Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1

"Essential gaming."

Before Atari threw it all away by letting any idiot put out a game on their venerable 2600 console, they produced some of the finest arcade games ever, and this compilation highlights six of their biggest accomplishments of the late 70s and early 80s. The lineup for Arcade’s Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 is truly outstanding: Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout, and Tempest are on one disc, in their original arcade forms. Along with the games themselves, Midway included the histories behind them and Atari itself, which is a great bonus. These games are as fun today as they were when they first came on the scene, because they’re absolutely loaded where it really counts--gameplay.

As was the case with the first Arcade’s Greatest Hits package, Digital Eclipse has handled the emulations for these games, and they’ve once again done a fantastic job. The graphics, sounds, and bugs from the original software are all present and accounted for here. The one glaring problem that Digital Eclipse had no chance of getting around is the control for this collection, and that’s the only disappointment. All of these games have different needs as far as controllers: Centipede and Missile Command need a trackball; Super Breakout needs a paddle, Tempest needs a dial; Battlezone needs two joysticks. The PSX controller, as good as it is, can’t faithfully reproduce the feel of these games. Still, the programmers have tried to compensate by giving you the option of adjusting the speed and sensitivity of the controls for some games, and that helps some. They’ve also made some games compatible with the PSX mouse, which is great if you’ve got one.

The options for each game are now handled through the compilation’s menus, as opposed to either dipswitches (Namco Museums) or in-game menu screens (the first Arcade’s Greatest Hits). This a great convenience, but it would have been nice to see exactly how the game options were handled originally. All of the original options are available, though, so it’s not too big a deal. High scores and game settings can be saved on a memory card, but I did have a problem with saving Tempest’s options, which always reset to default settings whenever I started it up. I’m not sure what was up with that.

Arcade’s Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 features background information similar to the Williams package, but the presentation has been greatly improved this time out. All of the histories are read by a narrator, and interviews with the original programmers are shown at the appropriate times, without having to call up any menus. While the narrator is speaking, various pictures of Atari memorabilia and game cabinets are shown on the screen. It’s neat stuff, but they don’t seem to come up in any particular order, and it would have been great to see them separate from the presentation. Anyway, the histories focus on the evolution of the games, and there’s plenty of info on the various bugs, secrets, and trivia surrounding them. The disc breaks down the presentation by each game (there’s a general Atari history in lieu of one on Super Breakout), and there are different sections within each history that you can skip to. It’s really well thought-out and put together, just like the games themselves:

Asteroids
This is one of three games on the disc that used vector graphic monitors, which produced higher resolution than regular ones. It’s a pity you can’t see any difference on a TV, but it doesn’t affect the addictive nature of the game. Your ship is stranded out in the middle of space, surrounded by asteroids that must be shot into smaller pieces until they’re dust. Complicating matters are UFOs that will shoot back (you’ve got to hate that little one). It’s a simple setup, and it features an equally simple control scheme: rotate, thrust, fire, and hyperspace. If there’s anything I don’t like about this game, it’s that using hyperspace tends to get me killed more often than not. Other than that, this game is still a lot of fun.

Battlezone
I never played this game in the arcade, but it wasn’t because I thought it uninteresting. The version of Battlezone in my local arcade was the one with the fancy periscope view-piece, and I was just too short to use it. I was really glad to get another chance at this one, and I probably have spent more time on this game than any other in the collection. This is a first-person game of tank combat, and your objective is to destroy enemy tanks, UFOs, and homing missiles. There’s a lot of geometric obstacles littered around the field, so getting used to the movement of your tank, controlled by using the d-pad for the left tread and the action buttons for the right, is critical to making anything go your way. Fortunately, it doesn’t take too long to get the hang of it. The UFOs are the only ones who don’t shoot at you, but they do try to lead you into the path of enemy tank fire, which means you can’t just go hunting them without watching your back. Battlezone, with some of the best 3D vector graphics you’ll ever see, is a definite classic.

Centipede
I really would have loved a trackball for this game, but as it stands, this is a great shoot-em-up that hasn’t lost anything. You’re stuck at the bottom area of the screen, while a centipede trickles down from the top of the screen, dropping and changing directions each time it collides with a mushroom. Shooting the centipede can cause it to split into different parts that will attack separately, making matters worse. Other enemies such as spiders and fleas add to your problems. This game has the most recognizable sound effects on the disc for me, specifically those of the spider scuttling across the screen and of the mushrooms regenerating. It’s hard to believe that the game was originally designed with mushrooms you couldn’t destroy, which would have totally blown all the strategy out of the game, as there are several different tactics for using the mushrooms for herding and hunting enemies. A great variety of enemies to shoot and a constantly changing playfield keep this game interesting.

Missile Command
I missed that trackball with this game more than with Centipede, probably because you’re in charge of covering the entire screen in Missile Command and not just the bottom area. The Russians are dropping missiles and bombs down on U.S. cities (it was the Cold War era remember), and it’s your job to take them out in the air with your own missiles, fired from three bases on the ground. The game’s over, and the world’s history, when you run out of cities to protect. This game has the most frantic pace of any in Arcade’s Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1, and the challenge factor is very high. Nobody said defending the free world would be easy.

Super Breakout
This may be the least of the games in the collection, and there’s no background information on Super Breakout on the disc. This is basically a deluxe version of the original ball and brick game, with three variations to choose from. This game is pretty hard no matter which of the three you select, partially because of the control, but the game is designed to be tough. The paddle will shrink considerably after a while, which makes is tough to track down that ever speedier ball. This is still a worthy classic, but I may have played a bit too much Arkanoid to go back to it.

Tempest
This game has always had a certain mystique for me, and I’m glad it’s available here. This is a shoot-em-up of sorts, where the enemies are coming towards you from the opposite end of 3D “webs.” You have to shoot them before they shoot, touch, or electrocute you, and you’re also given one Superzapper, a smart bomb, that will clear all the enemies presently on the web. Tempest sports a large variety of enemies and 16 different playfield webs; you can also select from several levels where you want to begin playing, in case you want to throw yourself right into the fire. The color vector graphics are top notch, and the sound effects bring back lots of memories. This quarter muncher was quite unique and difficult when it was released, and it still is. It’s also still a whole lot of fun to play.

When trying to decide on the best arcade classics collection for the PSX, this gives Namco Museum Volume 1 a serious challenge, but the control is the tie-breaker for me. Despite my misgivings there, this is a terrific compilation, filled with games that have stood the test of time, and Midway has presented them wonderfully. It’s a great purchase.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/12/00, Updated 09/12/00