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 | Atari Flashback Atari Flashback Atari  Are you feeling nostalgic for a simpler time in computer games, when things like "online multiplayer", "5.1 surround sound", "three-D graphics" and "representational artwork" were but alluring fantasies in the minds of science fiction nerds? Are you sick of responsive controls and straightforward gameplay? If so, Atari has your number; and that number is 'Atari Flashback'. The first surprise is that you don't need any sort of console: the 'Atari Flashback' is a stand-alone box that you plug straight into the TV and comes complete with two old-school analog joystick controls. The unit contains 20 built-in games from the Atari 7800 and 2600 systems, harking back to a time when games came in cartridge form, the moon was worshipped as a god and humans pursued majestic herds of mastodon across the frozen tundra. It's also tiny, unlike the clunky old boxes these games were originally played on, and it's surprising how long it takes to get used to using joysticks again after a couple of decades of pad controllers. Simple though these games are, some of them are deliciously addictive. For example, 'Breakout' takes the horizontal paddle play of 'Pong' and pits the player against a multicoloured wall that can only be smashed down brick by brick. A simple concept, but like 'Tetris' it's one of those "I'll just have one more go" games that you end up sitting in front of for hours on end. Ditto 'Centipede', which is essentially 'Galaga' except the player can also move in the vertical plane (and it's set in a garden rather than the void of space). However, most of the games err on the frustrating side of irksome: 'Asteroids' is just as you remember it but more annoyingly inexact, while the write-up for 'Adventure' would have you expecting to fight hand-to-claw against mighty dragons, rather than playing as a square that does pointy arrow battle against a rectangle. However, my pick for biggest gap between descriptive blurb and actual game is 'Crystal Castles', which explains that you're Bentley Bear, a fun-loving ursine whose lust for poached salmon indirectly leads to being trapped in a magical castle within which he must gather gems and avoid witches, rather than more accurate description of a game in which you play as a lump of something pursued by other things which you'll attempt to avoid, fail when the controls won't work, die repeatedly, howl with frustration and watch DVDs instead. The desire to do something else is kind of the definitive 'Atari Flashback' experience, actually. There are those who claim that the old games did more to encourage young imaginations since players had to commit in order to believe that the dollar sign they were piloting was really in danger of being asterisked by deadly semi-colons. They're wrong, of course; Rockstar Games can rest safe in the knowledge that The Kids are unlikely to abandon 'Grand Theft Auto' for 'Atari Flashback', but for those game players of a certain age, this is a suitably frustrating but occasionally enjoyable trip down memory lane.  | |
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