 2049er, if it was actually good. Not like crazy good, but it's fun once you get acclimated to the unintuitively slower pace and lag.
1983
Played as part of Atari 50.
This movie tie-in game is probably one of the best games in this collection. Twin stick shooters were still a pretty rare commodity in this time, and it's pretty innately fun to play for it. Very simple, but it's still fun to race against the bomb in the center of the screen.
This movie tie-in game is probably one of the best games in this collection. Twin stick shooters were still a pretty rare commodity in this time, and it's pretty innately fun to play for it. Very simple, but it's still fun to race against the bomb in the center of the screen.
1983
Played as part of Atari 50.
They're doing too much. Shootemup part is pretty fun, but the platformer section's really slippery and doesn't control too well. Although, I'm sure this plays different on hardware since it seems to have some sorta weird spinning wheel controller.
They're doing too much. Shootemup part is pretty fun, but the platformer section's really slippery and doesn't control too well. Although, I'm sure this plays different on hardware since it seems to have some sorta weird spinning wheel controller.