03-15-2004, 06:30 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 468
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Atari Retro Brings Back Memories
Product Category: Game
Manufacturer: MDM
Where to Buy: SD Card version or Downloadable version (Both are affiliate links.)
Price: $29.99 USD
System Requirements:
- SD Card version: Windows Mobile-Based Pocket PC 2002 or higher with SD/MMC expansion slot
- Downloadable version: Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC devices: Audiovox Maestro PDA1032, Audiovox Thera, Casio E-200, Dell Axim X5, Fujitsu Siemens Pocket Loox, HP iPAQ h1910/h1920, HP iPAQ h1930/h1940/h1945, HP iPAQ h2210/h2215, HP iPAQ h3800 Series, HP iPAQ h3900 Series, HP iPAQ h4150/h4155, HP iPAQ h4350/h4355, HP iPAQ h5100/h5400/h5500, HP iPAQ h5450/h5455, NEC MobilePro P300, O2 xda, Samsung SPH-i700, Siemens SX56, T-Mobile Phone Edition, Toshiba 2032, Toshiba e310, Toshiba e330 Series, Toshiba e350 Series, Toshiba e550 Series, Toshiba e570, Toshiba e740, Toshiba e750 Series, Toshiba Genio-e, ViewSonic Pocket PC V35, ViewSonic Pocket PC V36, ViewSonic Pocket PC V37, Zayo
- Memory required: 600KB
- The games are also available for Palm and N-Gage devices.
Pros:
- Excellent emulation of the original games;
- These old games are still fun!
Cons:
- With the SD-card version, you must have the SD card to play the game; you cannot copy it into main memory;
- The sound is awful, although I understand why;
- The D-Pad and small screen make playing the games more difficult than the originals.
Summary:
Are you old enough to remember the Golden Age of videogames? I mean the first Golden Age; before Sega, before Nintendo, and way before Sony or Microsoft. I mean the Age of Atari. If you remember the simple game play, lousy graphics and sound, but having a great time playing those old games, then MDM has something for you!
MDM's Atari Retro contains seven original Atari videogames that you can play on your Pocket PC.
Read on for the full review!
Remember when?
Think back to the late '70s. Pong had been available in home versions for a few years, but it was time to take the next big leap forward in home videogames. Actually, it was the first really big leap. A videogame console that could play many games, each available on a cartridge that you plugged into it. Enter the Atari VCS (Video Computer System), later called the Atari 2600. Videogaming would never again be the same. Sure there were other systems around the same time. Some, like Mattel's Intellivision, had superior graphics and sound. But none sold as well as the Atari, and none had anywhere near as many games available for it. Why did the Atari do so well? The gameplay. It was all about the gameplay. In simple terms, the Atari games were fun! Despite the simple graphics and lousy sound, the plain truth was that they were fun.
And they still are! Not everyone is a classic videogame nut like I am. I currently have somewhere around five or six Atari 2600 consoles, about that many Intellivision consoles, and several hundred cartridges. But now you don't have to be a nut to enjoy some of the old games. Various emulations and ports have been available for some time now and recently, MDM has gotten into the act with Atari Retro, a collection of Atari games that you can play on your Pocket PC.
Figure 1: This is what you used to have to have to play these seven games (plus a TV).
Figure 2: This DVD-style case contains everything you need now (plus a Pocket PC).
Contents and Packaging
MDM decided to ship Atar Retro on an SD card only. While this does harken back to the old days of buying a cartridge, it presents some issues. First of all, only Pocket PCs with an SD card slot can play the game, eliminating a lot of models out there. Secondly, because of the copy protection embedded in the games, you must have the SD card inserted to play the game; you cannot copy them to your main memory. This means one more thing to carry around with you.
Update: MDM has just recently released a downloadable version of the game, which negates the need for the SD card and an SD-card-capable Pocket PC. Thank goodness!
If you purchase the SD-version of Atari Retro, it comes in a DVD-style case, which is great since it allows you to store it with your DVDs or Playstation 2 or Xbox games. Inside the case is very little -- literally! Inside is a smaller SD-card holder, which is really nice in that it will hold the Atari Retro SD and three others as well.
Figure 3: The SD card in its holder, which can also store three other cards.
Fire it Up!
To start the fun, simply insert the Atari Retro card into the SD slot on your Pocket PC. On most models, the game should automatically start. (If it doesn't, you can always start it manually after inserting the card). The first screen you see is the start up screen which allows you to select the game you wish to play or view a screen showing you how to control the games.
Figure 4: The start-up screen.
Figure 5: The game controls screen.
You have a choice of seven popular Atari games. They are:
- Adventure;
- Asteroids;
- Breakout;
- Centipede;
- Missile Command;
- Yar's Revenge.
These popular games were all released by Atari way back when. If MDM ever releases a sequel, I'd love to see some of the great games from Activision or Imagic. (Remember Pitfall!? It was one of the best...) You simply tap on one of the games to play it.
Once you select a game, you're not quite ready to play. First you see a game intro screen and, once you tap on that, a playing notes screen that provides some basic instructions for the game. From that screen, you can start the game itself.
Figure 6: The game intro screen for Breakout.
Figure 7: The playing notes screen for Adventure.
The Gameplay!
And finally, the part everyone wants to know. How well do the games play? Well, they're an emulation, not a port. That means that they're essentially exactly like the originals. At least in theory. In practice, they're pretty close. The graphics are identical to the originals. In Adventure, the dragons still look like ducks! Pong is still two rectangles batting a square back and forth. And the speed (framerate) of the games was fine, too. (It does seem odd to be talking framerates when discussing these old games!)
Figure 8: In Adventure, the dragons still look like ducks.
In a nutshell, they were as fun as the originals. But that's not to say they were perfect. In fact, I found two issues that detracted from the overall experience.
The first problem was the sound. Now, the sound on the old Atari was never great; certainly the Pocket PC has far superior sound capabilities than could have even been imagined back in the '70s. However, Atari Retro does not make use of them. In fact, the sound isn't even up to the standards of the '70s! All of the games original sounds have been replaced by cheesy little blips and beeps. Put simply, they're awful.
Figure 9: Asteroids -- Shoot the asteroids to destroy them, but don't let them hit you!
At first I was bewildered that MDM would take games with decent, albeit dated, sounds and when putting them on a device with great sound, instead opt for the worst game sounds I've heard since my old Mattel Football handheld! But after giving it some thought, I think I know why they did it. As I mentioned earlier, these games are all emulated, not ported. To most people that's a subtle difference, but it's important. With emulation, the original game code is running as is the emulation software. So the games cannot be very easily optimized for the Pocket PC platform as a ported game could. The sacrifice in optimization is made up for in authentic gameplay. But from a processing standpoint, emulation is expensive, and there's only so much processing power available on a Pocket PC. Therefore, my guess is that they decided not to emulate the original sounds in order to improve performance in the other areas. It's unfortunate, but in the end I think they made the right decision. Gameplay -- speed and graphics -- are more important than the sound.
Figure 10: Missile Command -- Protect your cities from swarms of falling missiles!
The second issue I found was not an issue of Atari Retro, but of the Pocket PC itself. Unfortunately, the D-pad on the Pocket PC is no match for an Atari joystick. It's harder to control the games on the D-pad. Not impossibly difficult, but harder. And the graphics on the small screen are tough to see with my old eyes, especially compared to playing the games on a television set.
But those are minor quibbles. Overall, the games are excellent and faithful reproductions of the originals.
Figure 11: Pong -- Play "tennis" against the computer.
The Ultimate Test
I wanted to see just how good the emulation of these games really is, so I decided to test a hidden feature in Adventure, long one of my all-time favorite games. The goal in Adventure is to maneuver through castles and mazes, avoiding or killing the dragons, and ultimately to bring the chalice to the gold castle. Along the way you can collect various objects that will help you, like the sword (to kill dragons), the keys to the three castles, the magnet (draws other objects towards it) and the bridge (allows you to pass through some walls).
Well, as the diehard fans will remember, there is a secret object. A tiny dot is hidden in the maze inside the black castle. You need the bridge to find it, but once you have it, if you take it to the "hallway" room below and to the right of the gold castle, the wall on the right side of the room disappears and you can enter the secret room. Inside the room you'll find one of the earliest examples of an "Easter egg" hidden in a game; in this case a message from the game's programmer that says "Created by Warren Robinette".
If the Atari Retro version has the easter egg, I'd call it nearly perfect. I found the dot, right were it should be, although it wasn't easy. On a TV with the original it was hard to see, and on the small Pocket PC screen it was all but invisible. But it was there, and when I brought it into the right room, what did I see?
Figure 12: The secret room in Adventure.
It was there! Just as it is in the original. Atari Retro passes the test.
Conclusions
If you're a classic videogame nut -- like me -- or not, you'll enjoy these great reproductions of classic Atari games. The gameplay and simple fun more than makes up for the relatively simple graphics and sound. For the old folks like me, playing them will bring back some fantastic memories.
Figure 13: Yar's Revenge -- Hard to explain this one, but it sure is fun to play!
Figure 14: Breakout -- Knock down the bricks in this popular Pong successor.
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03-15-2004, 06:45 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 8
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I think somebody forgot to only post the summary on the front page.  ops:
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03-15-2004, 06:56 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 354
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I actually got this in MMC format for FREE when I registered at some site in October last year. I have to say don't waste your money. While it seems cool at the onset the games are so old and out dated that there really wasn't any fun for me anyways.
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03-15-2004, 07:10 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 119
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If you're going to pay for emulation, the emulation should be perfect, or darned close, and unfortunately, that's where the Atari Retro Pack faulters. You won't recognize the sounds, because theyr'e not emulated correctly, and the visuals are condensed causing some minor graphic differences between the original game. Take Yars revenge for example, you can barely make out your projectiles because of scaling the game screen to fit a portrait display rather than being presented in landscape, and the sound effects of the Kotile turning into a spiral and launching out at you isn't accurate at all.
It's details like this which bring about true nostalgia, when all of your senses are appeased and teased the way they were over 20 years ago on a real atari 2600.
MDM's Atari Retro Pack is a noble effort at bringing more franchise games to PDAs, it's only downfall is it's lack of accurate emulation, which may be to blame on making the engine compatible with so many devices. Perhaps sticking to one OS for this compilation would have yielded far more accurate emulation with the games on hand, akin to the quality compilations programmed by Larry Banks for MS and Capcom using his HiveCE engine.
x999x
Game Industry Lurker
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03-15-2004, 07:11 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dominator
I think somebody forgot to only post the summary on the front page. ops: |
Should be better now. 
--janak
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03-15-2004, 07:12 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13
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I, too received the free MMC version of the game. And although it is fun to play (and finally gives me something to carry in those little slots on my aluminum case(, I would say you are better off with an emulator like VCS, which plays hundreds of games.
Still I enjoy it - and the smiles from my friends who remember growing up in the atari age.
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03-15-2004, 07:12 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 256
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Is the price $29.95 or $2.95 ? Surely some mistake ?
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03-15-2004, 07:16 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 2,386
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My quibble is more of a personal one. For games such as Missile Command and Asteroids, I'd rather have an emulation of the actual arcade version of which the Atari game was based off of... not an emulation of an emulation.
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03-15-2004, 07:29 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 468
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by dommasters
Is the price $29.95 or $2.95 ? Surely some mistake ?
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The correct price is $29.95. It was a typo on my part.
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03-15-2004, 07:30 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 468
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by PPCMD
I actually got this in MMC format for FREE when I registered at some site in October last year. I have to say don't waste your money. While it seems cool at the onset the games are so old and out dated that there really wasn't any fun for me anyways.
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I guess that's where you and I would disagree, then. While the games are old and out-dated technically, they are still a lot of fun, in my opinion.
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Linear Mode
