Arcade Greatest Hits - Atari Collection 2

by Midway Entertainment

• ASIN: B000021Y5C
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 5 inches ; 4.8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review:
   

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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,235 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Editorial Review
Retro gamers will gobble up this classic game pack, which features six well-seasoned Atari games including Paperboy, Millipede, Crystal Castles, Marble Madness, Roadblasters, and Gauntlet. While the graphics may be outdated, the gameplay remains as strong as ever on these finger-twitching favorites.

Paperboy requires gamers to navigate through busy streets and numerous obstacles to deliver the daily newspaper. Millipede is the lesser-known sequel to the popular coin-op classic Centipede. Once again, you must shoot the many-legged insect as it slinks its way down from the top of the game screen toward your exterminator gun. Another fast-action title is Crystal Castles, which challenges you to clear off all the onscreen dots (à la Pac-Man) while avoiding numerous obstacles. Similarly, Marble Madness requires that you roll your way through multiple obstacle courses filled with dangerous traps and enemies. Roadblasters is a basic arcade-style driving game with guns, while Gauntlet is a dungeon-dwelling fantasy adventure game that captivated arcade goers in the '80s. --Brett Atwood

Pros:

• Faithful reproductions of six classic arcade games
• Easy-to-learn gameplay for beginners

Cons:

• Retro graphics pale in comparison to newer 3-D games

GameSpot Review
The classic gaming bandwagon just keeps getting bigger and bigger. This time around, Midway has packaged up a bunch of mid-'80s Atari games. Atari Collection 2 contains Paperboy, Roadblasters, Crystal Castles, Marble Madness, Millipede, and Gauntlet.

While many of the games are identical emulations, meaning they use the same code as the original arcade versions, Gauntlet and Paperboy are ports, meaning the original coin-op code was converted over. The ports are pretty good, although there are a few spots where you can notice the difference. Gauntlet supports the multitap, so four players can play. Analog control is supported in Paperboy, Roadblasters, Crystal Castles, and Marble Madness. It works reasonably well, but is a bit too touchy at times. Crystal Castles and Marble Madness simply demand a trackball - no other controller will do.

The graphics are what you'd expect from games of that era, but everything looks more than a little fuzzy. Paperboy is the fuzziest of the bunch, and also has some weird contrast problems going on. The sound is about the same, but there is some weirdness here, too. Gauntlet occasionally forgets to make the key pickup noise, and the character-specific speech, "Warrior...now has...extra shot power," is even slower than normal.

Without trackballs, Marble Madness and Crystal Castles aren't much fun. Without a steering wheel, Roadblasters suffers. Without the crazy handlebars, Paperboy isn't nearly as good. Gauntlet and Millipede control reasonably well, but Gauntlet just seems strange and doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would.

And that's perhaps the largest problem with this collection. The games just don't hold up as well to the tests of time as the previous collections. There's just something eerily wrong with the games, like all the fun got sucked out, and blurry, poor-controlling husks were all that remained. Get it for Gauntlet, if you're a fan. Otherwise, you're still better off tracking down the arcade versions of these games. --Jeff Gerstmann
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