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■ Atari
When I first talked about the Atari Gamestation Go earlier this week, I thought Atari was producing these devices and had absolutely no interests in it. Why would you buy this product just strictly for old Atari games? It just didn’t make any sense to get this one-trick pony. As it turns out, that Gamestation Go is part of a much bigger Gamestation ecosystem created by My Arcade.

As the Weekend Gamer, of course, I love and recognize Atari and how important they are to the video gaming industry. However, many of their games were really before my time. I started playing games in the arcades in the ‘90s, so I prefer arcade-quality graphics, speed, and sound. Knowing that I will never really play the 100 games included in the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (2022) collection… I just patiently waited for a sale.

Originally released at a full $60 price tag, it quietly dropped to $40 in 2024… but it was still too expensive for me. It went on sale for $22 on Steam Summer Sale in 2025, but I still waited for a better price. Then, a few days ago, during the Summer Gaming sale, I guess out of sheer boredom of browsing for game sale, I included the Atari 50 (for $16) in my checkout cart with a few other games. Sure, why not?

Like I said, I really had no intention of playing all 100 games, maybe just a few I like. For example, I couldn’t resist and launched Tempest 2000 to see how much it’s changed from the original Tempest game. The controls were terrible because I didn’t have a spinner, and I felt it was way too fast.

Anyway, so the Atari 50 is a little more than a video game collection. It is laid out like a timeline and museum, documenting Atari’s rise (and fall). You explore the time line and read various news clipping or if they had video, you can watch news clips. The best part are the original interviews with the Atari game developers, like Tod Frye, the creator of Swordquest and coded Pac-Man for Atari 2600 (he got 10 cents for every cartridge they sold and became a millionaire).

Speaking of Swordquest, there were four games planned (Earthworld, Fireworld, Waterworld, and Airworld), but during the video game crash of 1983 (this is well documented – and you can watch the video on Atari 50), Airworld was never completed. As part of the 50th Anniversary, the developer Digital Eclipse released a “Reimagined” version of Airworld in 2022, so fans who waited nearly 40 years for the game can finally experience the final game in all of its pixelized glory.

Out of curiosity, I did play the game for five minutes… wow, man, the graphics are … of their time. Very blocky, and crude animation. That’s the technology they had to work with. Also, the game looks complicated, with no directions or hints. You really need to read the manual and instruction booklet for this game.

I love the time line, I love the historical documentations, I think they did a great job in presenting these classic Atari Games to fans (old and new)… but, again, the games were all ancient and it’s very hard for me to play. It just seems so primitive.

The collection, sadly, is not complete. Unfortunately, Atari did not have some rights to some games, such as Marble Madness, so they could not include them on the time line. Popular games like Star Wars and Alien vs Predator had license attached to Disney and Fox, so those weren’t included either. Some games, Atari didn’t have the emulator to run, so those games were left off the list.

Despite the original collection costing $60, you can buy additional DLC (downloadable content), which adds 19 additional games under The Wider World of Atari and another additional 19 games under The First Console War. The best DLC yet, The Namco Legendary Pack was released last year and includes some of your favorite Bandai Namco games such as Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Galaga, and Xevious. Yeah, sure, I have all these Namco games in some form or another, but I’m more interested in the documentation/videos/interviews for this Namco collaboration. I will skip the first two DLC and will likely pick up the Namco DLC as soon as it’s on sale and available on GOG.

P.S. I bought the game on GOG, and reading the comments and feedback, frustrated fans are saying that DLC doesn’t work because GOG’s version is 1.04 and the DLC are coded for version 1.05. I don’t know if they fixed the problem, I only read the negative feedback. I’m glad I didn’t buy any DLC… and maybe it’s just better to wait until I read positive feedback.