Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration Reviews
An interactive history lesson, packaged with a multi-system retro collection, which makes for an interestingly nostalgic celebration.
Due to the fact some classic and amazing arcade games are missing from Atari 50 I can only award it the Thumb Culture Gold Award. Hopefully, some future deals can be achieved to help bring them to this title and make it the ultimate Atari compendium!
Atari 50 is... an anniversary celebration of the Atari brand and... is a must-own for retro enthusiasts, gaming historians, and anyone interested in learning about the video game industry’s infancy stages!
Your outlook on Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is going to depend on your perspective. As a historical document, it chronicles Atari as a company but still seems focused on the 2600 and old arcade stuff above all else. As a game compilation, it still feels lacking in the latter half of the company's game history, as some of the more interesting titles from the 7800 era onward aren't here; one can argue that the company's output at the time doesn't make the job any easier, though. There are certainly enough curios to keep existing owners of Atari Vault interested thanks to the presence of new titles here, but it could've used more curation to make it an item that's worth celebrating.
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, is easily the best retro compilation of games I have ever played. You’re taken on a journey through video game history. Which is not afraid to educate you on both the highs and lows of the company. It raises the bar for compilations being released in the future, it would be great to see this design repeated with other companies or game series. Allowing me to learn more about each game actually made me more interested in playing some of the games I initially wasn’t fond of. This is the museum exhibit experience brought home for you to enjoy alone or with friends at any time. Whether you love Atari or not, this is an essential purchase for anyone interested in gaming history. On a personal level, Atari 50 reminds me why I love video games and I never expected Atari of all companies to remind me of that in such a positive way.
To say that the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is jam packed with content is an understatement. Atari and Digital Eclipse really did a great job with this release and you can tell a lot of work went into making it. Despite some of the odd game choices and the inclusion of terrible Atari XE games this is a fantastic collection overall and should not be missed by anyone.
This is an extraordinary effort to preserve and cherish Atari's legacy and the history of early electronic game development in general. Despite some clunkers and a few omissions, this collection is required playing for any serious student of video games, or anyone ever moved by the magic of Atari.
Can you imagine a company like Nintendo being so open and honest as we see the participants in this project being? I somehow doubt it, as fascinating as a Nintendo equivalent of Atari 50 would surely be. So for now we’ll have to enjoy Atari 50 as a standout, exemplary title that shows everyone else how interactive video game history and preservation should be done. Perhaps one day some other big players in the space will be open to letting us into their archives in the same way.