Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration Review

Ah, the Atari consoles. What can be said about them? Aside from the fact that E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 pretty much caused the downfall and contributed to (temporarily) killing the home consoles market at the time, Atari’s mark cannot be dismissed or overstated as a whole on the gaming industry.

The first thing to address here is the number of games; there are over 100 games available to play on this bundle. The collection covers Arcade, Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, 8-bit computers, Atari Lynx and the ill-fated Jaguar. And as an added surprise, Digital Eclipse also created new versions of Atari classics such as Haunted House and SwordQuest for example.

And the other important thing when given the chance to experience classic gaming is learning more about the backstory. This collection includes a bevy of goodies from Atari’s past such as historical trivia, digital artifacts, over 60 minutes of new interviews, documentary footage, TV commercials and so much more.

An interesting perk is that if you see an available game displayed in what is referred to as the Interactive Timeline, you can jump in directly and not lose your place in your historical readings. And as it is now a staple of these classic collections, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration lets you save at any time so you can pick it back up whenever so you don’t lose progress.

Being able to visit or re-visit the older games can give us an insight as to how far we’ve come from. And also this compilation also shows that visuals aren’t everything and that if your game has decent and/or easy to pick up and play gameplay, it can provide endless hours of fun. Ever since I saw the Angry Video Game Nerd’s Atari Sports episode, I’ve always been curious to actually try some of them, more specifically the volleyball game (it’s in there!) and now we can.

So obviously the issue here is that among these older games, a handful of them have not aged well. The main issue is the lack of guidance but at least game manuals are available from the menus. Modern gaming has spoiled us with objectives, checkpoints, and the like, but these Atari games had no such things. For example, playing the classic version of Haunted House, you’ll find yourself puzzled as to what to do *exactly* as the only thing you can do is go back and forth with the four doors available and dodge enemies.

Furthermore, don’t expect licensed games such as Indiana Jones or Star Wars games due to licensing belonging to other companies. It’s a real bummer and well there’s no insight as to whether or not contact attempts were made to include these classics. But hey at least you can finally try Fight for Life!

Obviously, the presentation is in the eye of the beholder! While the 2022 versions of the classic games are looking and sounding great, the rest of the compilation of older games is up for debate. The games’ visuals do what they’re supposed to do; given the limited graphic capabilities at the time, it’s rather difficult to have graphical problems; there are some odd styles at times, mostly caused by the limitations, what you see is what you get. The same thing can be said for the audio/soundtrack sound of things. While more recent outings from the later platforms like the Lynx have more typical scores, games on older hardware were filled with bits and bops where playing these games in the dark will give you the creeps.

After banging out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection a few months ago, Digital Eclipse knocks it out of the park once more with Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. This collection of classic (not so classic) games is the ideal way to take a trip back in time; whether it be older gamers who first discovered gaming with the Atari or younger gamers curious to discover the history of Atari. There’s also a lot of fun to have here given the number of games.