Mockduck

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:

The AtGames Blast! is NOT the worst, but only because their AtGames Pong Blast! is even less functional and playable. Truly the worst retro games thing I've ever seen.

A few days late on this one as I was out of town: Released 4/4/24: Block'em Sock'em: 7800 $8.99 The latest homebrew release on the VCS from publisher and YouTuber John Hancock! This is a homebrew developed by Adam Welch from Second-Dimension, published by John Hancock, that was originally released for the Genesis and then later the Jaguar, then the 7800. This is the 7800 version in the VCS Store.

Game is cool, maybe too hard. I thought donut dodo was tough but this is brutal! "Easy" difficulty is most definitely not.

Released 3/29/24: Cash Cow DX $5.99 The latest arcade game release from the makers of Donut Dodo! Pixel Games SARL-S' Cash Cow DX looks to be a bit like original Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog with a Donut Dodo-familiar art style. Supposed to be super tough!

Given that Donut Dodo is one of the best arcade games released in the past 20 years I am instantly in on this one.

The standard edition was done by Plaion, my understanding is that Limited Run Games is doing the LE. So, typical Limited Run Games timing on this one...

Turnament, one of the games that kicked off a quick succession of third party releases over the summer. Developed by one person in 2006 with Flash, remastered recently for Unity as a learning project prior to working on a bigger game now under development:

I've long wondered why some company in the retro games scene hasn't tried following in the footsteps of the vinyl record audiophile community and released some kind of cart cleaner machine. I'm thinking some kind of ultrasonic bath like object where you plug the cart in and all the activity is contained within the space where the cart plugs in, plug in a cart, hit a button, wait 15-20 seconds, take out the cart, put in the next, repeat til it's done. Seems like it would save time and hassle if it worked well enough.

Released 3/22/24 (see notes below): Space Duel: 7800 8.99 Crystal Quest: 7800 8.99 Space Duel is an AtariAge 7800 homebrew version of the third in the Asteroids arcade series. Crystal Quest: 7800 is a renamed version for the VCS of the AtariAge 7800 homebrew called Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest, likely renamed due to the developer not having the rights to the Bentley Bear IP from Atari. Classic platformer! *Crystal Quest was initially briefly released on 2/9/24 before being quickly removed from the VCS Store. The game has now returned to the Store catalog.

There was the somewhat limited "Sega Classics Collection" for Playstation 2 which included some arcade games, but the PS2 also has the Sonic Mega Collection and Sega Genesis Collection (28 games).

The PS2 was the era of Atari as a third party publisher, so the rights to a ton of those games are long gone. I think the PS2 may be the secret best console for retro gaming due to how many extensive collections are available. The Taito collections. Capcom collections, Namco collections, etc put it towards the top in terms of getting a ton of retro games cheap that play well. Atari's collection is good, and the PS2 still got the Activision collection.

Just FYI these were in fact released, they work pretty well given the time they were released. Used radio frequency.

I never had a Lynx because it was for the rich kids, best I could get was the Tiger/LJN portables.

Can't say I loved qomp2, but it's not really my kind of thing. Well made with a unique core mechanic set against a fairly familiar challenging puzzle platformer background:

Awesome, excellent price for that given today's prices. Enjoy! I seem to recall seeing a pic online of someone with literally hundreds of E.T. carts, so that's a goal.

Having a real CRT TV makes a big difference in terms of recommendation. Were I to start fresh, I'd see if my budget and opportunity allowed for the purchase of a so-called "Heavy Sixer", which is the original version of the console released. Or, keep an eye out for any boxed four or six switch Atari. I'd get the ones with the wood grain rather than the all-black or junior units, but they work well too. I actually like my Jr. a lot, main advantage is it has a removable RF cable port on the back, which can be nice. Also, slightly newer given when it was released. Mostly, I'd keep an eye on local Facebook marketplace style opportunities, and pick up the first cheap one that seems good and has with it the power supply and controllers.

I think Asteroids and Centipede will at least do well, they are among the best-ever arcade machines, so a cool new looking version with fun lights and sounds seems like it'd sell at an arcade.