''Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1'' is a 1996 compilation of

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

s for the

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it is the successor to the succes ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

, and

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a Fourth generation of video game consoles, 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in No ...

, published by

Midway Games Midway Games Inc. (formerly Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known simply as Midway) was an American video game company that existed from 1958 to 2010. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (franchise), Ra ...

. It is a successor volume to ''

Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits ''Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits'' is a video game anthology of Williams Entertainment's early arcade games from the golden age of arcade games. The title was created by Digital Eclipse, who developed a compiler to emulate the arcade games' sou ...

''. The Saturn and PlayStation versions of the game include an FMV

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

on the "

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

of Atari", featuring video

interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" re ...

s with the

programmers A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a program ...

behind the six games in the compilation. The later Super NES version was announced by Midway as their final release for any "16-bit" console.

Games

The compilation includes the following games, all of which were licensed from

Atari Corporation Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of Home computer, home computers and Video game console, video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than ...

. All of the games except ''Battlezone'' can be played in two-player mode, where both players alternate turns. *''

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

'' (1979) *'' Battlezone'' (1980) *''

Centipede Centipedes (from Neo-Latin , "hundred", and Latin , "foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', "lip", and Neo-Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, ...

'' (1981) *''

Missile Command ''Missile Command'' is a 1980 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Atari for arcades. Sega released the game outside North America. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game '' Tempest'' from ...

'' (1980) *'' Super Breakout'' (1978) *'' Tempest'' (1981)

Reception

Critics praised the compilation's use of emulation to exactly recreate the games' arcade versions, the menu system, and the documentary FMVs. A reviewer for '' Next Generation'' elaborated that "Unlike the Williams disc ... the history is narrated over a slideshow of memorabilia, and the insightful clips run longer, dispelling ancient rumors and relating anecdotes of Atari coin-op's golden age." Most also applauded the selection of games as consisting almost entirely of classics which remained enjoyable in spite of the gaming industry's advances over the years. However, reviews generally criticized that the standard PlayStation gamepad does not work well with the games in the collection, particular those which used paddle controllers and

trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse (computing), mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball t ...

s when they were originally released, though the PlayStation Mouse is supported and was considered a better option. Tom Ham summarized in ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'', "Bringing together six classic games that launched entire video game genres (and stole countless quarters from gamers), ''The Atari Collection 1'' is a wonderful trip down memory lane." ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The magazine was fou ...

''s review team focused more on the controller issues, and had a less enthusiastic reaction overall. ''

GamePro ''GamePro'' was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software. The magazine featured content on various video ...

'' similarly concluded, "Even though the authentic graphics and gameplay rate high, the limitations in control and sound bring down the overall enjoyment."

References

{{navboxes, list1= {{Asteroids series {{Breakout series {{Centipede series {{Missile Command {{Tempest series 1996 video games Atari video game compilations Digital Eclipse games Midway video games Multiplayer and single-player video games PlayStation (console) games Sega Saturn games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Video games developed in the United States

Games

Reception

See also

References