2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

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Teej
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby Teej » March 29th, 2018, 5:21 pm

Atariboy wrote:Atari Flashback Classics Volume 3 releases digitally and at retail later this week for PS4/XB1 (And I assume PC?). A Switch version potentially is in the works as well, although AtGames hasn't yet clarified their intentions there.

Here's the game lineup:

    Adventure II (2600)
    Air Raiders (2600)
    Aquaventure (2600)
    Armor Ambush (2600)
    Asteroids (5200)
    Astroblast (2600)
    Atari Baseball (Arcade)
    Atari Basketball (Arcade)
    Atari Football (Arcade)
    Atari Soccer (Arcade)
    Avalanche (Arcade)
    Canyon Bomber (Arcade)
    Centipede (5200)
    Countermeasure (5200)
    Dark Cavern (2600)
    Destroyer (Arcade)
    Dominos (Arcade)
    Final Legacy (5200)
    Fire Truck / Smokey Joe (Arcade)
    Frog Pond (2600)
    Frogs and Flies (2600)
    Holey Moley (2600)
    International Soccer (2600)
    Maze Invaders (Arcade)
    Micro-gammon (5200)
    Millipede (5200)
    Miniature Golf (5200)
    Missile Command (5200)
    Monte Carlo (Arcade)
    MotoRodeo (2600)
    Pool Shark (Arcade)
    Realsports Baseball (5200)
    Realsports Basketball (5200)
    Realsports Football (5200)
    Realsports Tennis (5200)
    Realsports Volleyball (5200)
    Saboteur (2600)
    Sea Battle 2600)
    Sky Diver (2600)
    Space Attack (2600)
    Star Raiders (5200)
    Star Strike (2600)
    Super Breakout (5200)
    Super Bug (Arcade)
    Super Challenge Baseball (2600)
    Super Challenge Football (2600)
    Sword Fight (2600)
    Wizard (2600)
    Xari Arena (5200)
    Yars' Return (2600)

Of the 13 arcade games featured here, 11 are b&w classics from the 1970's. The exceptions are Maze Invaders (A 1981 Atari arcade title that never was officially released) and 1980's Monte Carlo.

It also sees the addition of long last of another Atari console, but I feel it's especially nice to see Atari's black & white arcade heritage finally get some significant coverage in a compilation. Past the early vector games and a simulation of Pong, it has been almost completely ignored. The earlier pair of volumes from 2016 featured one of the Sprint games, which was the first b&w raster Atari arcade game to be emulated in a commercial compilation.

The lack of arcade Night Driver though seems like a big omission. And none of the tank games made the cut, although I'm unsure if any of those are microprocessor based and thus emulateable. But otherwise, I feel they did pretty good at covering this era of Atari's arcade history for the latter half of the 1970's, between the early discrete logic releases like Pong for the first 4-5 years or so of Atari's history and the shift to color in 1980.

And the non-licensed 5200 lineup is almost all here. Just missing the two Meebzork prototypes (Both are different, but fully playable) and the unfinished Tempest prototype that the original programmer successfully brought to completion 5 years ago or so. Would've been especially nice to see AtGames/Atari get his work secured to bring 5200 Tempest out in finished form in an official manner, and for Cafeman's excellent Adventure II homebrew to have been included for the 5200.

I understand why they shy away from random homebrews since they lack name recognition to help sell the collection, but Adventure fans would've gotten a kick out of discovering the unofficial 5200 sequel. It already has a sort of unofficial "official" status, since the name was used with Atari's permission a decade ago or so (And his maps were used for the basis of the 2600 counterpart created for the Flashback 2, which is included here).


Thanks for the update on the game list. Very interesting! But I'm not seeing it listed at any of the major retailers for release in the foreseeable future. Where did you see it was dropping this week?

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Atariboy
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby Atariboy » March 29th, 2018, 10:04 pm

The Playstation Store announced it was releasing this week, but they've since retracted it.

https://blog.us.playstation.com/2018/03 ... 3-27-2018/

The AtGames rep at AtariAge looked into it and says that AtGames is still aiming for a 4th quarter launch, so it will be a while yet (I wonder what made Sony jump the gun, why the trophy list appeared weeks ago, and the full game list was released this week if it's still months away?).

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/253262 ... ?p=3996157

It does explain why no retailers have it up for preorder though.

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Atariboy
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby Atariboy » March 13th, 2019, 10:38 pm

Volume 3 finally came out a while back after several false starts. I picked it up when I got a PS4 recently and wanted to give it some praise here.

The 2600 games are mostly lower tier affairs and the 5200 lineup is sadly weak with its focus on Atari's unlicensed catalog, but the arcade selection is top notch. These 1970's black & white games don't get the respect they deserve, but mostly are solid games that work well with the PS4 controls. And the two color games are also a ton of fun (Including surprisingly, the unreleased Maze Invaders that didn't see release back in the day after sub par location tests).

They even made the racing games with free spinning wheels work well here, which surprised me. As a fan of old arcade racers, I've spent more time playing Monte Carlo, Super Bug, and Firetruck than actual PS4 games so far.

In fact I currently hold the top spot for all 8 circuits in Monte Carlo on the PS4 leaderboards. :)
Last edited by Atariboy on March 14th, 2019, 6:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby VideoGameCritic » March 13th, 2019, 11:02 pm

I looked up Vol 3 on Amazon and it was $70. What gives?

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Atariboy
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby Atariboy » March 13th, 2019, 11:16 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:I looked up Vol 3 on Amazon and it was $70. What gives?


It's a 3rd party seller.

While it hopefully changes with the next production run of the game that's supposed to be happening, the original run was only stocked by GameStop. They still have both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 versions brand new at the original $19.99 msrp.

https://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/atar ... l-3/169930

https://www.gamestop.com/xbox-one/games ... l-3/169922

I suspect this one will be pretty rare, especially if that reprint that a AtGames rep said was planned doesn't happen. On the PS4 version, only around 450 people in the world have finished a race on track 1 in Monte Carlo for an example of the small numbers we're talking about.

Sonicx9
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby Sonicx9 » March 14th, 2019, 8:18 pm

Also all 3 Atari Flashback Classics are on Switch as 1 game instead.: https://www.gamestop.com/nintendo-switc ... tch/169919

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Atariboy
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby Atariboy » March 15th, 2019, 6:51 am

Sonicx9 wrote:Also all 3 Atari Flashback Classics are on Switch as 1 game instead.: https://www.gamestop.com/nintendo-switc ... tch/169919


The 150 game collection combining Atari Flashback Classics Volumes 1-3 is also on Vita. It's digital only, but is priced at a reasonable $20.

Going to download it to my PSTV one of these days. Especially if I ever see it discounted a bit.

goldenband
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby goldenband » March 16th, 2019, 1:52 pm

Atariboy wrote:As a fan of old arcade racers, I've spent more time playing Monte Carlo, Super Bug, and Firetruck than actual PS4 games so far.


Fire Truck!! That game is magnificent -- one of my favorite arcade games to play, especially with two people. Very simple, but very fun.

GameOfThrones
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby GameOfThrones » March 24th, 2019, 9:18 pm

just wait for them all as they are going to be the built in games on the new Atari VCS. It is arriving at Christmas and promises to be the best Atari ever.

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Atariboy
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Re: 2016/12/20: Playstation 4: Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1, Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 2

Postby Atariboy » March 25th, 2019, 6:32 am

GameOfThrones wrote:just wait for them all as they are going to be the built in games on the new Atari VCS. It is arriving at Christmas and promises to be the best Atari ever.


lol

Joking aside, I think it's just Atari Vault (Which later was split in half for consoles and sold as Atari Flashback Classics Volumes 1 and 2) that will be installed if this is ever released. Unless plans have been updated, Atari Flashback Classics Volume 3 won't be there.

The last 50 games that form volume 3 are also absent on PC, which is a shame for those that supported Atari SA back when Atari Vault was released three or four years ago (Which I recently picked up on disc for $10 at my local Wal-Mart, although it annoyingly has to be tied into Steam despite being a physical classic compilation).


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