Quick Look: Atari Flashback Classics vol. 2

Don't let my city get hit with ICBMs.

NOTHING STOPS THE GAME ROOM QUICK LOOK!

this is a long QL

The PC version of this is on sale on steam for 10$ right now. Unlike the console version you get the whole thing in one collection on that, and I think the mouse feels best for trackball, and somewhat for paddle games, so in my humble opinion it's the superior version.

I don't like most Atari emulators, because of the weird controls and no one seems to get it right ever, but the PC version of this is really good. They did a fantastic job all things considered. It was great to be able to play Crystal Castles the way they intended it as the mouse feels right for that game.

Edit: Oh ya. As someone else mentioned, and I keep forgetting, this is called Atari Vault on Steam. It's the same thing, though. Same developer and same games only it's one collection there instead of two.

Is Major Havoc Frog Fractions 2?

Reechoing doom bong sounds like a Saints Row weapon.

Did the developer up the "bloom" around the vector lines in "Asteroids," etc.? They seem to be glowing much more than I remember.

Are the games included with the PC "Atari Vault" the same as these two volumes put together?

Yes they did, and like their fake scanlines, it's a bit much compared to what actual screens would have displayed. There is a "vector glow" setting in the options, and the games look sharper with it turned off.

I thought Game Room shut down years ago....oh......oooh......ooohhhhhhh.......

It's alright but its no Game Room

I think it was the 1986 released Firebird game Thrust you were thinking of Jeff that was similar to Gravitar. Thrust was a really solid game and had music by the legend Rob Hubbard. Best of all, like all budget games of the time, it costed 1.99 sterling.

i didn't know there was a game called crystal castles. that makes sense lol

"Seems like I'm walking around the edge of a Rubik's Cube." — Jeff

"Atari Video Cube" was actually released as "Rubik's Cube." When Atari lost the license, it renamed the game to "Iron Brigade"...I mean, to "Atari Video Cube."

EDIT: Now that I've done some (albeit brief) research on the internet, it appears I have it backwards: the original game was AVC and then renamed "Rubik's Cube."

The haunting of the Missile Command creator thing they referenced, I believe: http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/8/15/4528228/missile-command-dave-theurer

I played an actual Asteroids cabinet a couple of weeks ago, and the shots were blindingly bright compared to the rest of the objects on the screen; what's shown on this video is subdued in comparison :)

Brad, you need to check out Atari Inc.: Business is Fun - by far the most comprehensive history of Atari written to date. Racing the Beam is another good one, but it's more limited in scope.

I really liked the look of that gravitar game.

Holy shit, Major Havoc looks incredible! I'd love to play that on a proper vector display.

Major Havoc may be better than General Chaos.

I just want this on a VEC9 now...

Bonus: Watch the Red Baron part with this in the background:

Boy! Does the box art of Basic Math look like the title screen of Frog Fractions?

@cornbredx: Yeah I just picked it up on steam sale and I'm pretty happy with my purchase. Some of these games are impenetrable but I discovered Major Havoc last night and was blown away

That electronic drone in Red Baron is exquisite.

That Stellar Track game looks like a Star Trek knock-off. Or maybe it's just the game with the license stripped out?

@cornbredx: Hey, thanks for the tip regarding "Atari Vault" being on sale for just $10! I did a quick comparison of the games included in it with those on these two volumes and found that they ended up identical, so I snatched Vault up.

The Game Room quick looks may be dead, but there spirit lives on!

Wonder how Crystal Castle would've played using the trackpad.

The sound on the Steam version of Major Havoc is just as harsh. Maybe it's an accurate emulation? I can't remember playing the game in the arcades.

I can, however, remember playing Asteroids. I was utterly awful at it.

Sprint, on the other hand, I was quite good at. Well, as good as a pre-teen could be.

I think more games need THE END, just to drive home the point.

Such memories having been playing these games back in the day. One clear memory is my dad waking me up at 5 am after he spent all night trying to beat video chess and finally did so and wanted me to see the screen. I do admit I don't remember all of these games, Major Havoc would have stayed with me if I'd seen it.

My parents gave me an Atari 2600 in 1987 (age 9) instead of the NES I yearned for for years, after playing the ones at friends houses and the one in the toys. I've hated Atari games ever since...

Seriously, the sound effects in this annoy me to no end.

@ronniebarzel: Ya, sorry, I forgot to mention the name of it on Steam is different. But ya it's Atari Vault. =)

We live in a world of fight sticks, NES classics, and high-end controllers. WHY can't someone make a paddle controller (basically a potentiometer with a button) that works on modern consoles and the pc through USB?

Let me whip out my deep reechoing doom bong, yo.

ugh this brings back memories...and not many good ones. Someone needs to go back to 1988 with lil dissapointed me playing decathlon and pole position and such on my 2600.

Tell him it will all be ok...describe to him the vistas of Uncharted 4, the sprawling worlds of Skyrim and Witcher, the combat and atmospheres of Soulsborne. My mind would have blown...

Missile Command seems like a missed opportunity to use that trackpad in the middle of the PS4...

It's a damn shame that the dial input games translated so poorly. It's like, when it comes to Breakout, ya had one job. Is that a fair assessment or is it hard to reprogram those controls?

Came to comment; got distracted for an hour by the Hotline Miami soundtrack.

Well Night Driver looked thoroughly broken when I sent it through Chromecast - I'm guessing its alternating frames of the traffic and the road lights because I only saw one or the other. Refresh rate issues are weird. Any game which depends on blinking characters to show damage - like a Sonic - suffers from that sort of thing.

I played a lot of those games back in the day. I liked to roll-over the score in 2600 Asteroids, not a hard thing to do but for a 12 year old fun enough.

I played bass for Reechoing Doom Bong in highschool.

@williamflattener: I think it's just hard to reproduce the dial controls. "Tempest," for example, needs both speed and precision as you often have to tilt your ship slightly in order to shoot things that have made it onto the outer rim. The various emulations I've played through the years get the speed down, but the lack of precision kills it.

wow Red Baron looks ambitious and impressive

@ronniebarzel: I wonder if it's viable to map a dial as the sum of inputs from two analog triggers, where each trigger represents a force either clockwise or counterclockwise? Since two equal presses would add up to "no movement" I think you could get a lot of precision out of modifying a strong LT press with a weaker RT press, for example - kiiiind of like a racer slowing down for turns by pumping the brakes with their left foot while their right foot is still on the gas. (but not really, because I'm having trouble thinking of a better real-life example of "gas" and "negative gas")

It might be hard to calibrate a system like that so it feels "right" and it'd definitely be more abstract than an analog stick, but if you could get used to it I wonder if it might be a better way to represent this stuff on modern controllers.

It's weird watching Jeff playing classic games without co-pilot AJ Styles.

It's funny hearing Jeff make many of the same jokes and/or references when revisiting these old games as he did in the Game Room QLs. Some of them are so close that you would almost think he did it on purpose, which is hilarious.

Also, it kills me that that they go in non-alphabetical order again.

The Dollop podcast has an episode that glosses over Atari. It's good stuff.

Major Havoc looks so cool. God vector games are awesome.