The Atari 2600 is back - almost. Ten of its games are now included in a single, self-contained device which looks a lot like the original 2600 joystick. Included in this package are Yars' Revenge, Asteroids, Adventure, Breakout, Missile Command, Centipede, Realsports Volleyball, Circus Atari, Gravitar and Pong (or, technically, Video Olympics as it was known in cartridge form). (Jakks Pacific, 2002)

Seems like everyone's been expecting us to cover this one in a review. Truth be told, we only just got one! The packaging itself is very similar to that of the Namco 5-in-1 TV game, as is the format of the device itself - essentially a slightly oversized replica of an Atari VCS controller, with a few added buttons and switches (power, select, reset, and a light to indicate battery strength). This one really is the cleverest of the "multiple games in a single controller" gadgets we've reviewed here, because it really does look like the original.

Now...onto the selection of games. This is a bit of a head-scratcher. RealSports Volleyball?! I mean, nothing against Volleyball or this good-for-its-era video game translation of it, but...RealSports Volleyball? I could rattle off a whole list of games more worthy of inclusion here: Haunted House, Night Driver, Surround, Video Pinball, Quadrun...or even something a little more accessible like RealSports Football would've been cool. But then again, Jakks Pacific could only use games that were "in the clear" for Atari to grant the rights (which leaves out many arcade games, as well as movie, TV and toy tie-ins), and games that were already programmed for a single player. Right there, you lose a lot of the big titles. But still...RealSports Volleyball?

A simple menu greets you on power-up, listing the ten games (and, if you wait long enough, scrolling through credits for the translation of the various games). Most of the games look reasonably like the originals, with one big telltale sign that these aren't the originals: no screen flicker! I realized this first while playing Asteroids - it bugged me initially that I wasn't seeing flickering rocks. This also means that Yars' Revenge's incandescent neutral zone is now simply a rolling random pattern of colors, and not the shimmering beacon of safety that it was in the original game. And if the visuals are only slightly off, the sound is way, way off. The victorious destruction of the Qotile in Yars is reduced to a pitiful series of descending notes. Popping a bunch of balloons in Circus Atari results in an amusingly fart-like tone. And the end of the world in Missile Command? If that's the best it can do, it's not a world worth saving.

Some other authentic touches are missing. Rob Fulop's initials, nestled away in a single variation of Missile Command and activated only by a specific set of actions, have been nuked. Howard Scott Warshaw's ghost of Yar is nowhere to be found. And perhaps the biggest betrayal of all, Adventure's trend-setting secret message from programmer Warren Robinett has been removed.

But perhaps we're going too far in the wrong direction. The diehards reading this review know about all of those secret messages and the deft touches that made a virtue of the 2600's infamous graphical limitations. They know every little sound, and how every game is supposed to play. And for those people, there's cartridge collecting and emulation. Jakks Pacific is obviously not targeting that minority with this game. They're targeting the people who are looking for the feel and the fun of the Atari 2600 they no longer have to compare it with. And in that department, the Atari 10-in-1 TV Game delivers in spades. Asteroids is really Asteroids. Circus Atari is as it should be. Gravitar is the same dishearteningly tough game that's been kicking my butt for years. Breakout and Yars' Revenge are close enough for government work, and Pong (a.k.a. the 2600 Video Olympics cartridge) brings it all back to me, and then right past me as I miss the ball.

If I've got a complaint about game play, Missile Command is really it - I almost can't even define it, it's just "off" somehow. Probably not even enough of a basis for me to deduct points for review purposes, but something about the balance of the game has been altered. Then again, that may merely be down to diehard concerns. Someone who hasn't played Missile Command in two decades may not notice a thing.

So ultimately, more for the newcomers and people who are looking for a blast from the past without getting into the hobby, I can recommend Jakks Pacific's Atari 10-in-1 TV game. Like the Namco TV game and Techno Source's Intellivision 25-in-1 and 10-in-1 TV games, enough of the essence and fun are there for you to get a lot of mileage out of the deal. For the people like me who actually notice stuff like whether or not the sprites are flickering...if you go looking too hard, you'll find plenty of stuff to disappoint, but it's still fun.

One final note, something along the flickering-sprite lines, and something that amused me probably way too much. In Pong, if you push your joystick up or down for a lengthy period of time, your paddle just scrolls off the top and back in from the bottom, or vice versa, ad infinitum until you let the joystick center itself. The player paddles actually didn't behave this way in the Video Olympics cartridge this game is based on...but the player paddles do behave that way on the original Magnavox Odyssey, the world's first home video game and a singular attempt to do interactive games with analog circuitry. I got a laugh out of that. If you're looking for the Atari 10-in-1 game's pedigree in video game history, you can't do better than that - this game, in many ways, will take many a veteran gamer back down the road they came in on.

Atari 10-In-1 TV Game

Rating:  Four quarters - a couple of minor irritants, but mostly a compelling and addictive game.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster