Windows Phone Thoughts: Atari Retro Brings Back Memories

The Gameplay!

And finally, the part everyone wants to know. How well do the games play? Well, they're an emulation, not a port. That means that they're essentially exactly like the originals. At least in theory. In practice, they're pretty close. The graphics are identical to the originals. In Adventure, the dragons still look like ducks! Pong is still two rectangles batting a square back and forth. And the speed (framerate) of the games was fine, too. (It does seem odd to be talking framerates when discussing these old games!)


Figure 8: In Adventure, the dragons still look like ducks.

In a nutshell, they were as fun as the originals. But that's not to say they were perfect. In fact, I found two issues that detracted from the overall experience.

The first problem was the sound. Now, the sound on the old Atari was never great; certainly the Pocket PC has far superior sound capabilities than could have even been imagined back in the '70s. However, Atari Retro does not make use of them. In fact, the sound isn't even up to the standards of the '70s! All of the games original sounds have been replaced by cheesy little blips and beeps. Put simply, they're awful.


Figure 9: Asteroids -- Shoot the asteroids to destroy them, but don't let them hit you!

At first I was bewildered that MDM would take games with decent, albeit dated, sounds and when putting them on a device with great sound, instead opt for the worst game sounds I've heard since my old Mattel Football handheld! But after giving it some thought, I think I know why they did it. As I mentioned earlier, these games are all emulated, not ported. To most people that's a subtle difference, but it's important. With emulation, the original game code is running as is the emulation software. So the games cannot be very easily optimized for the Pocket PC platform as a ported game could. The sacrifice in optimization is made up for in authentic gameplay. But from a processing standpoint, emulation is expensive, and there's only so much processing power available on a Pocket PC. Therefore, my guess is that they decided not to emulate the original sounds in order to improve performance in the other areas. It's unfortunate, but in the end I think they made the right decision. Gameplay -- speed and graphics -- are more important than the sound.


Figure 10: Missile Command -- Protect your cities from swarms of falling missiles!

The second issue I found was not an issue of Atari Retro, but of the Pocket PC itself. Unfortunately, the D-pad on the Pocket PC is no match for an Atari joystick. It's harder to control the games on the D-pad. Not impossibly difficult, but harder. And the graphics on the small screen are tough to see with my old eyes, especially compared to playing the games on a television set.

But those are minor quibbles. Overall, the games are excellent and faithful reproductions of the originals.


Figure 11: Pong -- Play "tennis" against the computer.