#atari flashback classics

Destroyer (Arcade)

Developed/Published by: Atari, Inc. Released: 11/1977 Completed: 12/03/2023 Completion: Played it a bit. Only reached 1600 points, though… Version Played: Atari Flashback Classics Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Honestly pretty hard to know what to make of Atari in 1977. It’s just put out the 2600 with what can be charitably called a bit of a mixed bag of launch titles, and it’s also dumping out pretty uninspired titles like Canyon Bomber. But it’s also releasing Destroyer, which, while hardly a great game, feels like not just a better version of what Canyon Bomber is trying to do, but also comes in a more interesting and attractive cabinet with one of those cool color backgrounds via that monitor reflection technique.. and it was released basically at the same time???

At least part of the story here is that Destroyer definitely began as a rip-off: after ripping off Gremlin’s Blockade for Dominoes, Atari seemed like they really wanted to stick the boot in, ripping off Gremlin’s slow anti-submarine shooter Depthcharge with a far flashier game.

It sort of works. For some stupid reason again Atari decides that the player doesn’t want to control their ship and instead just have it go back and forth on the screen, but at least here you’re able to control the speed (well, between fast and slow.) Additionally, you’re actually “targeting” your depth charges with a dotted line on screen that you move up and down, and when you hit the fire button, where you’ve got the line at that moment is where the depth charge will explode, even if you move the line later. 

Perhaps I’m just a sucker for something that looks nice after the monochrome tedium of Super Bug and Canyon Bomber, but I was more charmed by this, and it at least improves on Depthcharge. Take a look at the arcade flyer and notice how cool the controls must have felt to use and I can imagine this grabbing quite a few quarters.

Unfortunately though, it’s still just not that good. The submarines that move back and forth appear randomly and it really does feel like sheer luck if you’re going to hit the high-scoring fast moving ones, with controlling your ship’s speed hardly feeling helpful at all, so once the shine of the visuals and controls wear off you’re really left with very little at all, especially as this is another timed game meaning that going for a high score just feels like an exercise where you’re going to have a lot of plays where you had no chance at all.

It’s the kind of thing, really, where you’d think that a company should probably not release two similar titles but instead maybe just concentrate on making one especially good one. I’m not sure Canyon Bomber being multiplayer is really enough of a differentiator for both of these to exist.

Or either of them really.

Will I ever play it again? I’ll allow that I’d like to play an actual arcade version of this.

Atari Flashback Classics is the most ⊟

I’ve had Atari Flashback Classics on Switch for months, intending to cover it. There have been a lot of things going on around here that aren’t video games, and for a few reasons this one is intimidating. Every time I get a few minutes to think about this, I open it up again and play a few more games on it to try to get an idea of... what I want to say about it. This is one of the many subjects about which I haven’t been able to generate a cogent opinion. 

I will note, however, that this collection made it possible to try a different game, or five different games, every time I went back to it.

Every time I open the game, I discover something I’ve never played. Since these are mostly ancient 2600 games, those aren’t exactly life-altering addictions. I hate to act like games expire, being a retro game fan myself, but most 2600-era games hit modern sensibilities as somewhere between “inscrutable” and “briefly amusing.” But there are fully 150 games on the collection, between arcade, 2600, and even 5200 games, and the whole is more than the sum of its many, many parts.

It turns out that the ideal presentation for these games is “I got a system and a pile of carts at a garage sale, what even is this stuff.” And that’s the experience provided by Flashback Classics -- trying cart after cart, with little context or organization other than alphabetical order, trying to figure out what each of these things is about with a couple of friends (or kids). Basically, Atari retroactively became WarioWare.

Some Atari games are easy to pick up because they’re self-explanatory. Breakout is an instant read even if you’ve never played it. Bounce the thing into the things. There are four different versions of Breakout on here, by the way.

Some other Atari games take a moment to process, either because the graphics are abstract or the gameplay doesn’t naturally follow from looking at them. I grew up (somehow) a Frog Bog/Frogs and Flies fan, but to the new player it’s totally opaque that it’s a fly-eating competition with a time limit of a day. Without that context, you jump from lily pad to lily pad eating flies for... a while... then it stops. I still don’t understand how to play Save Mary, a game ostensibly about lowering materials to create a platform on which an NPC can stay above water. I see it played here, but I couldn’t work it myself.

But in this presentation, the lack of context is an asset. You can blindly jump from game to game, from “what’s this?” to “What is this!??!?” and derive a sort of meta-entertainment from the agglutination of variably entertaining games. My kids wouldn’t like Circus Atari as a standalone game, but as part of a buffet gaming feast, who doesn’t love a seesaw-based Clown Breakout?

In every game I tried, the interface made it as simple as possible to integrate into the Atari life. 2600-based games start with a transparent overlay of an Atari console, with all of its weird switches available and labeled. Games that use alternate controllers, like the Whack-a-Mole-esque Holey Moley, feature a sensible controller overlay, in that case a nine-digit grid activated by tilting on the analog stick.

The Switch has become home to a wide variety of excellent retro releases, and its existence proves that they can be excellent in different ways. Sega’s single-game Ages remasters add thoughtful modern features to obsessively preserved old games. Digital Eclipse’s SNK Classics Collection offers not just an entire historical period for one company, but includes the research and ephemera to put it in context -- plus niceties for the modern gamer (I really can’t say enough about that collection, even in a review of a different one!) 

But Atari Flashback Classics doesn’t really do any of those things. It succeeds by providing quite-good (to my eyes) emulation of an absurdly large number of games, all of which look and control as well as they possibly can, in an interface that makes it easy to sample them. Much easier, in fact, than if you were fumbling with real Atari hardware. There’s history to be traced in here, especially given multiple versions of the same game, and you’re free to explore it yourself. Or you’re free to gather your friends and play as much Warlords as possible.

Atari Flashback Classics | $33.21 Buy-Now!

Classic Atari and arcade titles.

Remastered and bundled on one game cartridge for NINTENDO SWITCH.

Recreating the legendary retro experience for today's consoles.

Pong (Arcade)

Developed/Published by: Atari Released: 29/11/1972 Completed: 19/10/2022 Completion: Beat the Atari Flashbacks Classics AI opponent on medium. Version played: Atari Flashback Classics (Switch) / Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (Switch) Trophies / Achievements: n/a

I was once in a room with Nolan Bushnell, Eugene Jarvis, Will Wright, probably a bunch of other famous game developers I forget, and Robin Williams. I don’t think of it often, but every once in a while I’m like “oh yeah, that happened.” I remember mostly talking to Eugene Jarvis about how much I loved Defender and Robotron but also how much I sucked at them. Jarvis wasn’t much impressed. I mean, he liked the praise! He just felt I should be able to get further than a few levels into Defender.

I didn’t talk to Bushnell, and I don’t think I’d have much to say, considering I didn’t grow up with Chuck E. Cheese, or an Atari 2600–one because I’m not American, the other because I’m not a billion years old. And the only other things about Bushnell I remember off the top of my head now and I’m sure then are that Computer Space was too complicated and Pong was a direct rip-off of the Magnavox Odyssey’s Table Tennis game.

Which it is. Interestingly, as Computer Space is a simplified version of Spacewar!, Pong is a simplified version of Tennis in some ways too. While the Odyssey’s Table Tennis doesn’t have a score, you can move horizontally (er, anywhere on the screen…) and even put “english” on the ball directly (rather than relying on hitting the ball at the right part of your bat). But it’d be hard to say that Pong doesn’t improve upon Table Tennis even if Bushnell was a dick about it later (“The fact is that I absolutely did see the Odyssey game and I didn't think it was very clever” he’d say decades after Atari had to stump up a $1.5 million license fee).

The thing is… Pong is… kinda good? It’s simple af, but moving the paddles feels good (not so much on either of the switch ports, but I’ve played it at like… the Musee Mechanique, I think? And those knobs are smooth.) It is, simply, entertaining to try and get the ball past your opponent 11 times. It’s even thrilling as they knock one or two past you early and you have to fight your way back. Unlike Spacewar! I can imagine playing this relentlessly for want of anything better, whereas with Spacewar! I’d probably… read a book or something instead.

So… Pong. Holds up.

Will I ever play it again? Those knobs are smooth. You heard me.

Final Thought: And the paddle the paddle to the side to the side / To the side to the side and the paddle the paddle / The paddle the paddle to the side to the side / Pong!

Phantasy Star leads another wave of Switch retro releases ⊟

...and they aren’t even the big deal this week (those would be Gris and Quarantine Circular!) but there are a lot and they’re cool. M2′s M2-quality port of Phantasy Star is out now for $8, as is an Arcade Archives version of Double Dragon 2 and an ACA Neo Geo release of the very cute Twinkle Star Sprites. 

The real surprise, to me, is Atari Flashback Classics, out both physically and digitally. I hadn’t been paying attention to it, and now it’s here and looks cool and is Flip Grip compatible and has 150 games on it??? Including some 5200 and arcade games? Including arcade Warlords????? Warlords, in case you haven’t been blessed with its presence, is 4-player Breakout in which each player tries to bust through the opponents’ defenses to destroy their bases. It’s great.

So I finally gave Cities : Simulator & Farming Simulator 19 a try.  Cities really could a tutorial that holds my hand and maybe lets me build a small city, as providing little info pockets did not quite work for me.  I was hoping PlayStation Access would make at least one video for each game, but they did not.  I imagine they did not want all of the negative comments.

For Cities, I got a trophy…

Review: Atari Flashback Classics (Nintendo Switch)

The most comprehensive collection of arcade and home console classics comes to the Nintendo Switch system. Packed with 150 all-time favorites, rare gems, and unique homebrews.

Pros:

In shocking news, the game has retro graphics.

368MB Download size.

Touchscreen support.

Tabletop supports so you can play with two Joycon.

Has its own in-game achievements.

150 games! All three volumes.

Game…