Tag: Atari

Look Out! Space Invaders: World Defense is Taking Over the Skies!

I can’t help but be reminded of the climatic moment from Independence Day in the fancier levels in Space Invaders: World Defense.

Space Invaders World Defense Title CardReleased July 20th, 2023
Atari and TAITO

Available on Android and iOS

Space Invaders: World Defense has the feel that players should don AR glasses while shooting down the titular pixel aliens in the real world. That’s because, to spin around and search for them means they’re after you rather than to destroy a city! Fortunately, this game limits the area where you can move around in, so you’re not running around the block in search of their entry point to our realm.

Although this game isn’t fully designed to have you witness monsters and UFOs blasting away at city buildings, I have to wonder when digital reality will replace our own. That’s assuming that we are not living in The Matrix; the more structures that are around means more work for the game to internally weave these invaders around. It’s a novel concept that will have most gamers loving this product’s mechanic as a lot of the animation and interaction is truly seamless.

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Yars Recharged. Atari’s Latest Update is Awesome!

Because there’s no save point in Yars Recharged, players will have to invest a lot of time into progressing deep into the hive.

Yar's RevengeAvailable on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation and Xbox

Adamvision Studios must love bugs. Their early Atari Recharged games was all about either squashing them or being one. The latest, Yars Recharged, offers a modern take of the classic Yars Revenge game for the Atari 2600 and it works very well with the modern controller. 

Those devices were simpler back then. The joystick was all players had to control their avatars, and the little insect warrior only had one task–nibble away at the enemy defenses. The navigation is far more intuitive in this update, since one stick flies Yar around and the other positions where he spits. Unlike Asteroids, getting used to controls took no time at all to master.

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How Atari can Recharge Itself in 2022

Hopefully, Atari Inc. has plans for more Recharged video games

Battlezone (1980 video game) - WikipediaHopefully, Atari Inc. has plans for more Recharged video games. Last year’s releases by software developors Adamvision and Sneakybox Studios had a nice theme going with Centipede and Black Widow before going to space. The last title was Asteroids Recharged. In what I hope to see coming up are even more adaptations of their classic vector-based games like:

Battlezone

This version is a no-brainer for the simple reason most modern controllers have two sticks built in. It makes players feel like they’re in the tank, and they can slowly navigate their way in a landscape populated by the enemy.

I’ve played Battlezone Gold (released 2018) and VR (2016) enough times to know they are graphically richer experiences, but sometimes all I want is the basics. There’s just something to that old vector style look which has me feel like I’m navigating an old vehicle. I also think it’d be cool to use those power-ups from the previous games imagined from a fresh new first person perspective.

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Atari’s Asteroids is Reloaded and Caught Between A Rock and a Hard Place

Anyone who has played the original Asteroids will find Asteroids Recharged settings for button mashing very unnatural.

Asteroids Recharged

Available for Nintendo Switch, PS4/5 and Xbox

Anyone who has played the original Asteroids will find Asteroids Recharged settings for button mashing very unnatural. That’s because long time players of this game have grown accustomed to pushing buttons to aim and steer the spacecraft to shoot away these rocks in space. Even with the many versions available on the Internet (sometimes called Atari Reloaded), I’m more inclined to load up those takes than to play the official product.

My skill with the original and Atari 2600 lets me get farther. To put this game on a stick is odd. I need my buttons! At least some of them can be assignable through system preferences. But having a reconfigured setup plays better on an arcade fight stick. Also, I’d require a cabinet sized spread than a small one, which I picked up on Amazon to test if my theory is true, and I’ve lasted longer.

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Atari & Adamavision’s Black Widow is Hard n’ Recharged!

I’m still wishing for that sensitivity option, though. It’d make moving the spider less twitchy when I’m not wanting it to speed its way to death.

Black Widow: Recharged sur SteamBy Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Available for the Atari VCS, Nintendo Switch, Steam (PC), Xbox Series X/S, Epic and PS4/5

Adamvision and Sneaky Box Studios are nicely sticking to a style for their re-imagined Atari games. Black Widow Recharged reuses a lot of elements from Centipede Recharged and this consistency is great. I love the fact these two games are designed to be companion pieces to one another. The protagonist the player controls has to deal with various insect threats. Unfortunately, this also means players only have one life to get the pests in control. In this game’s case, once that spider is touched by a wasp, you’re dead. 

Thankfully, you have a rather fast machine gun spit to turns these bugs into a dollar sign. They don’t buy anything (it’d be cool if it did like in Missile Command). The power-ups (with most ported over from the Centipede game) don’t appear fast enough, and players have to be very careful with the dual stick controller setup to keep on evading and shooting them down. There’s no movement sensitivity adjustment option in this game, whereas Centipede Recharged did. Hopefully, this can be resolved in an update. It’s only a matter of mental training to avoid moving your avatar to the target like a moth to a flame when it should be the other hand rotating the shooter to its intended target.

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