Atari Classics Evolved

Atari Classics Evolved is a tight, concise little value-priced collection of honest-to-goodness great retro games. It's well worth the asking price and even offers a little more than you'd expect.

If you're up for the challenge, and you want to trace the lineage of some of your favorite games of all times by exploring their heritage, you simply can't afford to pass up Atari Classics Evolved.

There's also a challenging award system to work through, with over fifty unlockable Atari 2600 games once you earn them all.

Overall, this game's got more than you might expect for the price, but it's still missing things that serious retro gamers on the go are looking for.

Many of the games - including a few of the unlockable classics (like Yar’s Revenge) - fit wonderfully on the PSP. Then there are games like Centipede where the control scheme is not very well suited for Sony’s handheld and thus will become the games you will avoid.

Fans of old school games will find something to like here, so check it out if you're a classic gaming nut.

My consoles are where I play the big, "important" games like BioShock, Uncharted, and Super Mario Galaxy. For the PSP, which I use while in transit on a flight or on a long, not-so-great vacation, this collection may have its fair share of flaws, but it fits my needs more or less to a tee.

Though some games are more fun than others, they're all classics, and always worth revisiting.

Of the 11 included games, every version of Asteroids is awful; Centipede and Millipede are physically uncomfortable; Pong is neat -- in one game mode, anyway -- but like Super Breakout, the controls have been lost in translation; Missile Command and Lunar Lander are good games revamped to somehow look worse than the originals; and Tempest, Battlezone, and Warlords just might be worth buying.

A pretty standard classics collection. On its own it's exceedingly average, but if you've got a soft spot for one or more of these games, the awards might make it worth your time.

These are some of gaming's all-time classics, and they still deliver. It's just that, like a swimsuit model who just happens to be wearing muddy, chicken crap-encrusted overalls over her bikini, some of the magic of the original games is concealed by adjustments that were made but not needed or needed but not made.

The "evolved" angle isn't worth much, unless you really want the ultimate Warlords experience (which is admittedly awesome).

But the good news is that Tempest, Pong and Warlords are all very good fun.

Atari Classics Evolved might be more cynical cash grab than fan service, but its sheer game count and variety make up for a lot if you find yourself with a nostalgic twitch. [Feb 2008, p.86]

This collection of classics and their updates is a frustrating mix of old-school fun and dumb design choices.