Digital Eclipse levels up their production bigtime here with a new format that presents the games alongside all of the supplementary material in a comprehensive timeline. This is essentially how I wished they'd done these things from the start, because while I didn't overly mind having to go into separate archive menus to peruse all the interesting stuff they pack these collections with, I did find myself jumping back and forth between those and playing the games in chronological order, effectively constructing the timeline for myself (this was especially necessary with the recent TMNT collection). This linear presentation of all of the material together (with the option to just go to another menu and play all the games whenever, of course) is an important evolution for their projects, I think.

The games and the story of Atari themselves as depicted here is engaging enough to carry this as its own thing, although the fun does peter off significantly when you get into the latter-day stuff because, um, the Jaguar is dogshit. However, for someone like me with absolutely no experience with the Atari of old and the desire for a curated entry point, this really fit the bill. I feel like I learned a lot!

There's no way to avoid lots of stuff being left out and the realities of securing some of the more notable titles, but I think this is probably the absolute best this collection could be while keeping in mind what must be a lot of limitations. As always, very excited to see where Digital Eclipse goes next - they continue to move in exciting directions.