Atari VCS (AKA Atari
2600) circa 1978
These devices had an embedded processor, a rudimentary
operating system, and enough hardware to interface
with the family television set and a couple of game
controllers, all oriented around displaying simple
graphics for playing simple games. The classic
example would be Atari’s own "Pong," a game where two
players used rectangular paddles to send a square ball
back and forth until one missed it. It could be
because of the memories of families gathered around
the television set that such games conjure up.
It could be the simple game-play and simple graphics.
Whatever the reason, "retro-gamers" continue to clamor
for their old favorites, ported to their new machines.
Mobile Digital Media (AKA Mobile Wizardry) and Atari
have obliged with "Atari Retro," a collection of their
early games that run on both Pocket PC and Palm OS
platforms.
Atari Retro has all of
WHAT’S HOT
the quintessential Atari games including Breakout,
Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Yar’s Revenge,
Adventure, and, of course, Pong. Atari Retro is
really an Atari 2600 emulator in a games package.
Internally, the program uses the same code that ran on
the Atari 2600 years ago. Because of that, all of these
games are faithfully rendered in their original
graphics and with their original game-play.
The games come in two forms: You can get an
installation CD-ROM which will install the games onto
your Pocket PC or you can get them on an auto-start
Multi-Media Card. The second option means the
games will take up no storage space on your Pocket PC. It also means the Launch Screen will appear
automatically after you insert the card.
PROGRAM FEATURES
Atari Retro begins with a "Launch Screen" that lists all of
the available games:
Tapping on any of the game titles will start that
game. You can also click on the "Menu" button to
select a game or to quit the Atari Retro Launch
Screen. The "About" button displays version and
build information as well as contact and web site
information.
Every
one of the games begins with a brief display about the Controls:
Each
one of the games uses the directional pad and action button for game-play.
There is no way, other than reassigning the action and direction functions
to other hardware buttons, to use different hardware buttons.
In order to emulate the Atari 2600 game controller as exactly as possible,
each game also has on-screen "Select" and "Reset"
button. There is no way to assign these buttons to hardware buttons.
Tapping "OK" on the controls screen brings up the individual game screen:
Asteroids game screen
with the menu showing
At the top of the game screen is a button to return to the Launch Screen
(obscured by the menu above) and a button to start the game. At
the bottom are buttons to call up a game menu, mute the sound effects,
and select the difficulty of the game. Those options are duplicated
in the menu along with additional options to call up the Help screen
and to Exit Atari Retro entirely.
Selecting "Help" displays a screen which gives the background
story for the game and explains game-play:
Breakout Help screen
Tapping "OK"
from the Help screen will display the Controls screen we saw before.
Tapping "OK" from that screen returns to the game screen.
Tapping "Start Game" from the game screen switches to the game-playing screen:
Asteroids game-playing
screen
On
every one of the game-playing screens, the bottom
panel has a Menu button, which gives you one way to
access to the "Select" and "Reset" functions. It
also has an option to return to the game screen.
To the right are the on-screen Select and Reset
buttons. The Reset button will re-start the
game. The Select button will cycle through
variations on game-play such as number of lives,
number of obstacles, etc.
Here are the game-playing
screens from the other games in Atari Retro:
Breakout game-playing
screen
Centipede game-playing
screen
Missile Command
game-playing screen
Yar’s Revenge
game-playing screen
Adventure game-playing
screen
Pong game-playing screen
As
you can see from the game-playing screens, none of the
graphics have been "prettied up" in any way from the
original games. The game-play and graphics are
exactly as they were back in ’78.
Each of the the games has
HELP SUPPORT
a built-in help file that gives the background story
for the game and explains the directional pad use.
The directional pad help also appears when you start
each game. There is also a brief manual, that
comes in the game packaging, that shows how to insert
the card and start the main menu.
Atari Retro runs on any
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Pocket PC 2002 or Windows Mobile 2003 (including
Second Edition) machine. Because it is stored on
a Multi-media card Atari Retro uses no storage space
and does not require any installation. It uses
890KB of Program RAM while running.
BUGS AND WISHES
There were no bugs or errors in the programming that I
could find in my testing. As always, I have a
few wishes:
First and foremost, I would have liked a way to change the
default button settings. I tend to be more sensitive to
this issue because the touchpad on the HP hx4700 iPAQ
really rots for game-play. I would have liked to
used other buttons or even the stylus for playing.
Second, I would have liked to see updated versions of the
games that take better advantage of the Pocket PC’s
graphics and processor power. It would be best
to have these games side-by-side with their ancestors
to satisfy both the retro-gamers and those with more
contemporary tastes.
PURCHASING
Atari Retro is available from the pocketnow Store for
$29.99. It comes in either
the MMC card version or the
downloadable installation version. There is
a
downloadable time-limited trial version as well.
PROS
- Provides
faithful reproductions of the original games - Single
Launch screen provides access to all games
Auto-launch feature starts the program on card
insertion
CONS
- Does not
go beyond the original graphics - Does not
allow saved games or high scores storage - Is a bit
over-priced due to Atari licensing fees
As you can see from the
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
screen captures, Atari Retro faithfully recreates the
graphics and game play of their inceptual hits.
If you are looking for games that make the most of the
Pocket PC’s graphics capabilities and processing
power, look elsewhere. The graphics are blocky
and use a very limited pallet for colors. On the
other hand, if you’re looking for faithful
reproductions of the games of yester-year, this one
offers a full suite of the best-known.
It is also unfortunate that the games cost $30 for the set. I’m sure this is due to the licensing fees that Atari
charges, but it also prices the program at the high
end of most peoples games budgets.
Taking that all into account, I wouldn’t recommend Atari
Retro for any but the truly hard-core retro-gamers.
All screenshots in this
review are taken using
SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro
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