Atari and their consoles and computers were highly influential in the early days of video games, especially in the United States. For me, the heyday of the company was a little bit before my time, but I still respect and admire what the company did for the industry as a whole. It’s crazy to think that it’s been over 50 years since Atari has been in business, and what an anniversary to bring out a release like Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. Let’s take a look at the game and the DLC.
Release
As many of you are well aware, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration was released on November 11, 2022 in North America, Europe and Australia. It did eventually make its way to Japan a bit later on August 31, 2023, which was around the time I picked up the game. The DLC was quite a bit better about this, launching day and date or at least within a few days of the release in English speaking territories. For myself, the DLC is what got me back into the game and it (and the base game) did not disappoint.
Base Game
The base game comes with quite a bit in terms of both games and interactive content. These are divided up into the following categories.
- Arcade Origins
- Birth of a Console
- Highs and Lows
- The Dawn of PCs
- The 1990s and Beyond
If you’re a fan of retro titles, especially from the time period, there are a ton of games to try out. These aren’t just limited to Atari consoles, either. The company’s computer systems and arcade games are here as well. These can be played and scrolled through in the interactive timelines in each category or you can simply press Y and have access to everything (we’ll get into these later). In addition to these, and much more interesting to me, personally, are the variety magazine articles, advertisements, 3D box art, design documents, video features and more. The interactive timelines are great here as they will clearly tell you what year it is in when the game/hardware/etc. in question was being talked about. The original Atari consoles predates me, and even with the later systems, I was playing a lot of games elsewhere (namely Nintendo). Even with that said, the stories behind the games, the work around that the developers had to do to get things working on things like the Atari 2600 and all of the other stories are fascinating. If you’re a fan of gaming history, this aspect of Atari 50 is absolutely awesome and worth the price of admission.
While going through all of this content is great, Digital Eclipse does implemented a nice feature to help you keep track of what you’ve seen. This is shown as a percentage on the outside of each category and referred to how much you have explored. Reaching 100% completion doesn’t require you to play every game on offer, but rather at least open every picture, video, and everything else on offer. You can easily tell when you check out something for the first time because the section will let off visual indication and an audio cue. This is pretty helpful if you step away from the game and then come back. Even if you just pick up the Atari 50 base game, there is a lot to enjoy.
DLC
Beginning in 2024, Digital Eclipse released subsequent DLC packs for the base game, adding quite a bit more content to the overall package. These include the following:
- The Wider World of Atari (September 26, 2024)
- The First Console War (November 8, 2024)
- The Namco Legendary Pack (November 13, 2025)
Each pack contains quite a bit of content and is more or less on par with what is on offer with the individual sections of the base game. I thought it was super interesting to hear the stories about how Atari attempted to tackle the Japanese market, partially through naivety and experience with player tastes and the gaming landscape. I won’t spoil anything, but even though Atari never made that big of a slash with Japanese gamers, their arcade efforts were very influential at introducing English speakers to Japanese classics like Pac-Man, Dig Dug and more. I also really enjoyed the look at “The First Console War” and the showdown between the Atari VCS / 2600 and Intellivision. Again, these consoles pre-date me and my personal gaming history, but it’s super interesting to see the story there.
All of the same visual aspects found in the base game are also present in each of the DLC packs. The Interactive Timeline is still in tact as are the 3D box art for games, visual consistency in the videos, high resolution images of hardware and design documents. It all fits together seamlessly. The only thing that is different here has to do with the “explored” percentages outside of each section. As I mentioned previously, the base game does a great job keeping track of what you have or haven’t checked out. This percentage is still there for the DLC, but once you click into a category and return to the main menu, the percentage for these is at 100%, even if you checked a handful of items. This isn’t game breaking, but this just seems like an odd thing to have been overlooked.
Playable Titles
With the DLC included, there are 115 titles to play across arcade, 2600, 5200, 7800, Atari computers, Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar - a first for the latter two on modern platforms. There are even a handful a brand new games inspired by classics and even includes some ROM hacks that were developed by the modding community over the years. Just as you can see from the Interactive Timeline, pretty much every game has 3D, rotatable box art that you can check out (except for the arcade games, which offer just an image of the cabinet). Once you get into the individual games, you can check out a full color version of the game manuals, change filters, backgrounds and so much more. Having such a wide range in games, titles from the 70s into the mid to late 90s, is pretty great and you can see the evolution of gaming and trends as well. For example, I had no idea that Atari had their own “kart” game back on the Jaguar. There are sure to be lots of surprises for many.
While I do think that the library here is impressive, I wish that a few more licensed games could have made their way to this celebratory package. Being able to play infamous games like E.T. the Extraterrestrial (I know, it still would have been interesting to try!) or other more well regarded titles like Pitfall and Frogger on the 2600 would have been great. Even others, such as Alien vs. Predator, or Doom on the Jaguar are titles that interest me, but I understand the licensing nightmare to bring ALL of these titles to this collection. It’s great that multiple versions of Pac-Man, Dig-Dug and others are there, but it would have been great to see more.
Conclusion
Digital Eclipse has hit another one out of the park with Atari 50 with both the base game and the DLC. This digital museum gives you not only a look at tons of classic games that you can play, it also shares the stories and technical details behind them. Since I don’t have much a connection with Atari games themselves, I enjoyed the video features and reading various information about the consoles, computers and development of the games a bit more than playing them. Even with that said, if you’re a fan of classic games, want to see how some super talented developers made miracles on the underpowered hardware, or are interested in the history of one of the most influential gaming companies of all time, Atari 50 is a great addition to any library.
But, let’s turn it over to you guys. Did you pick up Atari 50? How about the DLC? What is your favorite Atari game or story about the company? Personally, I really thought Berzerk was quite a bit of fun (both the arcade and 2600 version), and I enjoyed the stories about Yars Revenge and the Swordquest series. Let us know your favorites in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.
Final Score: 9.0
by Danny Bivens
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