Atari Anthology review

Another anthology; a retro compendium of nostalgia bound together by a common thread, in this case the fact that all games were created by Atari. A seemingly endless collection of 85 classics from Missile Command to Tempest, from Asteroids to Breakout give you hours of gaming pleasure. Perhaps more appropriately, ‘gave’ you hours of gaming pleasure.

To be fair, I’ve always felt I was unduly harsh on retro games for obvious reasons; I would rather be playing the latest in atmospheric absorbity, being shocked at stunning plot twists and marvelling at the cinematic masterwork (yes I did just review Metal Gear Solid 3, so maybe I’m a little spoilt), but I can honestly say that I approached Atari Anthology with nothing but hope.

I remember the good old days of pixellated guesswork as to what was being represented on screen, and for pure playability (well, it could hardly be for the graphics), the successful games of old drew us all in for their novel approach to interactivity. With a nervous glint in my eye, I slipped in the disc and was presented with a pretty starfield menu to navigate in order to choose my favourite games.

Overload

Like many computer systems of the 70s, I was overloaded by the sheer volume of data available to me. 85 games really is a lot, so I decided to go straight into the games I’d heard of and played before, and they really do bring back memories. Whether we’re really inferior gamesplayers nowadays or not, the games all seem rather more difficult than I remember.

The controls are overly simple, being explained perfectly adequately in the manual for each different control style used, yet even getting your paddles in the right place in Pong becomes more of a chore than the joy you may remember when you are forced to use an analogue controller. That said, the visuals, sound and gameplay is reproduced identically to the originals, though in today’s market that may not be much of an accomplishment.

The emulation of the originals is certainly accurate, with various display options given to you, but perhaps the most interesting additions are the extra styles of play. As if the games weren’t difficult enough already, you can play the games in Double Speed, Hot Seat, Trippy Mode (where everything is blurred in a psychedelic colourfest), Time Challenge (that gives you a certain time to score as many games as possible) and even Time Warp Mode that seems to shift the speed of the game randomly to provide as much frustration as a few pixels can afford.

Why play if you can’t win?

Admittedly, you won’t be completing any of the games in the compendium any time soon; designed purely to get progressively harder until you give up or face the inevitable defeat. Naturally, beating your friends’ high scores affords some purpose, but hardly the same kind of reward as being able to boast defeating Trema in Final Fantasy X-2, so the extra modes must be unlocked for most of the games.

To begin with, only the Arcade Classics section can be played in anything other than standard modes, and depending on your performance in these modes, you may be lucky enough to unlock the equivalents in other games. Sure, it’s hardly the most compelling of reasons to show off your impossibly fast reactions but it’s better than nothing.

The entire package

Overall there are plenty of classic games that may bring a smile to your face (for a brief moment before you realise quite how much money you wasted in arcades on such primitive ‘games’,) yet unless you are truly looking for a nostalgia-fest or a historical compendium, Atari Anthology won’t hold much for you. You won’t keep it in your PS2 for long, yet may break it out for the next 70s theme party you hold (and we all know how often they come along).

A few bonus features such as interviews with the ‘father of the video games industry’, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and original instruction manuals for the games and Atari 2600 system add documentational value to the package, yet for some reason when looking over the games list the creators decided to leave out slightly trickier to license properties such as Pacman and Space Invaders. Still, maybe even they are too modern for this compendium.

After playing these games for what feels like an unholy amount of time (even just in the past week) I have to wonder what it is with all of the retro feel that games companies are instigating merely to show off their back catalogue.

Atari Anthology includes the following games:

Arcade Classics: Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Black Widow, Centipede, Crystal Castles,Gravitar, Liberator, Lunar Lander, Major Havoc, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, Red Baron, Super Breakout, Space Duel, Tempestand Warlords

Atari 2600 titles: A Game of Concentration, Adventure,Air•Sea Battle,Asteroids, Basic Programming, Battlezone, Bowling, Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Casino, Centipede,Circus Atari, Codebreaker, Combat, Crystal Castles,Demons to Diamonds, Dodge ’Em, Double Dunk, Flag Capture, Football,Fun With Numbers, Golf, Gravitar, Haunted House, Home Run, Human Cannonball, Math Gran Prix, Maze Craze, Millipede, Miniature Golf, Missile Command, Night Driver, Outlaw, Quadrun, Radar Lock, Realsports Baseball, Realsports Football, Realsports Tennis, Realsports Volleyball, Sky Diver, Slot Machine, Slot Racers, Space War, Star Raiders, Star Ship, Stellar Track, Street Racer, Submarine Commander, Super Baseball, Super Breakout, Super Football, Surround , Swordquest:Earthworld, Swordquest: Fireworld, Swordquest :Waterworld, 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, Video Checkers, Video Chess, Video Olympics, Video Pinball, Warlords and Yar’s Revenge