Atari is a company in a constant state of confusion. There’s times they’ve release good shit (like Yar’s Revenge, which is a Star Fox-like), but they’re very much focused on meh remakes of classics, and collections. They have this console I’ve not heard of anyone buying, it’s not very interesting.

But the trailer for this one definitely caught my attention, because it wasn’t just a collection of old Atari games again, but it did some interesting things with the concept. Namely, it’s kinda like NES Remix, where it takes the classic games, but remixes the gameplay and visual elements. Looked like it might be a good time. So I grabbed it.

Let’s see if it’s good!

Developer: Illogika
Publisher: Atari
Release date: October 13, 2022
Platforms: Switch, PC (Switch version reviewed)
Genre: Microgame collection

Review

There’s not much of a story here, but there still is one. Bentley Bear, the character from Crystal Castles, finds a dead pixel in his game, which he goes to touch. This causes the dead pixels to grow and get more powerful. You play as the caretaker of the Atari Vaults, which is where the dead pixel was found. The game characters happen to exist outside of the games, and then being in the game is basically them doing their shift at work. The dead pixels are trying to corrupt the characters and games, so you go into them to get rid of the problem, until the final showdown with the being that corrupted Bentley. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Each of the clumps of dead pixels are some dead pixel being. Going into them starts up a set number of microgames, ending with a boss battle that adapts elements from the microgames. For example, the first boss represents Millipede, SwordQuest Earthworld, Video Olympics (it’s Pong, one of the best versions of it, especially with the classic paddle controllers)  and Asteroids. The first few rounds in the level will be simple “here’s how these games work” bits, with a simple objective. SwordQuest microgames will likely ask you to either grab an item or go to a goal while avoiding moving obstacles. Millipede microgames will generally involve killing the millipede. And so on.

The interesting thing here is that the graphics for these classic games are completely redone, looking like a bit above NES level, but keeping the simple environments and sprites for everything. It looks quite smooth. The start of a microgame will be a short explanation of the objective (something like “get to the goal” or “shoot this target” and such), then you have to press a button before it starts. Most microgames are short, from like 5 to 20 seconds at most… except that one Warlords minigame which is just playing a whole round of Warlords.

But that’s not all, because the gimmick here is that the microgames mix the classic games. So you might be playing a Pong level, where you’re playing as the arrow dude from Millipede, shooting the ball to deflect it. Maybe you’re in Crystal Castles, but the wizard from Wizard is shooting at you from the second floor. Maybe you’re sky diving (from the game Sky Diver) in a Missile Command screen, dodging missiles on the way down. Some of these are just really fun mixes, or have you controlling something unexpected, like the walls in Pong, the asteroids in Asteroids. Some of these are REALLY hard though, so this game isn’t gonna be a complete walk in the park.

One of the fun things is that you can unlock the instruction manuals for all the games shown here. It’s always interesting to see how devs talked about their games back then, explaining the mechanics like they’d be explained in a board game. Cool little inclusion.

Outside of microgrames, you’re in the vault. Beating bosses gives you access to items. There’s a grappling hook that lets you go past holes or move certain blocks. There’s a candle to see in the dark. There’s fuel to… fuel things. A hammer to knock down pegs… and so on. These are used not only to progress through the current floor and get to new bosses, but also to go back to previous floor of the vault to find items and hints for a puzzle that I have not figured out how to solve yet.

There are some issues though. I found that some of the games could use a bit more time in the oven. In Breakout, I managed to get the ball stuck between the paddle and the wall (which was REALLY useful in a level where I had to not die). In Yars’ Revenge I found that bullets would pierce through the shield way too much (making the microgame where you play as the enemy really difficult). I found the hitboxes a bit wonky in Warlords (sometimes I’d catch the ball but my wall would still sustain damage). There’s a few microgames where you have to shoot very small, hard-to-aim projectiles at other very small projectiles, a bit rough. Demons to Diamonds’ sustained laser thing is a bit wonky. And I’d say some mixes are a bit rough, though it’s hard to really pinpoint any specific ones without… replaying all of them right now and actually taking notes. But overall, these are pretty minor issues.

Another issue is that you can’t just play the classic games with the new graphics, that would’ve been interesting. My problem here is that some of these games end up not getting really good representations of the original games. Most of them are fine, but then a few that are just… eh. Adventure is a fantastic game originally, but here they just have the first castle screen represented, and not really any of the mechanics. Swordquest just has basically 2 bits of it (the item selection and the “crossing rainbows” sections), but I guess that’s a weird one to play nowadays anyways. Haunted House is pretty much not shown like it is in the original game. I’d say Dark Chambers and Solaris fare okay, but they’re lacking some of their base elements (like Solaris not having the space exploration element, so they only kept the shooting parts). I just think it would’ve been really cool for all the games to have a full version of them. The closest is that Warlords microgame which is literally just playing a round of Warlords.

I kinda hate the cheese. There’s one piece of cheese on every floor, which you can bring to any of the mouse holes to challenge a few microgames that are focused on one game, which is how you unlock the instruction manuals. If you fail, you have to walk all the way back to the cheese, then all the way back to the mouse hole to try again. A bit annoying. If cheese was just a normal item in your selection that you can re-use, that would make things a bit less stupid. It’s just time-wasting for kinda no reason as it is.

Loading is a weird issue. I don’t feel a simple game like this with pretty low-detail 2D graphics should load as much as it does. It can be up to like 15 seconds of waiting at times. One of the weirdest moments is when you fail a level. The boss teases you before sending you back to the vault screen, but it’s really strange how it actually functions. You press buttons to go through dialogue in those parts, but there’s no visual or audio feedback for that. On the last line of dialogue (there’s usually no more than 2), nothing happens because there’s no feedback, and you’re stuck on that screen for like 10 seconds before being sent to a 5-10 second loading screen, before being back out into the vault. They could definitely clean that up. The main menu actually is a bit similar, but there is audio feedback the first time you press the button to start your game at least… but you do get stuck looking at the main menu with nothing happening on it for many seconds before it finally decides to load the game. Weird. Maybe the PC version loads less.

Overall

This has minor problems, but it’s a pretty fun game.

The microgames are fun, the incremental addition of games and new microgame compilations is well done, and it’s pretty challenging. It has some minor issues, but I don’t think they break the experience… though I really would’ve like the classic games to be fully playable in their new graphical style.

I’d recommend it, since it’s not even a full price game in the first place, it’s nice for a quick weekend game.