Atari's Greatest Hits
from Atari Interactive

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In 1999, Atari Interactive released Atari Arcade Hits #1 (AAH1) for Win 9x, and I am a huge fan of that collection. In fact, if I may be allowed to quote myself, I said in my review that Atari Arcade Hits #1 is "the best example I have seen to date of how classic games should be created and packaged."

Well, 1 year has passed since that package was released, and now Atari has released a second compilation of classic coin-op games called Atari's Greatest Hits (AGH).  Atari's Greatest Hits 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.

Does Atari's Greatest Hits equal or surpass the first package?  Well, for starters, Atari's Greatest Hits includes two collections:  The original Atari Arcade Hits #1, and the new Atari's Arcade Hits #2.   You get a total of 12 classic Atari coin-op games for $19.95 (suggested retail price).

Let me quickly summarize what this package is all about. The program faithfully emulates twelve classic Atari coin-op video games from the early 1980’s. When I say "faithfully," I really mean it.   Other gaming packages have (weakly) attempted to capture the feel of the coin-op arcade experience. (Cough, cough….Microsoft Arcade….cough.)  This package brings you the original games in their original form…EXACTLY the way that you remember. This is achieved by using the same ROM code from the original games.

Here are the games that are included in this collection.  Click on the images to see an enlarged version….

Pong: The game that started it all.  Although it wasn't the first coin-op video game, it was the first video game success story.  Created by Al Alcorn and Nolan Bushnell, Pong is essentially a simple game of Tennis or Ping Pong.  Each player has a bat that is controlled by a paddle.  a ball bounces around the court, and you must strike the ball with your bat, and send the ball off towards the opposing player.  The first Pong machine took people by suprise.   However, after a few days, the game broke down because the coin box had overflowed with quarters.  The quarters had spilled out on the circuit board, and shorted out the machine.  Pong was extremely simple technologically.  It consisted of a Black-and-White TV set, some paddles, and one circuit board.  There was no ROM code for Pong.  Just circuits.

Missile Command: Missile Command is a war.  A series of computer controlled ICBM's have been launched against you.  At your disposal is three missile batteries that have ten missiles each.  You must defend six cities.  Use your missile batteries to shoot down incoming missiles, enemy bombers, and satellites.  At the end of each wave of attacks, you are awarded bonus points for each unused missile, and each remaining city.  If you have enough points, destroyed cities can be replaced.  You get one replacement city for every 12,000 points.  Missile Command does not have any kind of ending per se, so you must try to hold out as long as you can.  Missile Command uses a Track-Ball for aiming missiles.   The game was created by Dave Theurer.

Asteroids: Who doesn’t remember the original Asteroids game? Asteroids was programmed by Ed Logg, and was Atari’s biggest selling coin-op game. The production run for this game was over 70,000 units.  Your mission is to destroy all of the Asteroids floating in space. When you shoot an asteroid, it breaks into two smaller asteroids. Along the way, you will encounter alien flying saucers that will try and shoot you down. The saucers come in two sizes: large and small. The large ones are easier to hit and are much less accurate with their shots. The small saucers are fast and deadly accurate. If you get trapped, and you have no escape, use your "hyperspace" button to instantly move to a random location on the screen.   Don't appear under an Asteroid, or you will be killed.

Asteroids Deluxe: Asteroids Deluxe is the follow-up to the smash-hit Asteroids.  Like the original game, your mission is to destroy all of the Asteroids floating in space. When you shoot an asteroid, it breaks into two smaller asteroids. Along the way, you will encounter alien flying saucers that will try and shoot you down. The saucers come in two sizes: large and small. The large ones are easier to hit and are much less accurate with their shots. The small saucers are fast and deadly accurate. Asteroids Deluxe added a "shield" button that protects you from enemy shots, and collisions with asteroids. It also added the "Killer Satellite" that appears near the end of each level. The "Killer Satellite" will hunt down and attempt to destroy your ship. When you shoot the "Killer Satellite," it to break into 3 smaller ships.

Battlezone: A vector graphics based game like Tempest and Asteroids. It was the first coin-op that I remember that brought a true first-person perspective to gaming. Battlezone takes place in the distant future. The object of the game is to move your tank around the battlefield, and destroy enemy tanks, flying saucers, and cruise missiles. In the original coin-op game, the player actually looks through a plastic viewfinder that is mounted to the front of the game. This viewfinder, along with the twin joystick controls, makes the game feel extremely realistic. Battlezone was used by the US Army to train their troops. The US Army hired Atari to redesign the game to simulate a Bradley armored tank. The original game was created by Ed Rotberg.

Gravitar: Another vector-based game like Tempest and Battlezone. The object of the game is to pilot your ship to different planets within a solar system. While in space, you must destroy any enemy ships that attack you, and avoid the gravitational pull of the sun. Get pulled into the sun, and you will die. Once you reach a planet, you must destroy the enemy patrol ships and any enemy bunkers that you find on the planet surface. The true challenge of this game is fuel management. Yes, that’s right. Fuel isn’t infinite like other games such as Asteroids. Your fuel must be used wisely..but there opportunities along the way to refuel your ship. If you spot a fuel depot on the planet surface, use your tractor beam to transfer the fuel to your ship.

Centipede: Centipede sold 50,000 units, which made it the second most successful Atari coin-op game.  Centipedes are making their way through the mushrooms in a field.  Use your gun to eliminate the Centipedes.  You will also face other creatures such as giant spiders that dance across the screen.  Fleas will fly at you at high speed.  Scorpions will poison the mushrooms.  When a Centipede touches a poisoned mushroom, it will quickly drop to the bottom of the screen, and head directly for your position.  If a Centipede, spider, flea, or any other creature touches your gun, you will die.  Centipede obviously drew some inspiration from Midway's Space Invaders coin-op.  Gameplay is very similar, although the controls are different.  Centipede uses a Trak-Ball to control your gun.

Millipede: The follow-up to the ultra-successful coin-op hit Centipede.  You are deep in a mystical forest outside of time.  You must defend yourself from hoards of larger-than-life insects.  They keep coming and coming.   Armed with a bow and arrow, you must control your character, the Archer, through a field of giant mushrooms.  Your goal:  eliminate the giant Millipedes.   Millipede itself is very similar to Centipede.  You are at the bottom of the screen, and the Millipedes come at you from the top of the screen.  However, there are some new enemies, such as the Inchworm, Dragonfly, Mosquito, Earwig, and Beetle.   You also have some new weapons at your disposal.  Littered around the field are DDT bombs.  Hit one with your arrows, and you can eliminate any Millipede in the surrounding area.

Tempest: Programmed by Dave Theurer, Tempest is one of the most innovative video games of all time.  Atari had done several black-and-white vector graphics based games such as Lunar Lander and Asteroids.  Tempest was the first color game that utilized the vector graphics technology.  In Tempest, you control a Blaster that patrols many corridors.  Enemy targets move through the corridors towards your position.  Your Blaster is limited to rotating around the outside of the corridors.  Move your Blaster around to destroy the enemy targets before they find you.  Destroy all of the enemy targets, and move on to a harder level.  Tempest has 96 levels.  A ROM "hack" called Tempest Tubes was released several years later that added to the difficulty of this challenging game.   The Tempest Tubes "hack" has been included as well.

Super Breakout: This game is interesting for a number of reasons.  First off, Super Breakout is, for the most part, a one player version of Pong.  The original Breakout coin-op was devised by Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak.  (Yes, those are the two guys who founded Apple Computer.)  Steve Jobs was an Atari employee in the 70's.  The idea behind Super Breakout is to knock out the bricks in a wall.  You have a bat, and you must bounce one (or more) balls against the brick wall.  Score is based on the type of brick that you eliminate.  You can earn 5 Points for orange bricks, 3 points for green bricks, and 1 point for yellow bricks.  Once you eliminate the bricks, you move on to a harder level with faster-moving balls.

Warlords: This game is essentially a multi-player variant of Breakout.  You are a medieval knight, and you must defend your castle.  The other Kings are out to destroy your castle and kill your King.  You must use your shield to deflect the deadly and fast-moving fireballs from striking the walls of your castle.  Each castle is constructed with several layers of bricks.  If a fireball strikes your castle walls, some of the bricks are destroyed.  If the fireballs break through your walls, your King will be exposed.  However, only a direct hit will kill a King.  Use your shield to deflect the oncoming fireballs, and send them spiraling at the other castles.   Perhaps you can stop the threat before your King is eliminated.

Crystal Castles: This is a simple game featuring a colorful character called Bentley Bear.   I'm a bit confused as to why this game has been included in a "Greatest Hits" package, because Crystal Castles was never a huge hit.  Perhaps it was included to appeal to young kids.   The gameplay itself is a lot like Pac-Man, but a trackball is used instead of a joystick.   The object of the game is to move Bentley Bear around the 3D pyramids and collect the colored gems.  Of course, the game isn't quite that easy.  There are some unique and scary creatures out to stop Bentley from collecting the gems.  Expect to see skeletons, crystal balls, gem eaters, and enchanted trees.  These are a few of the creatures that Bentley will encounter. 

Atari's Greatest Hits includes some Windows 9x desktop themes based around the twelve 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. I must admit that these themes fantastic.  They really give your computer a "classic gaming" touch.  In particular, the artwork for the desktop wallpaper is extremely cool.

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 screen captures that I have included with this review are using the overlay support. Of course, if you don't like that feature, it can be turned off, and the games will fill up the entire screen.

Each game can be played in its original mode, or an "enhanced mode." Enhanced mode offers some subtle enhancements in graphics, but does not mess with the overall flavor of the original. For example, Warlords in "enhanced mode" cleans up the graphics ever so slightly, and adds a background that simulates true 3D "brick walls" around your castle. It does not change the basic flavor of the game at all, but makes it much nicer to look at. I’ll have to admit that I have never been a big fan of Warlords, and I’m not very good at it. (Just ask Joe Santulli from Digital Press, who recently kicked my butt at Warlords during a classic gaming party!) With the addition of the graphic enhancements to Warlords, I found the game to be more enjoyable. Since I am getting more pleasure from the game, I will probably play it more, and my skills will improve. (Ya hear that Joe? I want a rematch!!!)

The games may be played with a joystick, a mouse/trackball, or the keyboard. For example, Crystal Castles and Millipede work well with a trackball or mouse. Asteroids Deluxe and Gravitar both play fine with my Microsoft SideWinder. Battlezone can be configured to use two joysticks, so if you own a custom arcade controller, or a HotRod cabinet, you can make Battlezone seem even more like the coin-op by simulating the dual controllers.

The two manuals are thin, but they do have all of the appropriate information for hardware requirements, installing the game, and setting up the controls. One interesting thing about the manuals 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 Warlords talks about 7 big news headlines in 1980 including the Major League Baseball strike, and the release of the 52 American hostages in Iran.

The user interface for the collection is very intuitive. The main menu shows icons for the games in the package. When you place your mouse over an icon, a graphic animation of the game pops up in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Clicking on the icon launches the game. If you have the "cabinet art" options turned on, you may start the game by clicking on the 1-Player or 2-Player "Start" buttons on the cabinet control panel.

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

The configuration menu has been designed in a creative way. There are a series of "tabs" along the top of the screen. Clicking on the "tab" for any of the games brings up a menu of options for each games, such as dip-switch settings, enhanced graphics, etc. All in all, it is very easy to navigate the menu structure of this collection.   

The "Archives" section includes flyers, original Atari promotional information, and historical information for each game.   The AAH#1 CD even includes a video interview with Nolan Bushnell  (See photo on the right).  All of the appropriate historical information (such as flyers, screen captures, original promotional materials, etc.) has been included.  However, I felt that there could have been more.  I would have loved to seen something similar on the AAH#2 CD.  It would be cool to hear Ed Rotberg talk about the US Army version of Battlezone, or any of the other designers talk about the work involved in creating these games.

If there are future Atari coin-op collections coming down the road, I hope they include another interview or two. Heck, perhaps my buddies at Hasbro Interactive will include a couple of episodes of my "Back In Time" webcast in the next collection. (HINT! HINT!)

The AAH2 CD includes some excerpts from Leonard Herman's book Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Video Games.  I read Phoenix several months ago, and it is an outstanding book.  I'm happy to see that some of Leonard's writing has been included in this collection.  People who read these excerpts for the first time will surely order the entire book!

I didn't notice any glaring bugs.  One thing to note is that there is a small bug-patch for the AAH1 CD.  The bug patch fixes a couple of minor issues, including a problem with the Tempest Tubes hack.  The patch has been included on the AAH2 CD, so you won't have to take the time to download it.

As I noted above, I question including Crystal Castles in a collection called "Greatest Hits."  I don't recall that game being very popular.  Although I have always been a fan of Gravitar, it wasn't a big hit for Atari either.  Perhaps it would have been appropriate to include some of Atari's more popular games like Kangaroo, Food Fight, or Red Baron instead of Gravitar and Crystal Castles.

All in all, this is a very good package. The people at Digital Eclipse and Hasbro Interactive should be commended for assembling such a great collection of classic arcade games. The quality of the emulation and enhancements in this collection will make you happy that you spent the money, and for $19.95, it won't break the bank.

I highly recommend Atari's Greatest Hits.

Hardware Requirements:

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