Product description
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.com
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Retro gamers will gobble up this classic game pack, which
features six well-seasoned Atari games including Paperboy,
Millipede, Crystal Castles, Marble Madness, Roadblasters, and
Gauntlet. While the graphics may be outdated, the gameplay
remains as strong as ever on these finger-tw favorites.
Paperboy requires gamers to navigate through busy streets and
numerous obstacles to deliver the daily newspaper. Millipede is
the lesser-known sequel to the popular coin-op classic Centipede.
Once again, you must shoot the many-legged insect as it slinks
its way down from the top of the game screen toward your
exterminator . Another fast-action title is Crystal Castles,
which challenges you to clear off all the onscreen dots (à la
Pac-Man) while avoiding numerous obstacles. Similarly, Marble
Madness requires that you roll your way through multiple obstacle
courses filled with dangerous traps and enemies. Roadblasters is
a basic arcade-style driving game with s, while Gauntlet is a
dungeon-dwelling fantasy adventure game that captivated arcade
goers in the '80s. --Brett Atwood
Pros:
* Faithful reproductions of six classic arcade games
* Easy-to-learn gameplay for beginners
Cons:* Retro graphics pale in comparison to newer 3-D games
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Review
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The classic gaming bandwagon just keeps getting bigger and
bigger. This time around, Midway has packaged up a bunch of
mid-'80s Atari games. Atari Collection 2 contains Paperboy,
Roadblasters, Crystal Castles, Marble Madness, Millipede, and
Gauntlet.
While many of the games are identical emulations, meaning they
use the same code as the original arcade versions, Gauntlet and
Paperboy are ports, meaning the original coin-op code was
converted over. The ports are pretty good, although there are a
few spots where you can notice the difference. Gauntlet supports
the multitap, so four players can play. Analog control is
supported in Paperboy, Roadblasters, Crystal Castles, and Marble
Madness. It works reasonably well, but is a bit too touchy at
times. Crystal Castles and Marble Madness simply demand a
trackball - no other controller will do.
The graphics are what you'd expect from games of that era, but
everything looks more than a little fuzzy. Paperboy is the
fuzziest of the bunch, and also has some weird contrast problems
going on. The sound is about the same, but there is some
weirdness here, too. Gauntlet occasionally forgets to make the
key pickup noise, and the character-specific speech,
"Warrior...now has...extra power," is even slower than
normal.
Without trackballs, Marble Madness and Crystal Castles aren't
much fun. Without a steering wheel, Roadblasters suffers. Without
the crazy handlebars, Paperboy isn't nearly as good. Gauntlet and
Millipede control reasonably well, but Gauntlet just seems
strange and doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would.
And that's perhaps the largest problem with this collection. The
games just don't hold up as well to the tests of time as the
previous collections. There's just something eerily wrong with
the games, like all the fun got sucked out, and blurry,
poor-controlling husks were all that remained. Get it for
Gauntlet, if you're a fan. Otherwise, you're still better off
tracking down the arcade versions of these games. --Jeff
Gerstmann
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