Mockduck

Another fun bite-sized arcade game from Metgan Games designed around the Classic's twist controls:

Released 5/10/24: Circus Interstellar $9.99 An arcade shooter with an intense soundtrack and presentation that plays a bit like a twin stick shooter, except you stand still while aiming and shooting. Space aliens, clowns, some gore and more! Really interesting game the first few times I've played it tonight, cool new entry on the VCS from a pair of developers called Ettinsoft.

$30 is fine, looking forward to getting in on one of these ordered in the coming weeks.

Released 5/3/24: AIGA Trio $5.99 A three-game compilation by Tucasoft, who released Pedra: Crystal Caves on the VCS. Includes the original pre-Crystal Caves version of Pedra in addition to two other puzzle style games. Unsure what the "AIGA" is about in terms of the name?

I would love to get another crack at the Avian Knights arcade machine, good stuff.

Madness Beverage....your only choice in the VCS Store for a classic style first person shooter!

Released 4/26/24: Asteroids Deluxe: 7800 $5.99 An extensive hack of the Atari 7800 version of Asteroids done around 2008 (?) by Robert DeCrescenzo, available as a physical cartridge on AtariAge here. Neat that this homebrew is being officially published by Atari on the VCS (Atari lists itself as the Publisher in the credits), probably possible thanks to the purchase of AtariAge I'd think.

This is an album of the in-games music for the "enhanced" games released with Atari 50th, so the new Haunted House, VCTR-SCTR, Neo Breakout, etc. The tracks are all excellent electronic retro style bangers, VCTR-SCTR in particular is really good.

Released 4/23/24: Lunar Lander Beyond $29.99 Released on the VCS along with all other major platforms today! Sort of a re-think of the Lunar Lander arcade game, developed by Dreams Uncorporated, an indie studio that has released a few games prior, published by Atari. When I played it at PAX East it reminded me a bit of an updated Gravitar Recharged with different gameplay. This game's release on the VCS has been in question since the game's announcement, so neat to see it get a release here.

I really hope they fix the cover by the time the regular version ships, but I am not hopeful about it. Turns out these records are most likely already pressed, since Atari released a limited number of them to record stores for Record Store Day last Saturday. I haven't seen one to check the accuracy of the track list, but all the promotional material is a mess of bad capitalization and spelling. Getting this for VCTR-SCTR "Vector Sector" as that track rips.

Released 4/19/24: Asteroid v Claw $7.19 Made for the Classic Joystick, currently a VCS exclusive! Latest by Metgan Games. Catch an asteroid with your claw spinner then use it to smash oncoming asteroids. Is also compatible with the Modern Controller.

I have now completed the Speed Run and also completed the game on Normal difficulty. Hard is unsurprisingly: hard! We will see. This game is great. Would love to see a high score runoff on this one.

Here's a Clear run including the locations of all the Extra Bonus spots:

Released 4/12/24: Tanks, But No Tanks 7.99 Tile Cross 2.99 Two releases today from Set Sail Games, a small indie studio. Tanks, But No Tanks is an update of the original top-down tank shooting game released by Zimag for the Atari 2600 back in the 80's, and Tile Cross is a small tile puzzle game where you need to cross every tile exactly once.

So, short version is easiest best six bucks you'll spend. Another great game from Pixel Games, one of the best developers on the VCS: