Atari 50 The Anniversary Celebration Switch XCI Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

Atari 50 The Anniversary Celebration Switch XCI Free Download GAMESPACK.NET Atari, and its exuberant founder Nolan Bushnell, were 1970s trailblazers who formed, established, and pioneered the video game industry. Brushing a near-century of mechanical coin-operated gaming aside and barging pinball into a dusty corner, Atari became the focal point of bars everywhere with Pong in 1972. It was the dawning of the digital age, and Bushnell and co. were here to make it fun. Sometimes we’re in danger of forgetting these facts. The Japanese gaming revolution did so much to build on, perfect, and usurp Atari’s initial endeavours — and in such a gloriously innovative fashion — that we tend to focus our retro gaming goggles somewhere between the mid-’80s to late ’90s. It is, of course, generational. For those who grew up with them, there’s still an affection for Clive Sinclair and the early PC gaming boom, the Spectrums, the Commodores, and the Amstrad; the CBS Colecovision, the Vectrex, and the Grandstand console. But 50 years on and it’s now Atari’s moment, and it wanted everyone to know. As a result, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is a painstaking love letter to the organisation’s history and its accomplishments. TOP/BEST ADULT VIDEO GAMES IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)

Atari 50 The Anniversary Celebration Switch XCI Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

You’re greeted with a superb interface, beautifully designed and rendered, but never overblown. It captures the nostalgic whimsy of Atari’s halcyon days right down to the background music and rolling video wallpapers. And its fast, barely missing a beat when skipping smoothly through content, taking a split second to load box art to full resolution, or diving right into documentary footage as though it was waiting poised for your attention. Games, too, of which there are over a hundred spread across seven Atari formats, from Arcade, 2600, Lynx, Jaguar, and everything in between, spring to life with the tap of a button. There are no online options, leaderboards or otherwise, but with such a dense volume of content, it’s easily forgiven. The layout is clean, colourful, and neatly categorised through Arcade Origins, Birth of the Console, Highs and Lows, The Dawn of PCs, and The 1990s and Beyond. It’s a deftly organised odyssey that runs across timeline charts littered with trivia, images, developer interviews, and anecdotes. It’s a joy to explore arcade flyers, box art, classic ads, photographs, and a selection of excellently produced developer interviews from the original hardware creators.

Neo Breakout An amazing and addictive two-player competition that combines the best features of Breakout and Pong, with a modern graphic style.

Even the great Nolan Bushnell himself, sitting comfortably in his Atari 50 emblazoned T-shirt, joins the procession with a special recorded segment. It’s interesting to compare the presentation of Atari 50 with something like Capcom’s Arcade Stadium titles. The latter comes with pretty 3D-rendered gimmickry that resembles an actual arcade, but lacks the internal warmth exuded here. With the development of this collection handled by Digital Eclipse, the games seem perfectly emulated, at least as far as we can tell, without any visual hiccups or delays. There are really nice arcade bezels for the 4:3 aspect ratio, with a soft but acceptable scanline filter and an option to change the glow intensity of certain titles to match how burned in the tube was on the machine you played as a kid. Some additional filters wouldn’t have gone amiss — perhaps something to really bring out that old CRT flavour — but as it stands the presentation is perfectly acceptable. Certain gems, like Asteroids Deluxe, have a simulated depth of field effect to render what was once a printed background sitting behind its glowing vector sprites, and it actually makes it feel as though you’re peering into the screen. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Switch XCI

Atari 50 The Anniversary Celebration Switch XCI Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

It’s delightfully done, and a good example of the package’s attention to detail. Far from a cheap cash-in, throwing old-school games together with a minimum of fuss, Atari 50, on the contrary, is all fuss: fuss about the company, fuss about the good times and the bad, and fuss about the universe Atari created. Classics include I, Robot, Food Fight, Yars’ Revenge, Tempest 2000 and so many more. Only occasionally do you hit upon titles like Firefox, one of the first Laserdisc-driven arcade games, only to be disappointed to find that it’s info only and there’s no play option. This is doubly saddening with the absence of Computer Space, the world’s first arcade video game, and no Aliens vs Predator on Jaguar, most likely due to licensing issues. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial suffers the same fate, a relatively poor game that nonetheless has significance in the Atari story. One can’t pretend that all of Atari’s output was solid gold. Even one of the Jaguar’s designers admits that the console’s output had quality issues, and it shows in the majority of its titles on offer. While certain Lynx, VCS and 2600 titles leave a little to be desired, and there’s bound to be something missing that upsets someone or another (in our case, 1983’s Star Wars arcade), but there’s so much to peruse that it’s more about the journey.

Haunted Houses.

And, as if it wasn’t already a brilliantly produced package sewn together with abundant content, there are six brand-new games thrown in too. 40 years on and Swordquest: Airworld is a fourth sequel you never expected, inspired by its original creator, and accompanying the three entries that preceded it. Neo Breakout, is — you guessed it — an expanded, modernised version of Breakout with exciting new twists; Quadratank continues the tank series with a four-player battle royale; the confusingly titled VCTR-SCTR mashes up elements of Tempest, Lunar Lander, and Asteroids, going vector crazy with an addictive score challenge; and Haunted Houses reimagines the Atari 2600 original, now in a 3D voxel-built space, ready to reignite the survival-horror spark with fresh challenges. Yars’ Revenge: Enhanced — which isn’t the same game as the recent Yars: Recharged — revitalises the original with a glowing new graphical overlay that can be swept away to reveal its original pixels with a tap of the shoulder button. Pokémon Violet XCI

Atari 50 The Anniversary Celebration Switch XCI Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

There’s even an unreleased arcade prototype, too, in the form of Akka Arrh, complete with simulated LEDs flashing behind the bezel. Atari began in 1972 with their iconic release of the timeless classic Pong and since then, it’s been a wild ride of many highs and lows. In recent years, the company has been offering oodles of old-school fun for modern gamers with the release of many game compilations and plug-and-play consoles as well as the odd spin-off and the Atari Recharged games which bring new life to their classic games. Thankfully, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration spans this entire timeline thanks to its astounding collection of games and museum-style content that’ll keep you thoroughly entertained as well as educated which is something that I didn’t expect. Specifically, you’ll even learn a lot about Atari’s groundbreaking achievements and shady past and it’s excellent to see their entire history; warts and all. Now that I brought it up, let’s dive into the museum aspect of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. It’s essentially presented within 5 timelines where you’ll learn all about Atari’s arcade origins, creation of the game console, ups and downs, foray into home computers, and recent history.

Quadratank.

After selecting a timeline, you can move along a well-presented node-based map which contains loads of information, archival videos, interviews, concept art, manuals, advertorials, quotes, and more. Before even diving into any game, I found myself obsessed with watching the videos and reading up on the classic games that I love because there’s so much packed in that even though I thought I was an Atari expert, I still kept coming across so many new tidbits that I found it hard to put down With all of that out of the way, let’s get to the games! First of all, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is an eclectic collection in that it includes a solid assortment of titles for arcade, Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx, Jaguar, and Atari 800 (8-bit PC). It may not feature as many games as Atari Flashback Classics which I still absolutely love and highly recommend but the collection here is still impressive. My favourite inclusions are of course the arcade games; of which, there are a whopping 25. Classics such as Tempest. Pong, Missile Command, Asteroids, Centipede, and Breakout are included but you also get some rarities such as the prototype for the radial shooter Akka Arrh, the clever and intense.

I, Robot, the multi-directional shooter Cloak & Dagger, and the fast-paced Quantum where you draw circles around enemies; quite the hidden gem! Anyway, you also get 40 Atari 2600 games with 5 of them being unlockable. The vast majority of these have been featured on other compilations but there is definitely still some fun to be had with them. Finally, there are 5 Atari 5200 games, 7 7800 games, 5 Lynx games, 5 Atari 800 games, and 9 Jaguar games. These miscellaneous offerings range from dated curiosities to tried-and-true classics such as Tempest 2000, Ninja Golf, and Ruiner Pinball. However, games such as the infamous Cybermorph and the boring shoot ’em up Trevor McFur certainly did not stand the test of time. Overall, this eclectic collection of Atari games from under-represented consoles is solid although not as fruitful as their arcade line-up. Believe it or not, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration also includes a handful of games that were developed by Digital Eclipse and compose the Reimagined category of games.

Atari 50 The Anniversary Celebration Switch XCI Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

The best game here is VCTR-SCTR which features levels based on Asteroids, Lunar Lander, and Tempest as it’s a great deal of fun to progress through waves that are full of variety and challenge while trying to top your high score. Another great game is Haunted Houses which takes the classic and adapts it to a full-fledged horror adventure. Neo Breakout is excellent as well with its constant modifiers that emerge as you progress. In addition to these, you also get Quadratank with its realistic tank controls, a virtual Touch Me game which inspired Simon back in the day, and a visual recreation of Yars’ Revenge. Oh, and if you dig Swordquest then you’ll be happy to hear that Digital Eclipse developed AirWorld to complete the quadrilogy because why not? Before wrapping up this review, I’d like to discuss that Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration may be fantastic but it’s not a definitive Atari collection so if you like what you see here then be sure to pick up Atari Flashback Classics as well. One feature from that collection that’s missing here is any online capability. I personally love climbing leaderboards, especially in retro games and considering there are some new titles based on the classics here, I’m rather disappointed that there are no online rankings whatsoever. Tactics Ogre Reborn

ADD ONS/PATCHES AND DLC’S: Atari 50 The Anniversary Celebration Switch XCI