One of the best museum I’ve ever performed.
No matter whether or not you grew up with an Atari 2600 or have been born and raised in a world the place Atari was historic historical past, the impression of the corporate on video video games, particularly within the West, is immense. Possibly you possibly can make the argument that another person would have carried the torch, but when not for Atari, video video games as we all know them wouldn’t exist. That historical past is what makes the brand new online game assortment Atari 50 fascinating. Celebrating the corporate’s fiftieth anniversary, it options greater than 80 video games, primarily from the Eighties, that assist inform the story of Atari’s rise and fall. The video games themselves won’t have aged properly, however the bundle they’re in is fascinating, providing up attention-grabbing and related context for why these video games mattered and what their legacy is.
From the bounce, Atari 50 presents its major focus as a museum exhibit or interactive documentary. You aren’t delivered to the checklist of playable video games; as an alternative you’re delivered to an inventory of 5 timelines that inform the story of Atari, from arcade origins to ‘90s flameout. The meat of this bundle is that story. The timelines are participating, full of field artwork, ads, and extra visuals. In addition they permit you to immediately play a recreation being mentioned and whenever you’re performed, you’ll be able to return proper again to the place you have been within the timeline. The best half to me although is the number of interviews with Atari luminaries starting from Yars’ Revenge creator Howard Scott Warshaw to Swordquest creator Tod Frye. Their tales are fascinating, full of nice anecdotes and amusing quotes. My private favourite video is the one about dispelling (or proving) the parable that every one the Atari devs did medicine. However except for that bit, it’s additionally cool seeing Warshaw and Frye element the origins of their best-known works.
Atari 50 is strictly what I hoped for in that I left my expertise with this recreation having a fuller image of what Atari was and why it issues. I’ve a higher appreciation for the trailblazing nature of the corporate. If this was a recreation that simply had a port of the 1982 recreation Journey, I’d most likely roll my eyes and never trouble. As an alternative, it gives the context for why Journey is vastly influential and allowed me to higher admire this sensible previous recreation that Nintendo followers may label as a proto-Zelda.
Other than the ‘80s ambition and the data of how groundbreaking a few of these video games have been, I don’t assume numerous them are all that good in 2022. When you’ve got nostalgia for these video games, then you definitely’ll be in heaven as a result of that is one of the best they’ve ever performed since they got here out. It’s neat enjoying Asteroids, Centipede, and Basketbrawl, however they’re extra curiosities than something I’m going to sink hours into. Even a few of the ‘90s video games on Atari’s handheld Lynx and ultimate house console Jaguar aren’t terribly nice. Atari Karts is a cute kart racer, Ninja Golf is an outrageous idea, and Cybermorph is a neat shooter, however total it’s a smattering of video games which might be extra attention-grabbing than they’re good.
One of the best a part of the sport choice are the handful of Reimagined titles which might be newly created for this assortment. Vctr Sctr is a loving pastiche of Atari’s vector graphics video games, which incorporates the one actual reference to Battlezone. If you happen to don’t know, Battlezone is a basic Atari recreation that sadly isn’t current right here as a result of one other firm owns the rights. The licensing points truly stop a handful of notable video games from displaying up right here. One other Reimagined recreation is Haunted Homes, a voxel rendition of the early survival horror recreation that’s extremely enjoyable to fiddle with. SwordQuest: Airworld is the deliberate fourth recreation within the collection that was by no means made however the crew at Digital Eclipse used notes from 40 years in the past to make the top of the quadrilogy. Yars’ Revenge Enhanced exhibits the standard of the unique as a result of all it’s is a contemporary coat of paint on the sport with out every other modifications. Usually, the Reimagined video games are very good at taking one of the best ideas of the dated older video games and making them completely sing within the twenty first century.
As an interactive timeline and a digital exhibit, Atari 50 is unparalleled. No different historic assortment comes near how superior that is as a context-rich story (the one ones that do are additionally from the identical developer). I hope that this model of giving historic context and never simply presenting an inventory of 40-year-old video games with none rationalization is the pattern going ahead for packages like this. Even when I’m not chomping on the bit to play some RealSports Soccer, I’m thrilled that I now know its place within the grand historical past of Atari.