Atari Arcade Hits #1

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Atari Arcade Hits #1 was programmed by Digital Eclipse, a company that has brought us many arcade game emulators over the years.  Many of their products are covered elsewhere on this site.   This package is marketed through Atari Interactive Inc., an affiliate of Hasbro Interactive Inc.

Atari Arcade Hits #1 is the best example I have seen to date of how classic games should be created and packaged.   Everything is here, including an interview with Nolan Bushnell, photos, flyers, history, and of course -- the ORIGINAL games as they were when they were released many years ago.

Nolan Bushnell speaks about Pong,
and the early days of Atari

The interview with Nolan (shown above) is very interesting as he discusses in detail how he founded Atari.  He talks quite a bit about the early days, the people, the growing pains, etc.  He even talks about Computer Space, the first video game that he designed.  This isn't a short interview either.  There are a total of 9 video clips.  The combined length of the clips is roughly 37 minutes.

Atari Arcade Hits #1 even includes some Win 9x desktop themes based around the six games included in the package.  Each theme comes with a screen saver, wallpaper, sounds from the games, pointers/cursors, etc.  The screen savers consist of the "attract mode" for each game.  There are even some Atari fonts included.  VERY COOL!!!

Now, on to the emulator itself.  This package includes Pong, Asteroids, Missile Command, Super Breakout, Tempest, and Centipede.   Each game is emulated faithfully.  For example, the "high score" bug in Asteroids is still there.  There are a variety of options, including monitor rotation for Centipede, and "enhanced" modes for Pong that allow you to play the game in color.

     
Asteroids, Centipede, and Pong
(Note the use of overlays to simulate the actual arcade cabinet)

An interesting feature is the "overlay" support.  If you want the true arcade feel, you can turn on an "overlay" which is a representation of an arcade cabinet surrounding your screen.  The photos above show how that feature works.

   
Super Breakout, Missile Command, and Tempest

Of course, if you don't like that feature, it can be turned off, and the games will fill up the entire screen.

The emulation seems very authentic.   Tempest, for example, can be played in its standard mode, or with the "Tempest Tubes" hack created by Duncan Brown in 1982.  All of the other games feel very true to the originals.  It may be difficult to tell in the screen captures above, but all of the games even simulate the "scanline" video effects.

Each game can be played in its original mode, or an "enhanced mode."  Enhanced mode offeres some subtile enhancements in graphics, but does not mess with the overall flavor of the original.  For example, Asteroids in "enhanced mode" displays a background graphic of outer space.   It does not change the game at all, but makes it nicer to look at.

The games may be played with a joystick, a mouse/trackball, or the keyboard.  Missile Command and Centipede seem to play very well with a mouse.  Asteroids is pretty good with my Microsoft SideWinder.   Tempest, Pong, and Super Breakout make me want to build a "spinner" controller to make them more authentic.  They play OK with the control methods used above, but nothing beats a regular paddle controller for these games.

The manual is a bit thin, but it does have all of the appropriate information for hardware requirements, installing the game, and setting up the controls.  One interesting thisg about the manual is that each game has a "Retro Recap" which tells about other things that were going on in the world when each game was released.  For example, the recap for Tempest talks about 7 big news headlines in 1980 including the death of John Lennon, and the first people to find the wreck of the Titanic.

There is a "High Score" web site that has been set up for submitting your best scores in each game.  It can be found at http://hiscores.atari.com.

  
Tempest 2600 (unreleased) video, and the Atari Arcade Hits #1 Main Menu

The Archives section includes flyers, original Atari promotional information, and historical information for each game.  There is even an animation of the unrelased Tempest cartridge for the Atari 2600 (VCS) system.

All in all, this is an outstanding package.   The folks at Digital Eclipse and Hasbro Interactive should be commended for assembling such a great collection of classic arcade games.  I highly recommend it.

Hardware Requirements:

For more information, visit the Atari Interactive
homepage at Hasbro Interactive