Oddly, given the branding of the device, this isn’t entirely Atari’s party. There’s also a trio of Pac-Man games (arcade classic, Atari 2600, and “Speed Up” flavors) and Balls of Steel, a mid-’90s pinball game broken out into its own section, with seven tables based on Atari games.
Drifting further, there are 40 titles included from defunct Japanese publisher Jaleco, including games released on 8-bit and 16-bit consoles and in arcades, and 20 from Piko, a US label that specializes in its own digital archaeology, licensing lost and abandoned titles from yesteryear. Still, it doesn’t hurt to have some added variety, and there are plenty of genuinely hidden gems in this selection—Piko’s Brave Battle Saga, a Sega Genesis/Mega Drive RPG released in the Taiwanese and Hong Kong markets in 1996 is a particularly nice find.
The Gamestation Go also tips its hat to modernity with five Atari Recharged titles, a series of remakes that take the core mechanics of classic games and revamp them with updated graphics, extra features, and even achievements. The five here—Asteroids, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, and Missile Command—are available on other platforms where they usually sell for $10 apiece, which makes for a nice value add here.
Choice Paralysis
Hundreds of games means inevitable overlap, though, with some titles cropping up repeatedly. Centipede alone appears five times, with 2600, 5200, 7800, Arcade, and Recharged iterations. Others, including Missile Command, Asteroids, and Berzerk, also make multiple appearances. On one hand, it’s an absolute gift for games preservation—being able to see how these games changed and evolved as they hopped platforms is pretty cool. On the other, given the core gameplay remains largely the same across versions, only the most devoted of Atari fans are likely to appreciate the nuances when it comes to actually playing them.
That “hefty caveat” when it comes to the Atari 7800 games, though? They don’t work. Select any of the games from that platform, and you’re met with a slight audio pause and a flicker of the menu screen, but nothing else. Even trying a factory reset of the console achieves nothing—this cohort of games simply will not launch.
