Posts Tagged ‘Atari’

Classic Game Room HD – ATARI ANTHOLOGY for Xbox review

Classic Game Room HD reviews ATARI ANTHOLOGY for Xbox, which also works on the Xbox 360 video game console. This amazing collection has dozens of Atari 2600 classic video games, as well as a number of arcade classics, all on one disc like Missile Command, Yars’ Revenge, Swordquest Waterworld and Space War! The games play out in fabulous 1080i HDTV graphics and look better than they did on the Atari 2600 (although in many cases that may not be a good thing, but this is emulation and these are emulated Atari 2600 games and they still rock!) Instead of using the standard Atari 2600 single button, single joystick controller you play all of these Atari and arcade hits using your Xbox or Xbox 360 controller. Atari Anthology is also available for the Playstation 2 PS2 video game system although CGRHD has not reviewed that version. We do however like the Atari Anthology disc for Xbox and played it with our 360 and give it two hearty beers up. Classic Game Room is your home for the best classic video game reviews anywhere in the known universe, or univereses that you don’t know, understand or could possibly fathom. A bunch of angels in some far of heaven meets disco wonderland universe coul make a video game review show with naked girls, beer drinking and talking frogs and it would still suck compared to Classic Game Room (we made that up, talking frogs would be awesome!)

Atari: The 80 Classic Games in One

• Take a step back in time with this collection of authentic Atari titles
• Faithfully reproduced with great sights, sounds, and fast action
• Classic arcade hits include Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Pong, and more
• Atari 2600 titles include 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, Asteroids, Football, and more
• For 1 to 2 players

Product Description
Take a step back in time to the early days of video arcades with Atari’s 80 Classic Games, a compilation of unforgettable and authentic Atari titles. Each one is faithfully reproduced with all the great sights, sounds and fast action that made them so popular. Whether you played these games in their original arcade cabinets or on an Atari 2600 console, you’re sure to find a favorite.

Atari: The 80 Classic Games in One

HomeBrew Reviews: Oystron (Atari 2600)

Peter G, from Video Game Trader Magazine: Issue #3 (VideoGameTrader.com)

Designed by Piero Cavina (of Xype)
Distributed by Atari Age

If you’re one of those people who collects alternative labels and such on games, don’t bother with this one.  The label has had so many permutations, you’ll go nuts.

Inspiration comes in the strangest ways.  Sometimes it’s looking at something and thinking, “I can do that.”  Other times, it’s just looking at something and seeing relations that prompt a game, like how the guys at GameLab came up with Diner Dash!  And some games come about from a simple experimental demo that makes the designer go, “Hey, wait!”  Pitfall! and Fathom for the Atari 2600 supposedly were inspired by the sprite animations the creators came up with.

Oystron has a similar origin.  It originally started off as a demo for the homebrew crowd to demonstrate how to put multiple objects on the screen at once.  From there, a few things were changed here and there, and soon, a full blown game sprung out of it.  It was part of the first wave of Atari 2600 homebrewing and has been a mainstay since.  Some games simply vanish beneath the waves after a while, but this one hasn’t, and for good reason.

The game is a single-board shooter.  You control a ship that cruises around the playfield, shooting at a never-ending stream of enemies.  The key ones are space oysters, grayish-blue orbs that, once finally destroyed, release a space pearl.  You grab the pearl and head to the left half of the screen, where you store your pearls.  Complete a row of eight pearls (not a column, I made that mistake the first time I played this) and you get a bomb for later use.  A timeline at the bottom of the screen creeps along and, once full, an Oystron appears.  It is coming after you, and can only be destroyed by the bombs.  So you have to plant one and lead the Oystron into running into it.

This is no simple task.  The game boasts an impressive array of enemies.  The oysters not only travel at various speeds, but they take a random number of shots before they crack and give up the pearls.  It is very easy to find yourself pinned against the far wall, shooting like mad at an oyster that just won’t drop and unsure if you should move out of the way and into the path of others or just keep firing.  There are also other ships out to reduce your pearl supply, from missiles that just blow them up to ships with front shielding that you can only shoot from behind.  It’s like a cliffhanger movie serial, with no-stop action and close calls.

Thankfully, Oystron has some of the tightest controls on any platform.  Your ship skates around the screen but the crispness enables you to recover if you overcompensate.  The control scheme is also simple – the bombs for the Oystrons can’t be deployed until the Oystron appears, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally releasing your stock before you’re ready.

This game is a great way to kill an hour or two with your 2600.  The action is fast without being confusing and all the elements work well together.  There are moments where holding your fire is better than blasting away.  You don’t passive mash the fire button with this, and the result is a game that would be a classic on the system had it been released during its heyday.

Available for $20 at www.AtariAge.com