One of the biggest challenges in video game preservation is figuring out how to actually present old games. As The Verge reports, there is an expansive new release, made by Digital Eclipse to celebrate Atari’s 50th anniversary, which experts say is simply the best way to experience a retro collection. Available on just about every console out there right now as well as the PC, the Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection, is huge, detailed, and does an amazing job of explaining why these games are so important.
The first thing to know about the collection, is that it is absolutely massive. It has more than 90 games spanning a few decades of history. Most of them come from the 2600 and arcades, but there are also PC games, 7800 updates, and a handful of titles from ill-fated devices like the Jaguar and Lynx. Rounding out the package are a number of unreleased prototypes, like the sequel to Yars’ Revenge and updated or reimagined versions of games like Haunted House and Breakout. Outside of the games themselves, the collection is packed with things like short documentaries featuring the original developers; old photos, magazine articles, comic books; and high-quality versions of classic Atari box art. You can even see the original code for some games.
According to The Verge, even though it is a seemingly overwhelming amount of stuff, the team at Digital Eclipse has cleverly arranged it into a timeline. It’s divided into five different eras, starting with Atari’s arcade origins before moving into home consoles and PCs and ending with the dire days of the Jaguar. The timeline intersperses supplementary material alongside the games so that you can understand the context of a title before you play. You also aren’t forced to experience the timeline in any specific order. You can pick and choose what you see, delving into what’s most interesting and skipping over things you already know. It’s sort of like an interactive museum exhibit, only on your television.
This context is especially important because many of these games have not aged particularly well, but when you watch some videos of the designer explaining his work and delving into the comic books that detail the backstory, you can appreciate them much more. And having that context helps you understand that these very confusing mazes were actually an important point in the history of video games, pioneering action-adventure games as we know them.
Everything is also made easier by some modern touches: it’s quick and snappy, so it’s easy to swap between titles, and Atari 50 has save states so that you won’t lose your progress when you do. You can also bring up the controls and original instruction booklets with a press of a button, which is especially important given that the controls can change from game to game and platform to platform.
It’s important to point out that you don’t have to experience Atari 50 as a timeline: if you want, you can just play the games from a list as in most retro collections. But that timeline is also what makes this collection so special.
Plain and simple, Atari 50 is an achievement. It’s so detailed and sprawling that it feels like a history lesson told in a way that’s completely native to video games. Imagine the likes of Nintendo, Sega, or PlayStation getting similar treatment.
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