Arcades Greatest Hits - The Atari Collection Vol 2

by Midway Entertainment

Product Details

• ASIN: B000021Y5C
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 5 inches ; 4.8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,088 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 While the graphics may be outdated, the gameplay remains as strong as ever on these finger-twitching favorites.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
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AWESOME!, August 12, 2000

By	Chris Pinto (Mahopac, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

WOW!

Paperboy, Gauntlet, Crystal Castles, Marble Madness, Millipede & Road Blasters ALL ON ONE CD! WOAH! Talk about your "Greatest Hits" collection. This is ONE heck of a Playstation/nostalgia/80's/retro CD if I've ever seen one! I'll admit, as much as I love games like Mortal Kombat, and blood and guts kind of games, I bought this CD for my personal favorite 80's game called "Crystal Castles"! Yes, I loved that cute little bear walking around collecting the jewels. This was also the first coin-op game that actually had a storyline and a "real ending" video sequence. Plus, even for the 80's, this game had some of the most spectacular graphics and colors of any game in that period. Plus, it was one heck of a fun game.

Luckily, I just bought a trackball for my Playstation console, so, the gameplay should be much easier than the joystick controller on many of these games. However, without a trackball, gameplay will be harder, and not much fun either. Keep this in mind when buying this cd. Although, for nostalgia reasons alone, I would have bought this cd anyway. :)

If you found yourself plopping quarters into these machines as easily as I did in the 80's, then you'll still love playing them today.

But, try to purchase a trackball....You'll appreciate the gameplay MUCH more. ...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Control impedes Gameplay, March 2, 2000

By A Customer

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Marble Madness is my favorite arcade game of all time. And I owned a Paperboy machine for several years. So I was eager to see how these ultimate arcade classics translated onto the PlayStation console.

The results were disappointing. Playing Marble Madness without the trackball is like bowling with a square ball. No control. And without the handlebars, Paperboy feels like a muddled mess.

Gauntlet is a faithful translation, but ten years removed from the arcade, the game seemed a little, well, repetitive. It got boaring.

that's about it much better off going for "Pong", which took a great arcade concept and made it even better.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buggy emulation, inadequate controls, February 10, 2000

By A Customer

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Paperboy, Marble Madness, and Millipede are difficult to control with the 4-button controller, why in the world can't they allow the use of the dual-shock controller joystick? Things would be so much more enjoyable. The thing that made these games a riot in the arcade were the input devices: bicycle handlebars, trackballs,.. the gamepad is a poor substitute and severly hampers gameplay.

The software is buggy. Paperboy has hung on us countless times, where I don't even bother with this disc anymore. I would have returned it if I had found the receipt. Gauntlet is true to form, but overall for an arcade "Classic", I am pretty disappointed. And I grew up with these games.