yes, look you see. over the course of some 14 years and over 4000 posts, i dare say that i will have used this title at least once before. but, here we are again with it. just move on and accept it, if for some reason it's an issue for you.
so, anyway, a little while ago it was a day celebrated as father's day. this, at the least, is true of England, indeed the wider UK, and some other territories. certain other nations, in particular but not exclusively New Zealand, mark this day on a different date.
although some of you shall have joined the dots by now, i did indeed get some lovely cards and most splendid gifts to mark the occasion, with one being extremely Atari related.
very much atari related, then, in the form of thos most splendid Atari Flashback Portable handheld device. which is a flash, fancy and quite posh way of saying it's an emulator of a classic Atari machine from the early 80s that you can walk around with and play pretty much anywhere.
provenance and cost are all a bit shrouded in mystery, what with it being a gift, but there are some details i could share. like, for instance, one could or can obtain this off of a shop called Argos, and i have every reason to believe that at least once the cost was south of thirty pounds cash.
in regards of the latter, cost is probably not an issue. at least marketers would have us think so. there are certain nostalgia markets which will just eat up money, and by all accounts vintage gamers have plenty of this to throw at such. but, anyway, i would suspect a review on this device would be of some interest to, well, some.
the device is quite class, so it is, to be sure. as in i love it. well, ok, yes, there are one or two minor issues with it (three, i think), but they really feel like nitpicking, or problems that have no absolute solution.
for the sake of getting grumbles out of the way, then, here we go. it just feels weird (at first) playing Atari games with a game pad, rather than a joystick or paddle or trackball. no two player options on games mean that certain classics - in particular Combat - don't work on the device. i am sure that i had a third matter, hence the brackets above, but for the life of me right now i cannot recall what this was. hey ho.
should i recall what the third gripe is i will update, or otherwise and it in. moving on, and really, just wow. this device is (almost) all good.
why good? to be honest, it's just fun to play. it may be that this is either particularly or indeed only true for those of us, like me, who grew up with Atari being the best (and only) way of playing video games at home, but then again both the boys have enjoyed messing around with it.
i suppose it did not take all that much in the way of design or programming flair to make this machine happen. the Atari games were, on average, 4KB or less in size. to put that in perspective for you, the above picture - a look at the classic River Raid on the device - uses more than 12 times the memory the actual game takes up. one super big plus on this Atari machine is that it has a built in battery recharged by the magic of USB, saving you going through loads of batteries. although i have not been keeping track from what i can work out the battery keeps a charge quite well and lets you play for many hours.
the machine comes with 70 games already on it. of these, the "main three" for me were Pac Man, Pitfall and River Raid. in truth i would have been happy with just these three alone. but another big plus is that you can place extra games (obtained dans le internet) on an SD card and also play them on this device.
on that note, you can (so far) ignore the advice with the device that you should only use an SD card, which is to say not a micro SD card with adapter. i am using a 1GB micro SD card in an adapter with this and all is working fine, well, dandy, splendid and as it should.
now that i think on, it might have been that my third gripe was that some of the games you add to the SD card don't work on the device. this would be despite them working on, say, a PC based Atari emulator, such as Stella.
it's perfect for fast, quick, easy and pleasant game playing. the games made for Atari were not overtly complex, probably due to the system and memory constraints. no bad thing at all, as the simplicity is what makes them a pleasure to have a go with. well, for me, anyhow.
so, yes, then, i am delighted with this Atari device and no i would not hesitate in suggesting it to anyone looking for such. great fun it is, and i make no apologies for the fact that this might be down to my nostalgia, or usual sentimental hygiene.
what nostalgia? memories of watching my brother play Pac Man for hours and hours, as he was that good. playing River Raid for hours. going and renting Phoenix off the video shop at the petrol station with Mike, for two quid a day or something, during school holidays. playing Keystone Cops and Oink! with my sister. being baffled as to just how bad the ET game was. and so on.
right, that shall do as a sort of overview thing. sadly no, there isn't a Commodore 64 version of this, otherwise i guess i would own it. apparently there is a Sega one, but i would suspect the more complex games on that would mean a more complex playing requirement on a handheld device, as well as a lot of battery draining. but, no matter, i am most happy with this smart Atari one.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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