Arcades Greatest Hits The Atari Collection 2

I've always been a big proponent of collecting collections. After all, you get several games on one disc, usually for a very reasonable price. The Atari Collection 2 is one of the better ones out there. All the games were fairly popular in their times: Crystal Castles, Marble Madness, RoadBlasters, Gauntlet, Paperboy and Millipede. I liked all of these games when was a kid (except I never was a big Paperboy fan--maybe because I was never good at it). Playing these today give me that warm and fuzzy nostalgic feeling. Thankfully, Midway and Digital Eclipse were kind enough to support every peripheral you'd ever need for these six games. You can use the mouse, the Dual Analog, neGcon and even steering wheels with pedals. Best of all, you can use the multitap to play four-player Gauntlet, my favorite game in the bunch. If only more companies were willing to provide this kind of support. All of these games play just as good as the originals, assuming you can deal with not having a rollerball for the rollerball games. Warning: If you're too young to remember these classics, then you probably won't like this compilation. These games aren't terribly fun nowadays. They're strictly there for us old-timers' sake. Otherwise, assuming you liked these games like I once did, pick this compilation up!

This collection looks good on paper--until you sit down and play these classics that at one time seemed so amazing in the arcade. RoadBlasters and Crystal Castles are OK, but they're not exactly timeless. Control is another problem. Although there's support for analog and mouse setups, nothing beats using a trackball for Marble Madness and Millipede. And half of Paperboy's fun in the arcade was using those fancy handlebars.

This is a pretty solid compilation pack. But really, none of the games still appeal to me aside from Millipede and especially Gauntlet. (I and the other Review Crewers had a good time with it.) it was also good to see Marble Madness again, but I found that not having the trackball ruins it for me. Basically, if you like what's in the pack, get it. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more extras included like Namco's compilations.

What can I say, classic games hold a special place in my heart, and these six are definitely oldies but goodies. The game selection offers a good mix of action, adventure, shooting, driving and puzzle titles, and each game looks and sounds exactly like the coin-op originals. For me, Paperboy is worth the price of admission alone, but great games like Gauntlet and Millipede make it all the more worthwhile as well.