Atari 10-in-1 TV Games

You only have to look at the success of the School Disco Nights and the numerous Here & Now Tours featuring forgotten 70s and 80s popstars to realize that the whole nostalgia trip is big business. If you couple nostalgia with computer games then you're on to a winning formula and with JAKKS Pacific leading the market in TV Games they've just gone back and brought the original Atari 2600 back for the bargain price of £22.99 (considering when it originally launched it cost a whopping $200 you'll be glad to hear they're not offering it at their 1977 prices).

If you're my age (i.e. mid twenties) you'll probably consider retro gaming to be the duelling forces of the Spectrum 48k or Commodore 64. The Atari 10-in-1 is more retrograde than those humble machines and even more so than the Vic 20 for anyone who like me couldn't stop screaming on Xmas Day when this mammoth computer was opened before my eyes.

Without hesitation let's hook up the joystick and reminisce about the good old days before games involved clicking on a sequence of 5 different buttons to perform a simple manoeuvre.

BAT AND BALL GAMES
Pong, Breakout and for want of a better category Circus Atari. In the old days computer games weren't the most advanced so if you consider the humble bat and ball games the computer version of rounders to the more contemporary baseball. Surely everyone remembers Pong - 2 bats, 1 ball and more annoying bleeps than you'd get on a So Solid Crew record. Breakout involves knocking the ball against a series of multicoloured blocks until you, well, break out. Circus Atari is much the same as Breakout except your dealing with 2 Clowns on a see-saw and it's quite funny to watch one fall splat bang on the floor.

SHOOT EM UPS
The other great genre of computer days - what could be better than riding your own space ship and shooting the Aliens from outer space. Admittedly not my favourite genre, but Asteroids with it's multi-coloured Meteors is always one to send you into fits of laughter after a few funny cigarettes. Gravitar, a more advance version of Asteroids, I remember from first time round and it's just as irritating as it was back in the day.

I consider myself a bit of a champ on Missile Command and it's one of those insanely addictive games you just can't put down. Basically the idea to blow up the missile's before they hit your control centre - simple concept - but with progressively more and faster missiles it's a challenge to see who can last the longest.

Also included are the classic Centipede and Yars Revenge.

MISCELLANEOUS
Even back in the day there were games that defied categorization. Adventure seems to us like a early version of what became Zelda on the Nintendo platform. It's one of those games which we can't quite work out what to do, but it involves bridges, keys and dragons in search for the ultimate quest.

Volley Ball is our favourite game of the 10 and it does what it says on the label. You control 2 players on a team and the idea is simple - smash the other players faces into the sand!!!
 

CONCLUSION
When you consider that most computer games cost upwards of £30 nowadays, the Atari 10-in-1 is bargain with something for everyone. Simply install 4 "AA" batteries into the joystick itself and plug into your TV. The only thing you have to watch for is that the pack is designed for TV or videos with (A/V) jacks in the back, both of our Televisions in the office didn't have these connections and therefore we needed to get an Radioshack A/V to Scart adapter (Retail Price is around £25) in order to connect it.

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The Atari 10-in-1 is available from High Street stockists such as Woolworths, Argos and Game
In order to buy from Amazon click on the link below
www.amazon.co.uk
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