In putting the original Xbox into a bag to take to my friend’s place, I realized how darn heavy this console is. It’s like the weight of a cinder block and about the same size. My PS2 slim and GameCube are feather weights by comparison. The Xbox is like the Ford F650 to the PS2 and GameCube’s Toyota Scion. It’s so darn… well… American.
I popped in Atari Anthology, a large collection of Atari arcade and 2600 games. This collection has a really great menu system and is well organized. It’s very easy to get into each game and play, all of them being grouped by genre except the arcade games which are in a separate category. By playing the arcade games, you unlock special modes for the 2600 games.
The ones I kept on my backloggery page so I can revisit them later are as follows:
Adventure for the Atari 2600 is one of the first graphical fantasy adventure games you could play at home. You are just a square that moves around a simple dungeon maze. You pick up items to kill dragons and find the chalice and bring it to the yellow castle. I finished what I thought was the full game in like a couple of minutes, but it was only game 1 of 3. Game 1 is a much simpler version of the game 2 which is the full game. Game 3 just randomizes the location of items you have to find which sometimes makes the game unsolvable. I’m still scared of the dragons. They come at you so fast out of nowhere and since there’s no music, it’s that much more scary. "I don’t want to be a square in the stomach of a dragon. Get me out of here!”
I love Lunar Lander, the arcade game. The silent fall of the capsule and the momentary noisy thrust of the engines seems like an accurate simulation of what it might have sounded like in the real lunar module. It’s a real trick to land the thing without cracking up. The object is to put it down on as many tough landing sites as you can before your fuel runs out. In the arcade you would add quarters for more fuel, but here you’re richy rich and can add fuel forever. Each time you start another landing the lunar landscape changes. What glorious desolation!
I liked Missile Command for the 2600 better than the arcade version on this collection. Without a track-ball, the arcade version’s controls don’t feel accurate enough with the Xbox controller. The graphically simplified console version feels just right, giving you precise control of the targeting crosshair. With this version, I can defend the homeland's cities forever.
There are 80 games in this collection and I've only kept three to play again later. I guess I've played these games enough already that many of them have just become less than interesting to me. That's just the way it goes after 36 years.
man, 80 games. the PSP collection I have only has like 10. duh!
Did you get Hero on that collection? Howabout JOust?
H.E.R.O. is on the Activision Anthology which I also played recently. I'll be getting to that. And Joust is a Williams Electronics game so it's not here either.
I think EGM once wrote that Adventure helped originate the concept of a gaming Easter Egg, because the deveoper or whoever left a literal Easter Egg sprite somewhere hidden in the game.
What confuses me is why Siegfried is next to the F650. I mean by no means can I call him a pussy, the man trains tigers, but isn't that a bit out of his, you know ... "wheelhouse," if you catch my meaning. Like maybe he'd prefer the tires rotated a different way, or to drive the car on the right instead, or be on the receiving end of tiger anal.
Yea, there's the initials of the designer hidden somewhere. i guess next time I'll have to go find that. It's considered the first easter egg in a game. I see it as a dig at Atari since they never gave any of their programmers any credit or acknowledgement. You look at the third party Activision games a few years later and there's a whole page in the booklet introducing you to the designer. Sometimes his name was on the cover too. Now that was cool.
I didn't notice that that was Siegfried. He does like his "tires rotated a different way" doesn't he.
Commenter's note: I don't know that that's really Siegfried. I just think the guy in that picture dresses similarly.
I wonder how many tigers you can get in a F650.
Have you ever tried the Activision Anthology. It's a collection of Activision's 2600 games, and it's on PS2, PSP, and GBA. It's a fantastic collection that rivals the presentation of the Namco Museums on PSOne.
Yea, I played it right after Atari Anthology and Taito Legends. I'll be writing about those games soon. Activision was the best at Atari 2600 game design.
I forgot about this. I would like to add it to my collection.
If you get this and the Activision Anthology you will have all the Atari you will ever want. I wonder when this stuff will be released again for the new generation. Are the games now too old fashioned?
I like these collections because for someone like myself who never had an Atari, it's a chance to give these games a try. I can't remember if I have one of these comps for the X-Box, but I have the one for PS2, and I bought the mega pack awhile ago on iPad.
I actually gave my Atari to a friend after these collections came out. Having Atari Anthology and Activision Anthology really makes having the original deck unnessesary. However, I'm beginning to find some of the games really need that paddle controller on the original deck to play right - Super Breakout for instance. If I ever get more room to store stuff, I might get a 2600 again just for games like that.
Hehe, I was also scared of the dragons from Adventure.
Yea, those things are terrifying. I remembered that the very first second I started Adventure the other weekend and went right away for the arrow and went hunting. Weird how that memory of scary dragons has never left me after all this time.
Always wanted to try out some Atari 2600 games, especially Adventure.
Adventure is so simple and I always think it will be boring when I start it up, but then I get hooked and play it through to completion. The other day my memory came back about when I first played it. I played all three game variants and got stuck when one of the game 3 randomizations made it unbeatable. I don't think I ever searched for the easter egg before though. I'm going to have to do that next time.
I'm still debating about getting this complication disc. Though i like retro I can't say I ever played much 2600 back in the day. My first official console was the NES and I kinda missed out on those games. Not sure if I'd even find them fun, though I would understand hearing those sounds late at night with the sound of crickets in the background as you play those games with their primitive graphics and sounds.
I'm finding these games are really good in short blasts on handhelds. There's Atari Classics Evolved on PSP and Atari Greatest Hits 1 and 2 on DS.