If you were playing videogames in the early 80's, chances are you were playing on the Atari 2600. The 2600 was the console that introduced many a young person to the joy of videogames that were affordable, and for the time, pretty amazing to behold. While the Atari company may have tanked a few years later, there's still plenty of gold to be dug from the Atari 2600 mines as nostalgic gamers hunt for used consoles at auction sites while others download Atari emulators for their PC's.
Attempting to capitalize on the rising tide of gaming nostalgia, Jakks Pacific has put together the Atari 10-in-1 TV Games system, which crams 10 classic Atari 2600 games into a unit that more than resembles the well known Atari 2600 joystick controller. The 10-in-1 unit is completely self contained, there's 10 games built into it, along with a game system to run them. If you miss your old 2600, there's plenty of fun to be had with Atari 10-in-1 TV Games system.
The System
As I've said, the 10-in-1 is a completely self contained system crammed into a perfect copy of the 2600 joystick controller. The control buttons are placed on the back side of the controller, which allows you to reset, select, change difficulty and power the unit on/off with ease. The system itself is powered by 4AA alkaline batteries that are loaded into the bottom of the controller, requiring a screwdriver to open the battery door.
To system has two RCA output cables to connect it to your television. If you don't have an open set of RCA jacks on your TV, you'll need to free some up if you want to use the 10-in-1.
Once you're plugged in, you just turn on your 10-in-1 unit and select a game from the menu by moving the joystick to the appropriate icon. Hit the Fire button and the game begins. From here on out, it's the same as playing games on the old Atari console. Get ready for a fantastic journey back in time.
The Games
The Atari 10-in-1 TV Games system comes loaded with the following titles:
-
Gravitar
-
Asteroids
-
Real Sports Volleyball
-
Centipede
-
Adventure
-
Pong
-
Missile Command
-
Breakout
-
Yars' Revenge
-
Circus Atari
All the included titles play exactly as they did on the 2600 console, right down to the chunky graphics and 8-bit color. Only one game had any problems while I was playing, and that was Yars' Revenge. For some reason, your character (the Yar) gets stuck on the edge of the screen every now and again, and the only way to unstick him is to get killed or restart the game. While I'm on the subject of Yar's Revenge, I never realized how easy this game really was until I playing it as an adult. As a kid, that game was absolute murder, as an adult, I had to change games after playing it for an hour straight without losing a life. Thankfully, the 10-in-1 offers several modified versions of each game so you can play much more difficult versions of each title.
The Sound
Remember that terrible mono sound that came from your 2600 console ? That's exactly what you get here, no digital remastering or even stereo sound, but what did you expect for $25 ?
Overall
If you're jonesing for some retro-gaming, the Atari 10-in-1 TV Games system is just the ticket. I've already sunk several hours into it, with many more to come. The unit itself is cool enough to just have sitting on a shelf in your gameroom as a conversation piece. After all, doesn't everyone recognize the ergonomically-incorrect Atari 2600 controller ?
If you've got $25 burning a hole in your pocket, and you want to enjoy some of the most basic video games of your youth, the 10-in-1 is worth buying. Younger gamers won't understand what you see in the simplistic graphics and minimal gameplay, but you'll have a hard time wiping the giant grin off your face as you defend your cities from swarms of nuclear warheads dropping from the heavens.
