AVAILABLE AT: A local retailer near you.

Intro:

    Does the Atari 2600 ring a bell to you? Fond memories of playing Pong or Asteroids still fresh in your mind? It's back, and large and in charge on your TV, or say even your LCD screen. So today, I'll be looking at something that you may want. If you have some of that Christmas cash still around, you may want to venture out to a major department store and see if you can find one of these bad boys. The Atari TV Games 10 in 1...

The package:

    As you can see below a nice colorful package awaits. While hinting of the games your parents used to play, I'll proudly play this too. If I had kids I know we'd be fighting over it. With 10 old retro Atari 2600 Games, who wouldn't want a quick fix of yester year? Welcome back to a time when there was game play, not flashy graphics. As you can also see, a cat in the house always wants to be in the way... I just followed the flow this time. We'll make this one of those not so serious reviews... 8-)

 

(1) The front of the package.	(2) C'mon

 

(3) Geez...	(4) Ok, better! The back...

What's included:

    A rather large fold out instruction manual and registration card is included. (Picture 5) The manual covers all of the 10 games, and instructions on how to play them, and also the different variations. Included games are: Yar's Revenge, Circus Atari, Missile Command, Real Sports Volleyball, Adventure, Gravitar, Breakout, Centipede, Pong, and finally, Asteroids.

    Looking at this, if you know what the heck an Atari 2600 joystick looks or feels like, you are at home mostly. With the exception of course that the Joystick is much firmer and thicker now. Thicker? You bet! This has to house 4 AA batteries to work now. Also, the guts, or the emulator of the Atari 2600 has to fit in there. Which I'll look into a bit later...

 

(5) Manual and registration card	(6) Looks kind of Atari 2600 eh?

    You can see the two composite (RCA) jacks coming from the unit. Well, the yellow is the video, and the white is the sound. Simple enough huh? Ok, it's only mono sound, but that's how it was originally, now wasn't it?

 

(7) Buttons	(8) Batteries	(9) It's alive!

    After getting the batteries in, I quickly turned it on. Wow! Now that is a bright red LED! No wondering if that thing is on or off. I haven't logged more than 10 hours or so on this, so I really have no idea what battery life will be. I guess if you don't have rechargeable batteries around the house now, maybe it would be a good time to invest anyway.

Hooking it up and playing:

    Just hook your two jacks into a TV or VCR and turn on the "joystick." I have front AV jacks on the television. I always thought that was sort of silly, but when you think of having a video camera, or something that is as portable as this is, it really does save you from digging behind the TV. Especially if you probably have that wire mess like we all have behind our computers.

 

(10) Hooking it up	(11) Main menu

    Ok if you hadn't noticed, there is no pause feature, and it is pretty hard to play something while trying to take a picture with unsteady hands. But you get the idea. I've only included a couple pics of some games. You can search them out on the internet if you really want...

 

(12) Missile Command	(13) PONG! W00t!	(14) Centipede

So what's inside there anyway?:

    While I'm not sure what I was really expecting to see, after removing the joystick circuitry, I didn't really see anything but some well, circuitry. I was expecting to see some sort of big chip, or 'brain', but it was really uneventful. So now you don't have to take yours apart.

 

(A) The top removed	(B) Nothing to see here folks, move along...

Brief summary:

    Bringing back some nostalgia is enough for some. These games are dead on as good as they were years ago. The graphics by today's standards suck, but then again, it was all about game play. Something drastically overlooked in today's flashy graphical games. I'd recommend you check some of JAKKS stuff out if you are into this sort of thing.

 

Pros:

• Small, and inexpensive.

• Great fun if you don't mind very blocky graphics

• Portable.

• 9 foot cord that can easily reach your couch.

Cons:

• Somewhat heavy with 4AA batteries. (11.3 ounces to be exact)

• A little thick. You may get some hand strain from holding this.

• Maybe hard to find.

• Joystick is pretty tight, and may cause hand strain also.

• I would really have liked to see a cartridge based system, for easily adding other games.

• Ergonomics in the 80's? Well this is even worse.

 

"Great gaming brought portable for today."

Closing:

    Looking at the actual warranty card, we see a whole 90 day warranty. I guess that's ok. Because if I remember correctly, a couple of my joysticks went flying across the room. Hehe. It really is as fun, and as annoying, to play some of these old games. Looking around the web, there was another 10 in 1 games pack that came out in the Fall of 2001, but it had a PlayStation like controller, and was from Activision. With games like Pitfall and Barnstorming, you may want to look that up as well. I think the best part of this is portability. You can take this with you on a trip, or I'm sure you can find other quick and fun places to hook this up and play... Lastly, the new product page for this is right here.

Closed:

    I'm sure you can find some Atari emulator stuff online if you look around. My favorite game was "Subterranea" by a company called Imagic. Just so you know I guess... So have fun with whatever Atari 2600 stuff you may get into. Thanks for coming by!