A virtual museum into the genesis of video games
I'd like to preface this review by apologizing for the recent review spam as I go through most of the games in the collection.
I can safely say I was never into video games of a pure retro nature mostly. I lacked the patience and my brain has rotted to the point that I found it hard to really go back sometimes. I knew about Pong and Asteroids and my only real experience with Atari's legacy was a parody of it via watching Code Monkeys as a kid and just know seeing how much it really influenced that show. Most of my arcade experiences themselves derived from Namco mostly due to the fact that The PlayStation 1 titles worked as virtual museums as well as its own space which I also recommend you check out if you enjoy this type of collection. That said, this is a pretty great collection that goes in depth of what exactly Atari did for the video game space and as a company itself.
I really don't want to delve too much into the story of Atari due to the fact that the collection does a better job of it than I ever will but I will say that it manages to go into depth a bit with the people that were actually there at the time. Video interviews, statements, reading the flyers from then and even secret memos and corporate documents from then really give you the context of what went into making the games. Going into Adventure's influence, explaining how hard it was to make games for the 2600 due to the fact that they had to constrict themselves to a specific limit compared to creating arcade titles and even crazy stories like how much weed the developers smoked. There's a lot more here to unpack but I really do believe the collection does it justice better than a few sentences I could muster really do.
The games themselves are cool as every library is covered barring a few important ones sadly. The Jaguar collection itself seems to be lacking as well (for better or worse) but I feel like you got a lot of the important classics for the most part. Tempest ended up being a personal favorite of mine for the visual style and fast paced gameplay and this also its Jaguar counterpart, Tempest 2000. Classics like Pong, Asteroids, Star Raiders and Adventure are here with some wacky concept games like Ninja Golf really surprising me. Also a cool addition is that each game comes with its manual and appropriate media to get the most out of the games too making this much more than just a regular collection of emulated games.
Digital Eclipse did a great job with this collection. Being given a bit more insight into the inner workings of how the concept of household video games as a whole is something I didn't expect to come out of knowing. Really wish a lot of arcade or early game collections were like this where you have first hand accounts and documents explaining the intricacies of making a specific game or how something specific came to be. If you have a huge appreciation for the medium, this is definitely worth taking a look at and only hoping more things like these comes around.
I'd like to preface this review by apologizing for the recent review spam as I go through most of the games in the collection.
I can safely say I was never into video games of a pure retro nature mostly. I lacked the patience and my brain has rotted to the point that I found it hard to really go back sometimes. I knew about Pong and Asteroids and my only real experience with Atari's legacy was a parody of it via watching Code Monkeys as a kid and just know seeing how much it really influenced that show. Most of my arcade experiences themselves derived from Namco mostly due to the fact that The PlayStation 1 titles worked as virtual museums as well as its own space which I also recommend you check out if you enjoy this type of collection. That said, this is a pretty great collection that goes in depth of what exactly Atari did for the video game space and as a company itself.
I really don't want to delve too much into the story of Atari due to the fact that the collection does a better job of it than I ever will but I will say that it manages to go into depth a bit with the people that were actually there at the time. Video interviews, statements, reading the flyers from then and even secret memos and corporate documents from then really give you the context of what went into making the games. Going into Adventure's influence, explaining how hard it was to make games for the 2600 due to the fact that they had to constrict themselves to a specific limit compared to creating arcade titles and even crazy stories like how much weed the developers smoked. There's a lot more here to unpack but I really do believe the collection does it justice better than a few sentences I could muster really do.
The games themselves are cool as every library is covered barring a few important ones sadly. The Jaguar collection itself seems to be lacking as well (for better or worse) but I feel like you got a lot of the important classics for the most part. Tempest ended up being a personal favorite of mine for the visual style and fast paced gameplay and this also its Jaguar counterpart, Tempest 2000. Classics like Pong, Asteroids, Star Raiders and Adventure are here with some wacky concept games like Ninja Golf really surprising me. Also a cool addition is that each game comes with its manual and appropriate media to get the most out of the games too making this much more than just a regular collection of emulated games.
Digital Eclipse did a great job with this collection. Being given a bit more insight into the inner workings of how the concept of household video games as a whole is something I didn't expect to come out of knowing. Really wish a lot of arcade or early game collections were like this where you have first hand accounts and documents explaining the intricacies of making a specific game or how something specific came to be. If you have a huge appreciation for the medium, this is definitely worth taking a look at and only hoping more things like these comes around.
appreciations
1 year ago