Atari Vault - Coming to Steam

It's not exactly RPG news, but the old-school 1980's gamers among us may want to know that many of their Atari favorites are coming to Steam.

It feels like this should have happened ages ago, but here it finally is: a bundle of 100 Atari classics is coming to Steam in spring (or autumn in Australia). Dubbed the Atari Vault, it's set to include the likes of Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Tempest, and Warlords. Assuming it won't cost an arm and a leg, it'll be worth checking out for Centipede and Adventure alone (the latter hasn't been confirmed, but the collection would suffer without it).

Interestingly, the bundle will feature Steam Controller support, as well as local and online multiplayer bolstered by global leaderboards. Atari claims the Steam Controller will result in "significantly improved precision control", which will be useful if you want to break my record of three consecutive clockings of Centipede.

The bundle is in development by Code Mystics.

More information.

More information.

Does it means that about 100 abandonwares are not going to be abandonwares anymore?

Originally Posted by azarhal
Does it means that about 100 abandonwares are not going to be abandonwares anymore?

As far as I'm concerned? Once an abandonware, always an abandonware.

I used to love my Atari, however I've tried emulators over the years even bought one of the joysticks that come with a bunch of Atari games on it and other than a slight tinge of nostalgia the games just aren't fun anymore. Not for me anyhow.

On a side note my brother and I both have a steam controller and I haven't found a game yet where it better than an Xbox or PlayStation controller.

In fact it's bad at best and broken at worst. Tried it with several games and many different profiles and could never get it to work right. I spent a couple how's messing with settings and different profiles to get it working with the witcher 3 and it was never even close to just using a regular controller. The touchpad that controls camera movement is the culprit. It never got to a point where it felt right, too fast, too slow too imprecise, too jerky, it was everything but right.

It's too bad too as I wanted it to work. I'll let it sit a while and try it again after more updates and profiles come out.

Originally Posted by sakichop
I used to love my Atari, however I've tried emulators over the years even bought one of the joysticks that come with a bunch of Atari games on it and other than a slight tinge of nostalgia the games just aren't fun anymore. Not for me anyhow.

I agree. They WERE fun but not really anymore.

However, if there are 100 of them and the price point is low enough, it might be worth it even if they each give me 5 minutes.

And then I can show my grandkids, when they're old enough to play video games, that these are the games Grandpa grew up with!

If only they included Pong, then I could really blow their minds.

Originally Posted by Fargol
I agree. They WERE fun but not really anymore.

However, if there are 100 of them and the price point is low enough, it might be worth it even if they each give me 5 minutes.

And then I can show my grandkids, when they're old enough to play video games, that these are the games Grandpa grew up with!

If only they included Pong, then I could really blow their minds.

Pong and night driver with the wheel controller thingy.

Originally Posted by Fargol
I agree. They WERE fun but not really anymore.

Yes. Some things should just stay as distant memories. Netflix has ruined my younger memories of some old TV shows of which I was (once!) fond.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Yes. Some things should just stay as distant memories. Netflix has ruined my younger memories of some old TV shows of which I was (once!) fond.

Funny, I recently went on YouTube because I wanted to show my son how cool ultraman was. Let's just say he didn't get it and I will just leave it as a memory and never watch it again.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Pong and night driver with the wheel controller thingy.

No doubt about it. Yes!

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Yes. Some things should just stay as distant memories. Netflix has ruined my younger memories of some old TV shows of which I was (once!) fond.

I had something similar …

I don't disagree - I loved a BBC sci fi show called Blake's 7 back in the day, but its a bit painful to watch it now. But the ideas were great, regardless of the execution - and sometimes you're surprised - I revisited twin peaks recently and thought that it was still pretty damn good, nearly as good as I remembered Atari though, don't think I miss much …… Maybe Pitfall 2

Originally Posted by Pongo
Maybe Pitfall 2

Pitfall 2 was fantastic for its time and so was Adventure. I also liked Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'll definitely check out this collection when it's released. I can't imagine it being more than $10

I can't imagine it being more than $10

.99 ON THE Steam sale! FTW!

I think I owned all the Activision games.
My first multiplayer action was Wizard of Wor. So much fun, used to go to the arcade instead of eating at lunchtime.

After looking at the blocky versions of the Atari 2600 games, I bought my first computer in 1982 since the Atari 800 versions looked nearly identical to what was in the arcades. Most of the previous compilations seem to be based on the 2600 versions, so I hope that this time we get the computer versions instead of the 2600 ROMs.

Now if they would just include River Raid, one of my favorite arcade type games, though it was an Activision product so they might not have it on the Atari collection.

Gateway to Apshai from Epyx was one of my first rogue like/pseudo RPGs until I bought a floppy drive ($400!!!) in 1983 and found the Ultima series.

I got an Atari collection in my original Xbox… yeah, was fun to look at the old games again, but the fun lasted like one afternoon.

This is interesting news, thanks for the heads-up Aubrielle.

I love these classic old games - they're still vital and remain fun for me. I simply refuse to let modernity spoil my outlook on gaming and so regularly enjoy returning to the roots of what made our favorite pastime so enjoyable in the first place.

I also like the idea of Steam having the global leaderboards for some of these classics; that can actually be quite motivating when one has very limited gaming time.

Originally Posted by Xian
Gateway to Apshai from Epyx was one of my first rogue like/pseudo RPGs…

YES! First game I ever got to play at length. We didn't have a console or computer at home, but I was "computer monitor" (not the actual display) at my elementary school and Gateway to Apshai was one of the few decent games we had. I'd finish all my schoolwork by 11am, and the teacher would send me off to play it for the rest of the day so I wouldn't be in his way. We didn't even have a joystick but I figured out how to fake the input with the keyboard and the C= key.

Apshai was fantastic fun. I had it on my C64 if memory serves.

For Atari 2600, I loved Adventure, Haunted House, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Raiders (came with the fancy controller). I don't think I'd enjoy playing them now though even for 99 cents.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Yes. Some things should just stay as distant memories. Netflix has ruined my younger memories of some old TV shows of which I was (once!) fond.

I think it's very…dependent on the what made it cool back then in the first place.

Regarding TV Shows I watched as a children - I checked MASK again, which was just horrible. As child it was cool to see the cars and tech stuff. But well, it's actually a Advert for a toy. The stories are bad, the storytelling is bad, and it's horribly cut.
But - if you check TMNT for example, or Ducktales you will be surprised how good these actually were and how well you can still watch them today.

Regarding games…personally I got a C64 when I was 7 and got a PC when I was 11 or 12. But that means that I played games during this time which were suited for a 8 year old or so. And more complex games, or games which required understanding english were out of my sight.
So if I look back at my C64 time I'd actually say that 95% of the games I played were rather crappy. Games which I might consider good now from that time like Elite 1 or the first Bard's Tale / Ultima /whatever I simply didn't play back then (and wouldn't play now because graphics and controls).
And for me that basically changed around the same time in the early 90s when I got a PC. Because from that time onwards my taste didn't really change much. So I would still play games from that time, but not before (also because graphics, sound, controls).
Only stuff from pre90s I regularily fall back to is the music…this transports nostalgica well enough and doesn't age as badly (if you like the style that is):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCNM…F7D83389E220DA

We had a Commodore 64, but before that we had this cartridge based console thing with gamepad thingies. I've forgotten what the system was called and it has annoyed me for a long time. I only remember that it probably only had two colours (black and white) and I played Chess (which only showed the moves--no board, you had to have a chess board of your own to play the moves on) and some game that had a collection of variations of Pong. It had something to do with Athletics or sports, which the games were supposed to imitate (like tennis). You could (I think) flick a physical switch to switch between the games of the cartridge (which was like, 20+). If I remember this all correctly--I was probably around 5-6 years old. :O

I don't think that was an Atari 2600, because that had colours (right?), but for the life of me I can't remember what system it was. I would really like to know what it was.