Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration could very nicely set the usual for retro compilations shifting forwards, and never essentially due to the content material it consists of. In fact, a major variety of the 100 or so releases included listed here are borderline impenetrable – appreciated inclusions, sure, however just about unplayable. It’s the way in which the bundle is introduced, then, that units it aside.
Whilst you can soar straight to the video games – organised by launch 12 months or platform – the compilation additionally includes a museum-like interface that takes you from Atari’s origins all through to its latter years. This painstakingly introduced gallery of the corporate’s highs and lows is totally fascinating, full of trivia, archive footage, images, and rather more.
After all, including context to the array of paraphernalia is the aforementioned number of playable video games. Total, there’s an actual heat and novelty to this bundle that’s seldom seen: upon studying concerning the origins of, say, Pong, you possibly can then truly play it – full with superbly rendered borders, impressed by the unique arcade cupboard.
The entire video games have instruction manuals, reproduced of their entirety, in addition to promoting flyers and different fascinating paperwork. The emulation can also be fairly darn good so far as we will inform; you gained’t discover any on-line leaderboards, for instance, however it can save you your progress, and faff about with the varied filters out there that try to copy basic CRT shows.
It shouldn’t be ignored simply how dense this compilation is. Whereas there are apparent inclusions from the Atari 2600 period, like Missile Command and Centipede, developer Digital Extremes has even created a digital reproduction of Atari’s historical 1978 handheld sport, Contact Me, which demonstrates the extent of dedication on show right here.
Whereas the Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar are represented, there will probably be disappointment that, presumably as a consequence of licensing and authorized points, titles like Klax and Alien vs. Predator are absent. E.T. The Additional-Terrestrial, an vital cog within the Atari story, can also be excluded. However there’s nonetheless a lot to understand right here general: Tempest 2000, Meals Combat, and I, Robotic positively maintain up as we speak.
And that’s with out even touching upon the reimagined sequence that’s been created particularly for this bundle. Airworld, for instance, unexpectedly completes the Swordquest sequence, and accompanies the three Eighties titles that preceded it. In the meantime, Haunted Home reimagines Atari’s iconic survival horror as a light-hearted 3D maze sport.
You additionally get the self-explanatory Neo Breakout, four-player tank title QuadraTank, vector-based mash-up VCTR-SCTR, and the glitzy Yars Revenge: Enhanced, which, confusingly, is a very completely different expertise to the just lately launched Yars: Recharged. As well as, you’ll discover numerous unreleased prototypes, which finally add to the general mystique of the bundle.
To be sincere, only a few of the video games are going to carry your consideration, however the presentation is introspective and fascinating; it’s a celebration of Atari, sure, but it surely doesn’t gloss over the businesses failing and shortcomings. And in that it positive factors real credence: there’s a transparent reverence for the pioneering platform holder right here, but it surely presents a warts and all perspective, which is appreciated.
Conclusion
Whereas lots of the included video games could border on unplayable from a contemporary perspective, the painstaking consideration to element in Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is extraordinarily simple to understand. The museum-like carousel of content material, from interviews via to unique paintings, is introduced so handsomely which you could’t not get swept up in Atari’s dramatic story. And the truth that there over 100 of the corporate’s most well-known titles, emulated excellently with their unique instruction manuals out there to pore over, provides playable context to loads of the content material. That is simply a powerful general expertise that may attraction to those that lived via the rise (and fall) of Atari, in addition to youthful gamers desirous to study somewhat extra about one of many business’s true pioneers.