Nostalgia Unlocked: Reliving my Atari childhood with Gamestation Go

On Christmas Day 1982, I unwrapped my first video game console, an Atari 2600. Although it was released in 1977, it was new to me, and I’m pretty sure the reason my parents bought it for me was because of a 2600 game released around that time: ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. My parents knew I was obsessed with the film, a transformative film that I almost missed because I was too afraid to see it.

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I was ecstatic. At 7 years old, with my giant brown glasses perched on my nose and a red ET t-shirt, I had one of the best Christmases of my life. Despite my love for the movie, I didn’t get very far in the game, which left me frustrated and confused. I had no idea it wasn’t because I was untrained, but because I was bad. Even today, people find the game too complex and impenetrable to play.

(How bad? Copies of the game were literally buried for decades because it sold very poorly.)

The Atari 2600 came with Combat and two controllers. I played it for years, beginning the path to becoming a dedicated gamer like millions of other kids of the time. If you had asked me a few months ago how many games I remembered from the 2600 or its successors, the Atari 5200 and 7800, I would have had a hard time answering. I could have named perhaps a dozen titles at most.

So when Atari lent me a Gamestation Go portable game console Upon testing it, I was surprised to see dozens of titles coming to me. The moment I saw their cover, animated screenshots or just their titles, memories came rushing back. I played a lot of these.

And the ones I couldn’t have or try, I pined over, pointing out in the store or examining any game magazine I could get my hands on.

Asteroids, Berserk, Centipede, Night Driver and Yar’s Revenge… so many games.

Old games, new console.

Gamestation Go, which sells for $179, brings together about 200 of those Atari home console games. But it also includes versions of arcade games, including Crystal Castles, Food Fight and Tempest, plus seven Balls of Steel pinball tables, Classic and 2600 versions of Pac-Man, and games from Jaleco and Piko Interactive such as Bases Loaded and Bad Street Brawler. Many of the games can be enjoyed in multiplayer mode by connecting a game controller.

It’s a wide-ranging set of games and Atari packs it in a good hardware configuration with a larger screen than the original. nintendo switch.

There are no detachable controllers like on the Switch, but the incredible variety of controller options makes up for it: the usual D-pad and shoulder buttons, but also a dial you can rotate (good for games like Breakout), a trackball wheel (for games like Centipede and Crystal Castles), and even a physical number pad, useful for some Atari 5200 games and if Mattel’s Intellivision titles are ever added.

It features an HDMI port, three USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a micro-SD slot for loading additional games. A solid but flimsy-looking kickstand can prop up the system. An additional set of small buttons lets you access Settings, Credit, Select, and Start. Instructions for using the game system, such as navigating in and out of titles, are clear and available in the main menu.

You can perform system updates via built-in Wi-Fi, but there’s no app store to purchase or download additional games.

Retro versus modern

The biggest challenge I faced during my time with Gamestation Go was spending time on games from bygone eras and ignoring the siren song of modern gaming on modern consoles and computers.

Did I really want to launch an endless cascade of centipedes or play stick figure tennis at a very slow pace when I could be finishing Act II of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or participating in a game of Marvel Rivals with my friends?

Some of the gameplay from Atari’s old games and some of their Recharged revamps still hold up incredibly well. Missile Command still gets your pulse racing no matter which version you try, and it’s fun to control with the included trackball, even if the size of the marble makes it a challenge to use as accurately as the larger one you might remember from the arcade.

Balls of Steel’s pinball tables look and play great, even if viewing them on a horizontal screen presents a challenge to the game. Tempest with dial or trackball controls is still a twisted delight. I was particularly drawn to arcade games that I completely missed, like Cisco Heat All American, or that I remember dropping many, many quarters into, like Asteroids.

Missing in action? ET, the game that started it all for me. But there’s Steeplechase, with its horse-like animations, and ninja golfWhich is as strange as it sounds.

Stagnate with ET

I’m not a big emulation player, although I have been curious about the possibilities of homemade arcade cabinets that allow you to add many more games than those that come standard.

Gamestation Go makes it easy to access retro games, as long as you have access to ROM files and a microSD card to store them. The process involves creating a set of folders to store the files and then booting from the microSD card when Gamestation starts up.

In my testing, Gamestation handled Sega Genesis and Atari 2600 titles like a champ. However, online reports vary on how well it plays games from more advanced consoles, such as the original Sony PlayStation or the Sega Dreamcast.

There is some controversy over ROMs, digital copies of gaming software. Most ROMs are copies of games that are still protected by copyright, meaning that the original creators, such as Nintendo or Sega, legally own them. Downloading or distributing ROMs without permission is illegal in many countries, even if you own the original game. That being said, some ROMS have been available on the Internet Archiveand there is no shortage of sites that collect game files and descriptions on many game consoles.

Atari offers this ability to play ROMs in the hope that you will find legal means to purchase ROMs or only use ROMs from games where you already own a cartridge of a digitally purchased version.

For the sole purpose of seeing if ET was what I remembered as a kid, I found a copy of the game after unsuccessfully trying to find a way to purchase it as a digital file or even a physical copy with a ROM included.

ET’s face appears on the title screen while a chiptune version of the John Williams theme plays. When I started it, I got goosebumps.

But that tingling feeling disappeared almost instantly when the game started. I instantly fell into a swamp. I attempted to chase small dots representing Reese’s Pieces candies, but was repeatedly accosted by FBI agents and scientists. I went down the swamp. Again and again. Soon I was dead, my alien body turning white to signify the loss of life. The frustration I felt back then was now combined with adult annoyance at how poorly designed the game was. How dare they rush this game out to appeal to parents of kids like me in the 80s? Who thought this could be fun?

After a few more minutes of annoyance, I turned off the game. There’s probably a tutorial online on how to easily beat ET, but I didn’t even bother. At least I had a few more decades left.

ET for Atari 2600, like so many other things, belongs to the past.

Should you buy a Gamestation Go?

As ET shows, not all early games were good. Many of them were and still are garbage. (Sorry, Sword Quest.)

But there are plenty of gems included in Gamestation Go that will draw you in, even if it’s only for short periods of time before you tire of the repetition and want to play something from this century.

But what a warm wave of feelings Gamestation Go will give you the first time you boot up and look at that long list of titles, games that you once wanted and desired and spent weeks trying to master!

Is it worth buying? It really depends on how much nostalgia is worth to you these days, or whether the kids in your family are curious about retro gaming and emulation.

My inner 7-year-old, the one who would have been in 8-bit heaven with so many games to play, says you’d be a fool not to. But as an adult, I have some reservations.