The volume record in terms of ‘gambling for money’ is set by Atari Anthology effortlessly: a whopping 85 titles jostle on the DVD. Of these, 18 are true to the original emulated machines, the rest of the field is recruited from module oldies for the legendary Atari VCS 2600.
According to the name, only games are included that were actually created by Atari itself and whose rights are held by the reincarnated industry giant – ergo there are neither Activision titles (they were two years ago on their own PS2 collection) nor implementations of well-known templates such as Moon Patrol, Ms. Pac-Man or Vanguard. Even in their own archive, there was extensive but not complete poaching: Unfortunately, you miss the retro table football, for example Pele’s Soccer.
In addition to the consistently well emulated games (in the case of machines there are even parts of the housing and background painting included), you can browse through scanned instructions and packaging images in an unfriendly extra section or watch an interview with Atari legend Nolan Bushnell.
A handful of alternative graphics and game modes, some of which you only unlock through high scores, provide additional variety: With the ‘Trippy’ function you activate a kind of drug intoxication filter, professionals dare to work at twice the speed or use the ‘Time Warp ‘ with fluctuating game speed. Hectic fans, on the other hand, will enjoy the ‘Hot Seat’, which switches between different titles every few seconds.
