Atari 50: the Anniversary Celebration 12 games added

Anybody here thinking of getting this? I believe it launches on Friday. Looks like a really nicely presented collection of games across the Atari hardware range (but alas not the ST). Over 100 titles in total, including a handful of new games.

A neat "little" video by the developers playing some of the games and talking about the process of licencing etc.

No online play, 4K scans of manuals and promo material on PC PS5 and Series X, but I think it's a game I would want physical on Switch

Appears to be over an hour of documentary footage, and everything is presented in a really nice, curated fashion.

£28 @ Base seems to be the cheapest I have found it, with the Steel book (with a poster I believe) being quite a bit more at £45.

Hard to believe there will be performance issues, but this is the Switch we are talking about, so I have held off pre-ordering.

anyone else grow up with classic Atari? I had a 2600 right near the end of its life cycle (it was the jnr model) and still have a few boxed games for it. The games of that era feel like they were made 50 years before the NES, not as little as 2 or 3!

I was obsessed with the original VCS, but never had one myself. I would regularly outstay my welcome at the houses of my two friends who had them. I really like the way they’ve put this package together, so I’ll be buying it at some point.

Yeah, if it was just a bunch of old, borderline unplayable games with a few decent ones buried in there I would not be interested, but it seems so nicely put together I can see myself wanted to spend time just trawling through it all.

Digital Eclipse seem to be killing it with their efforts to make these collections more than just a bunch of ROMs.

No ST games means no sale I'm afraid. If it had had Dungeon Master, Oids and maybe Player Manager then I'd have been there day one.

It is a shame that there are no ST games. I was an Amiga man personally, but the crossover was such that it would still have given me a warm nostalgic feeling.

I think the only game I played on an ST was Bomb Jack.

I briefly owned a Lynx (traded my Game Gear with a friend - a poor choice looking back on it). Rampage was excellent. Not in this collection mind.

I had a Lynx for a period as well (during my uni days). I don't look back on many of the games which much fondness. The Batman game that was packed in was OK, California Games was a decent port and I enjoyed the Bill and Ted game. The holy grail though was the Eye of the Beholder port that never got released.

What would you say are the best games included?

I don't have a particularly good knowledge of many of the games on there, but Tempest 2000 is probably a true classic at this point, and the new game they have put on there, Vctr Sctr looked like a genuinely fun arcade style game.

A select few of the 2600 games (Realsports Soccer, Realsports Boxing, Millipede) hold huge amount of nostalgic value, but i'm guessing they will not get more than a 15 minute play.

One of the only 2600 games I can play for more than maybe 5 or 10 mins is HERO bit that was by Activision so won’t be included here.

By the time you remove Activision and Atari Games... games, a lot of what's left is not nearly as iconic as one would expect. But the presentation of this production is what has really drawn my attention.

I have probably only played about 6 of the titles.

Does it have the ET game?

So many iconic games associated with Atari that are not in this collection.

I’ll probably pick it up, mostly for Tempest 2000.

Moggy wrote:Does it have the ET game?

It does not. You name it, this collection probably doesn’t have it. Tempest 2000 is probably the exception.

I really don’t mean that in a mean spirited way - I love the look of this collection - but it really does lack nearly every title you might associate with Atari. It’s an incredible situation they ended up in.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:
Moggy wrote:Does it have the ET game?

It does not. You name it, this collection probably doesn’t have it. Tempest 2000 is probably the exception.
.

well that's the one question i had answered

Well I ordered this earlier.

Reviews I have found are very positive about the presentation and curation of it all, which is the bit that appeals to me, and also agree that the actual games available are typically only a few minutes of fun in there own right.

Had a look through the games list. For a company as illustrious as Atari, and for someone as long in the tooth as I am, there's surprisingly little here that I know or want to play.

Jeff Gerstmann streamed this earlier and absolutely loved the efforts taken on the curation side of things.

And yes - most of those games are unknown to me also, but it still looks fascinating to play them with a bit of context and documentation supporting them in most / all cases.

I love the presentation of this, the way they have it laid out in a timeline is a great idea. I probably won’t pick this particular one up but I hope they use a similar presentation in future collections

This might be my game of the year. It's just a joy to boot this up each day and play a few more retro games, look at the cool early 80's art, watch an interview etc. Just a really chill time.

Also, from reading on another forum -

"Thursday’s issue of Retro Gamer (240)has a Making of this compilation

An Atari-themed calendar

50 Years Of Atari feature"

I will absolutely be picking that up. I'm hoping WH Smith still sells it.

It sounds like it's better experienced when you're in the mood to watch a documentary than to play some games.

Atari 50: the Anniversary Celebration 12 games added

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Atari 50: the Anniversary Celebration 12 games added