Atari Anthology

Ever since Infogrames scarfed up the Atari consumer corporation a few years back and adopted the namesake, the company had been sitting on a goldmine of retrogaming goodness. Atari Anthology isn't the company's first repackage of classic games, but it is the first one the company has released on console gaming systems. It's more or less a PlayStation 2/Xbox edition of Atari 80 in One released on the PC last year, featuring the same line-up of games as well as supplemental material released at the time of each title's era. There's certainly a lot of bang for your buck in this package, what with more than six dozen games on a disk for $20. But compared to existing classic compilations, namely the outstanding Activision Anthology released on the PlayStation 2 back in 2002, Atari Anthology is a sloppy, cluttered presentation with a poorly handled organization that makes navigating to each of the 80 plus games a mind-numbing chore.

At the very least, Atari went to the right guys to bring this compilation to life on the console. Digital Eclipse earned its namesake in hardware emulation and was responsible for many successful retro packs across all the gaming platforms including its most recent classic production Midway Arcade Treasures 2. The company definitely has the staff "into" the classic gaming scene, both in a technical and historical sense. All of the pack's games, from the black and white vector games to the Atari 2600 games released well after the "death" of the hardware, are emulated near perfectly on the console system. There's also a mishmosh of scanned-in trinkets, instruction manuals, catalogs, and game-related comic books from back in the day, even a video interview with Nolan Bushnell, the man who gave birth to Atari the company back in the 1970s. So, the disk is certainly filled with "stuff."

What you get for $20:

Emulated Atari arcade games including Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Black Widow, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Liberator, Lunar Lander, Gravitar, Major Havoc, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, Red Baron, Space Duel, Super Breakout, Tempest, and Warlords.

Emulated Atari 2600 games including 3D Tic Tac Toe, Adventure, Air-Sea Battle, Asteroids, Atari Video Cube, Backgammon, Battlezone, Black Jack, Bowling, Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Casino, Centipede, Circus Atari, Combat, Crystal Castles, Demon to Diamonds, Desert Falcon, Dodge 'em, Double Dunk, Flag Capture, Football, Fun with Numbers (a.k.a. Basic Math), Golf, Gravitar, Hangman, Haunted House, Home Run, Human Cannonball, Math Gran Prix, Maze Craze, Millipede, Miniature Golf, Missile Command, Night Driver, Off the Wall, Outlaw, Quadrun, Radar Lock, Realsports Baseball, Realsports Football, Realsports Tennis, Realsports Volleyball, Sky Diver, Slot Machine, Slot Racers, Space War, Sprintmaster, Star Raiders, Star Ship, Steeplechase, Stellar Track, Street Racer, Submarine Commander, Super Baseball, Super Breakout, Super Football, Surround, Swordquest: Earthworld, Swordquest: Fireworld, Swordquest: Waterworld, Video Checkers, Video Chess, Video Olympics, Video Pinball, Warlords, and Yar's Revenge.

Even with 85 games on the disc, the package isn't exactly a complete Atari arcade and 2600 experience. Granted, many of the top-selling Atari-published 2600 titles during its heyday were licensed properties that would have had to have been repurchased for their inclusion: Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Superman, Berzerk, Jungle Hunt, and countless other truly classic games made for the Atari VCS had to be left out for this compilation. But some Atari owned games, such as the arcade versions of Night Driver, Atari Football, even the 2600 version of Championship Soccer (renamed from Pel¿'s Soccer) are surprisingly absent from the package.