Atari Anniversary Edition

Anniversary Edition contains full versions of Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Centipede, Millipede, Crystal Castles, Gravitar, Missile Command, Pong, Super Breakout, Tempest, and Warlords. All feature cabinet screen border artwork straight from the arcade (you know, like the flying space debris that was painted onto the Asteroids screen), and the game programmers have coded an alternate mode for each game that spiffs up the graphics and alters the levels a bit.

The games play just about how you remember them, with a couple of exceptions. Battlezone is awkward without two arcade joysticks, Tempest is difficult to control without a dial interface, and Crystal Castles is darn near unplayable on PC hardware. One also wonders why Gravitar was even included, as it's hardly a classic. However, Missile Command, Asteroids, Centipede, and Warlords are each worth the asking price of the collection.

For convenience's sake, the game plays straight from the CD or can be installed. Installation yields better performance overall and gives you all the extras, such as mouse pointers, desktop themes, a screen saver, and Atari wallpaper. Unfortunately, antipiracy programming means you can't play the game without the CD in the drive. The CD also features some 38 minutes of interviews with Atari founder (and Pong creator) Nolan Bushnell. His remarks are enlightening and interesting, to say the least. The developers also crammed a bunch of artwork and promo material on the disc that'll drive the retro archivists nuts.

Atari Anniversary Edition is the perfect way to fill your office with coin-op classics without throwing out your back, or breaking your bankbook, by collecting the arcade cabinets themselves. It's tailor made for the retro fan but accessible enough for anyone to play, and it's the perfect introduction for kids today who are ignorant of video gaming's glorious past. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• 11 of the 12 are bona fide classics
• Perfect emulation, plus artwork and screen borders
• Almost 40 minutes of interviews with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell

• Gravitar still isn't very good
• Crystal Castles, Tempest, and Battlezone are all difficult to play using non-arcade controls

Atari Anniversary Edition includes twelve 1970s/80s arcade classics, and does a most impressive job of recreating the precise appearances, behaviors, and sounds of the original upright arcade games, right down to the pre-game "insert coin" messaging (but without the need for a pocket full of quarters!). I'm now playing these flashback classics on home PCs -- one P3 500MHz with Windows XP Home, and one P4 2.8GHz with Windows XP Pro -- with no problems.

In some cases, the game controls are a little awkward with the standard PC interface, but... Here're some specific notes on playing the games I that I actually remember from Way Back When:

Centipede & Millipede: Very usable with keyboard and/or mouse controls. I find them quite playable by using the mouse for movement and the keyboard for shooting.

Missile Command & Super Breakout: Usable with keyboard controls, but very awkwardly so. Using the mouse for movement and the keyboard for shooting works pretty well.

Asteroids & Asteroids Deluxe: Work great right from the keyboard.

Battlezone: Quite usable from the keyboard, if a little awkward. (But I found the original game a bit awkward, so...)

(I'm not myself familiar with the original Pong, Tempest, Gavitar, Crystal Castles, or Warlords.)

Of course, you may also be able to add and use joysticks, trackballs, and whatnot -- I haven't tried these.

Actually, my favorite features of this Atari collection are (1) watching my wife's face light up at the authentic sight and sounds of Tempest, and (2) watching my eight-year-old Gameboy-aficionado son spend joyous hours blasting away with Battle Zone and Millipede games three times his age. Priceless.


Play the classics without having to play rip-offs!   August 29, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

To many online game sites give you rip-offs of the classics. They give improved graphics and a changed story and concept line! The worst part is they say it is a "pretty good game!" But discovering this helped me alot. With twelve fun and easy-control classics, you can have so much fun! The keyboard and mouse do take away from the feel but you can always the controllers. I reccomend this to all nostalgia seekers!


Arcade games the way they use to be   July 2, 2003
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

First off if you only like games that have high end 3d graphics and stereo surround sound I suggest you skip this package. However, if you remember these games when they first came out or if you simply want a little diversion in your day I highly recommend you check these games out. For less than 20 dollars you get twelve classic Atari games. Okay so some of them really aren't classics but even if there were only one or two games on the disc that I liked I would still consider my purchase a sound investment. Each game is re-created exactly as it was in the arcade. There's even an option for viewing the test mode of each game. This feature isn't particularly useful but if you go into the test mode for Centipede you'll discover that at one time they were going to include a grasshopper in the game. Tempest includes an add on level called Tempest Tubes which makes it like a whole new game. Other games have options that let you control the difficulty of the game and options for using a keyboard, mouse, or joystick. Each game also has an option that lets you turn on enhanced graphics. Personally I don't think they add anything to the games so I leave them turned off. The system requirements state that you need a 133 Mhz processor, 16 MB of ram, and at least a 2MB video card. I installed the game on a computer that I've had since early 1997. My computer has a 150 Mhz processor, 64 MB of ram, and 2 MB of video ram. All the games run just fine if I don't turn on the advanced features. The games that use vector graphics such as Asteroids and Tempest seem to suffer the most when I turned on the advanced graphical features. If I turn these features off then the games run just fine. The instructions on the box say you don't need any hard disk space to play the games. While that may be true it's best to install the games on to your hard drive. A minimal installation requires 66 megabytes of free space. Incidentally, one review for this disc said even if you install the games you have to insert the disk into the cd rom every time you wanted to play any of the games because the disk was copy protected. I installed the games and it never asks me to insert the cd whenever I want to play one of the games.


A computer arcade at the touch of a button!   January 5, 2003
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

These are great classic arcade games yet I only give it 4-stars because the games wear off in fun easily. It comes back to you every once in awhile which is good because you don't want to buy something you hate! The timeless Asteroids and Pong make this a great PC collection, but I think Atari 2600 Jewel Case has to be the best series! Get it if you want a home arcade!