Atari Anthology

Since the advent of compilation packages, there have been two types of collections- console (Activision Anthology, Sega Smash Pack) and arcade (Midway Arcade Treasures, Namco Museum). True to form, the console collections are deeper, while the arcade ones offer quick and easy hits and more multiplayer fun. Unfortunately for customers, there has been very little mixing of console chocolate and arcade peanut butter… until now. Atari has collected over sixty of their first-party console concoctions from the Atari 2600, plus almost twenty of their early arcade classics, and combined them into one of the most extensive compilations ever. Can the first American console force work their magic with the newest one, or will Atari drag Microsoft into another gaming recession?

The Games:

Against better judgement, Atari decided to group each game by galaxy. You heard me. The menus are laid out like outer space, with games grouped into galaxies (genres). Within each galaxy are individual stars (games). Choose your game, and then you’re presented with a group of planets, which… obviously represent gameplay modes. It’s all very cumbersome, and even the most seasoned Atari veterans may miss out on an old favorite, since there are no visuals of any of the games on the main menus- you have to either trudge through all of the replicated box art and manuals or play each of the over eighty titles.

While the presentation may be awful, the most important part of any compilation package has and always will be the games. With that said, here’s a look at the games of Atari Anthology, sorted by… sigh… “galaxy”.

Action

Probably the largest galaxy in the game, there’s a wide variety of games in the action category. There’s some great multiplayer games like Outlaw and Combat (probably the first popular multiplayer title), as well as Breakout clones working to varying degrees of success (Off the Wall = fun, Circus Atari = not so much). There’s also two fun titles experimenting in today’s popular brand of ultra-violence- Human Cannonball and Sky Jumper feature miniature pixelated characters falling to their splattertastic deaths. Air Sea Battle is worth a play, although the stationary guns are a bit too phallic for my tastes. Everything else in this group is ultimately forgettable.

Adventure

There’s only five games in this group. Adventure is basically the beginning of the genre, and is worth playing for nostalgia’s sake. Haunted House is scary for all the wrong reasons… it’s terrible and boring. Then there’s the Swordquest Trilogy, three unequivocal flops that are as responsible as Pac-Man and E.T. were for the meltdown of the industry in the early eighties. Not only do two of the three game feature awful gameplay, but they all rely on a comic book that can only be accessed when you stop playing the game and jump into the bonus menu.

Arcade Originals

This is easily the best group in the game and proof positive that Atari was doing something right during the early eighties. With the exception of Battlezone and Red Baron, I’d say every game here is a bona fide classic. Aside from well-known hits like Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Pong and Super Breakout, there are some surprisingly deep games like Gravitar and Major Havoc that you can invest some serious play-time into.

Arcade at Home

It’s a bad sign when a hardware developer can’t port their own arcade titles. Besides Asteroids and Warlords, every other one of these ports are scores worse than the arcade versions. In particular, Crystal Castles, Gravitar, and Missile Command are terribly translated. Video Pinball has to be the worst representation of pinball ever presented in videogame form.