Review: Atari: The 80 Classic Games
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:38 pm
Review: Atari: The 80 Classic Games
This weekend I ran across this CD for sale at a thrift store for a buck, so I bought it. That's my definition of being a hoarder, by the way; despite the fact that I (a) already own ROMs of every game on the disc, and (b) own the original cartridges of most (if not all) of the Atari 2600 games represented on this compilation, I still bought it because it was only a dollar.
I don't know if it originally came with any instructions, but all I got was a DVD-style case and a CD. So my instructions to you are to insert the CD into your computer and look for .EXE files and click on them until something happens.
In the root of the CD you'll find two .EXE files. One allows you to install the contents of the CD on to your hard drive. The other allows you to play the games and vew the bonus material directly from the CD. When I clicked on the install EXE my antivirus went nuts and warned me that these old games contained a virus, so I opted to play them from the CD instead.
As far as games go, the disc contains 18 arcade games and 62 Atari 2600 games. I'm not going to review the games. If you haven't heard of Pong or Asteroids by now, it's too late for you.
More interesting to me than the games was all the bonus material. For starters, scans of all the manuals and box art are included on the disc. They're all stored in what appears to be compressed BMP files so you can't just copy them off and post them elsewhere. There's also a huge, huge picture collection of Atari memorabilia, stuff like collectors pins and sales flyers and pictures of arcade cabinets and all kinds of cool stuff. Seeing as how I've already played my share of Crystal Castles over the years, I found this portion of the disc much more interesting, and well worth the one hundred pennies I plunked down.
I was about to say this compilation was so-so, but I just noticed there's a used copy on Amazon for sale for $35 so I will now say it is f'ing terrific ... and for sale.
This weekend I ran across this CD for sale at a thrift store for a buck, so I bought it. That's my definition of being a hoarder, by the way; despite the fact that I (a) already own ROMs of every game on the disc, and (b) own the original cartridges of most (if not all) of the Atari 2600 games represented on this compilation, I still bought it because it was only a dollar.
I don't know if it originally came with any instructions, but all I got was a DVD-style case and a CD. So my instructions to you are to insert the CD into your computer and look for .EXE files and click on them until something happens.
In the root of the CD you'll find two .EXE files. One allows you to install the contents of the CD on to your hard drive. The other allows you to play the games and vew the bonus material directly from the CD. When I clicked on the install EXE my antivirus went nuts and warned me that these old games contained a virus, so I opted to play them from the CD instead.
As far as games go, the disc contains 18 arcade games and 62 Atari 2600 games. I'm not going to review the games. If you haven't heard of Pong or Asteroids by now, it's too late for you.
More interesting to me than the games was all the bonus material. For starters, scans of all the manuals and box art are included on the disc. They're all stored in what appears to be compressed BMP files so you can't just copy them off and post them elsewhere. There's also a huge, huge picture collection of Atari memorabilia, stuff like collectors pins and sales flyers and pictures of arcade cabinets and all kinds of cool stuff. Seeing as how I've already played my share of Crystal Castles over the years, I found this portion of the disc much more interesting, and well worth the one hundred pennies I plunked down.
I was about to say this compilation was so-so, but I just noticed there's a used copy on Amazon for sale for $35 so I will now say it is f'ing terrific ... and for sale.