Atari did some vague try take advantage of it console game legacy over the past decade, but Atari Mania doesn’t seem to be one of them. Announced on Thursday, Windows PC games are a collection of mini-games that combine the staples of Atari 2600 libraries, all in the name of preserving history.
In the announcement trailer above, I see the callbacks Out of law, Yars’ Revenge, Breakout, Combat, Circus Atari, Warlords, and Adventure, all presented in an updated pixel style. (Instead of 2600…what, 4 bit graphics?) Minigames are a mix of classic game characters and gameplay – e.g. using Pong rowing to fight the bugs in centipede.
There’s even a story around all of this: “You are the Caretaker of the Atari Vault, the repository of classic Atari games,” the ad says. “One night, a dead pixel appeared and before long everything was falling apart!!”
Atari Mania promises more than 150 of these mini-games when it launches on Steam later this summer. And if the trailer is any indication, there must be easter eggs, deep cuts, and sly references – including what Adventure You know what adventurers would look like if they weren’t a yellow block.
