| Emulators
are great, aren’t they? With
no money and little effort, you can build up huge libraries of
games for all manner of systems. Still, all you’ve really
got is a bunch of data on a hard drive. Proper gamers like to
own the real thing, or at least a re-packaging of the original
– if the package is well put together. Activision Anthology:
Remix Edition is the best retro package ever.
For a change, it’s been created with love
and affection. There’s none of this: “Let’s
just stick a few games behind a basic menu and watch it fly…”.
Activision and Mumbo Jumbo have gone all-out to recreate a more
complete experience.
The first thing you notice about Activision
Anthology is the menu screen which puts you right back into some
kid’s ‘80s bedroom. It must be the rich kid from the
posh part of town though, because he’s got one of those
spinning plastic carousels that holds the cartridges. I never
had one of those. Bastard. Not only that, it’s got something
like eighty Activision games in there. I actually felt quite giddy
as I spun it around, seeing which games were in each column, discovering
quite a few that I’d always wanted but never owned.
Special times. Game carousels
and spunky wallpaper.
The rest of the room is equally well done. An
old TV sits there, with the beloved Atari VCS in front of it.
There’s a crappy radio, which, unless you turn it off, blasts
out ‘80s hits while you’re playing the games. This
is class – I’m a kid again! There’s even a sheet
of lined paper pinned to the wall, on which you’ll find
your high scores scribbled up as you progress.
Also, you may remember back in the day that if you got a high
enough score, you could send in a photo to Activision and they
would send you a cloth patch for the corresponding game. If you
achieve the target score here, you unlock the patch and see it
pinned to a cork-board above the TV. It’s touches like this
are so simple to implement, but they add a lot of soul to the
retro feel.
Christ, even that static tweaks
our nostalgia buttons.
Possibly the best feature is the inclusion of
the original TV commercials for the better-known games (unlocked
with high scores). They are brilliant, hilarious, pieces of videogame
history and you’ll watch them more than once or twice. Did
they really make videogame adverts like that back then? Did people
actually buy games on the strength of them? Fantastic.
To top it off, some of the games are legends
and are still genuinely playable. For each game, there’s
a picture of the box, and scans of the original instructions.
There are even new, unlockable gameplay modes and some homebrew
games on there to round it all off. You want the original spirit
of videogaming? You’ve got it, right here by the bucketload.
If you ever owned an Atari and you’ve got a PC, you’ve
got to get this. It’ll keep you misty-eyed for weeks.
PAULEMOZ,
February 2004.
RODENT CASH RATING -
What price memories? (it says in
this Activision Press release)
"Where’s ma mullet?"
Comment
Here.
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Things to 'Make' and 'Do'.
Official site, with genuinely
ace Flash animation.
Excellent, UK-biased, VCS appreciation.
‘80s Movies. Bit earnest,
but good content.
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