Atari does it yet again...

[rockman_x_2002]

Forgive me if it's been mentioned already, but has anybody seen this!?

 

Geez if you thought the Flashback was sacrilege. I must caution you, please take care in viewing this. It burns!!!

[Gregory DG]

I think they've tried to defuse the "sacrilige" by adding accurate versions of the original games. Still, a beatbox Warlords seems kinda silly.

[SteveW]

What game is this supposed to be based on?

[l3ushwig]

That pic of Missile Command..... i hate it how can they say that is retro....

"Each game plays exactly like its original" HUH? 3 mounds that shoot? 10 anti missiles going out.....

[StanJr]

sad panda

[NovaXpress]

Well, everyone though the Flashback was garbage yet they bought it like sheep anyway. Why should it be any different this time?

[n8littlefield]

Hate to say this, but I'll be buying it. It still has the original versions, which will mean wireless multiplayer Warlords. Even if you don't play the "upgraded" version, that's worth the price of the game, IMHO.

[NovaXpress]

And we're not even sure if this sucks yet.

[Robert M]

Hate to say this, but I'll be buying it.  It still has the original versions, which will mean wireless multiplayer Warlords.  Even if you don't play the "upgraded" version, that's worth the price of the game, IMHO.

 

Where did you see it has the original games?

 

 Overview:

 

For the first time, you can play 10 classic Atari games on the new Nintendo DS™ system. Each game plays exactly like its original, with a contemporary new look-and-feel from today’s hottest New York City graffiti artists.

 

To me that sounds exactly like the Flashback unit which was approximations of the originals running on Nintendo hardware.

 

10 classic games:

Pong®

Missile Command®

Asteroids®

Sprint™

Space Duel™

Tempest®

Warlords®

Breakout®

Centipede®

Gravitar®

 

Here is the real kick in the shorts. They picked a terrible set of games for play on a Nintendo DS.

 

Pong

Sprint

Tempest

Warlords

Breakout

 

The orinigals of all these used a rotary controller. So I can guarantee they will be nothing at all like the originals. A rotory controller gives you a direction and a velocity a D-Pad wll give you only direction.

 

Missle Command

Centipede

 

These 2 games were designed to use a trackball controller. Which gives you 360 degrees of motion plus velocity. Again the D-pad will reduce that to 8 directions at fixed velocity. These games will not play like their originals that is impossible.

 

So of the 10 games only 3 have any chance of being like the original arcade games. The other 7 are going to be lame ports with changes made to gameplay to allow the player to use a D-pad in place of the correct controller.

 

Its really kind of disgusting. Considering the size of the Atari library. I find it hard to believe that there are not 10 classic joystick based titles that they could choose rather than destroy the gameplay of games like Tempest and Warlords.

 

Multiplayer games that can be played across both screens

Four-player wireless gameplay

Touch screen technology

 

Here is the only hope. Maybe they will use the touch screen in place of rotary and trackball control. Its not a good solution since it will be clumsy and block the player's view but it would be a closer approximation to the controls of the originals.

 

Check out that Warlords screen shot! WTF? Those castles are huge and the shields are very tiny! How can you possibly manuever in that terrible layout. Heresy! We gave up the incredible HB Castle Crisis so Atari could release that piece of shit! Boo! Hiss!

 

Retro Atari Classics™ ©2005 Atari, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Taniko. ™, ® and Nintendo DS are trademarks of Nintendo. © 2005 Nintendo. The ratings icon is a trademark of the Interactive Digital Software Association. All other trademarks are the property of the respective owners.  

 

"Retro Atari Classics" is short for Retroactively destroying our gaming properties. Think about this. This is the one and only format we will see these games be re-released by Atari. They claim they are the same as the orinigals so they can't come out with a version later that uses the correct controller or they will be sued as liars for releasing the DS version.

 

Tempest, Pong, Breakout, Missle Command, etc... Are now all officially dead classic games forever ruined by poor emulation on poor hardware. Atari owned them, and they have decided how they shall be remembered, and it isn't going to be pretty.

[StanJr]

if it looks like a duck, its probably a half-assed piece of poo created in the hopes of capturing fleeting nostalgia in a rapidly changing pop culture that will soon forget it, and capitalizing on the capitalistic attitudes of the lemming middle class.

[NovaXpress]

Notice that in any Atari 10/12 game title, they always use the same games. That's because those are the ones with some level of consumer recognition. Only freaks like us remember the other games. It's obvious that the decisions are all being made by marketers instead of designers. Hopefully they'll get the same result that Warner got.

 

And once again, when even the gaming geeks will buy the same shit time after time because "it's from Atari," why should they ever put any effort into giving us something more?

[foxglove9]

I would have rather seen Anthology released on the DS, but I kinda like the look of the modern interpretations of classic games. Very stylized and a bit odd.

 

But I don't own a DS yet, so it's a moot point.

[Lemmi]

the screen shots look like shit, its like playing games on the CD-i where everything is big , big numbers, big ships, everything looks rounded

 

its just crap, plain and simple

[n8littlefield]

Well, I'm still holding out hope, considering the touch screen could be involved, missle command especially could become interesting.

 

My DS is still on backorder - but it's likely that this will be a game I'll pick up.

[spacecadet]

Hate to say this, but I'll be buying it.  It still has the original versions, which will mean wireless multiplayer Warlords.  Even if you don't play the "upgraded" version, that's worth the price of the game, IMHO.

 

Where did you see it has the original games?

 

Try here.

 

It does have them.

 

To me that sounds exactly like the Flashback unit which was approximations of the originals running on Nintendo hardware.  

 

Well what the heck do you expect? It's a game running on the DS, it's not a self-contained piece of hardware. Of course these are going to be ports "running on Nintendo hardware" - the DS is Nintendo hardware! No Nintendo handheld classic compilation that I know of actually runs on emulation; they're all ports (I'm sure somebody now will come up with a compilation that proves me wrong, but 99% of them, at least, are ports).

 

Here is the real kick in the shorts.  They picked a terrible set of games for play on a Nintendo DS.  

 

Pong

Sprint

Tempest

Warlords

Breakout

 

The orinigals of all these used a rotary controller.  So I can guarantee they will be nothing at all like the originals.    A rotory controller gives you a direction and a velocity a D-Pad wll give you only direction.

 

Missle Command

Centipede

 

These 2 games were designed to use a trackball controller.   Which gives you 360 degrees of motion plus velocity.    Again the D-pad will reduce that to 8 directions at fixed velocity.    These games will not play like their originals that is impossible.  

 

 

Have you ever even seen or read about the DS? It uses a touch screen. I personally am pretty jazzed about being able to play these games with the touch screen - no, it's not exactly the same as a rotary controller or trackball, but it offers the same sort of quick, fine control that a rotary does and it also duplicates the functions of a trackball (just without the ball - you still make the same motions). This could be the first machine since the originals that really can do some of these games justice.

 

I'm not sure if they're going to use the touch screen for the originals, but whatever. I still think it's a pretty good deal - you get the original 10 games, you get 10 updated versions of the games, you can use the touch screen at least on the original and you get wireless multiplayer. How is this anything to complain about?

 

Some people here are really just way too hard to please.

[PongHit]

What game is this supposed to be based on?

 

I guess it's Space Duel or Asteroids.

 

-PongHit

[Atari-Jess]

Yes I also would like to point out that these games will be making

use of the DS' touch screen to give that analogue feel to the games.

 

Although I don't doubt there may be some sort of D pad love in here

somewhere.

 

I also recall hearing that the original versions of each game will be featured

on this card. I'm interested in the game, especially for tempest

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I'd sooner spend money on this than on the the Flashback. I finally saw one out of the box. What a cheap flimsy piece of garbage!

[ubersaurus]

That pic of Missile Command..... i hate it how can they say that is retro....  

"Each game plays exactly like its original" HUH? 3 mounds that shoot? 10 anti missiles going out.....    

 

I seem to recall arcade missile command having three bases to attack from

[+Random Terrain]

I wouldn't mind playing Missile Command if you can use the touch screen, but that's just too freakin' ugly. Are they color blind or just blind? If the original version is included, maybe it won't be so bad.

[Great Hierophant]

Pong

Sprint

Tempest

Warlords

Breakout

 

The orinigals of all these used a rotary controller. So I can guarantee they will be nothing at all like the originals. A rotory controller gives you a direction and a velocity a D-Pad wll give you only direction.

 

While all these games used knobs, I would not lump these games as using the same controller. Tempest and Sprint used an optical rotary controller with 360 degrees of movement. Pong, Warlords and Breakout used analog rotary controllers, with a limited twisting range of movement.