Atari, Inc.

It works.

I remember our first console was an Atari.

My pops had an Atari.

I never understood how to play most of those games.

I tried to play Pac-Man, but I was little and got frustrated because I couldn't just win.

So your boy has a huge backlog of previews to get through, and today's is all about Atari.

I had the chance to sit down and talk with Atari's David Loewy and Mark Perloff to talk about the full suite of Atari games coming out, and it's very clear that the team has really been picking some smart remakes, remasters, and bringing back titles like RollerCoaster Tycoon.

We hit it off right off the bat because they are remaking one of the first consoles I ever had.

I can't remember which model it was, but it's the Atari where you would pop cartridges on and you would flick the various switches and have two of the joysticks.

That is one of the first video game consoles I ever had back in the day when I was playing on my Super Nintendo console.

someone gifted us basically this atari collection and it included that console we would hook it up to our old i think the tv was probably black and white we changed it to channel what was it three or four and you could play the games and they gave us this set of games in like the dome thing so i hit it off with atari right away because i have a lot of fond memories of playing Like berserk had pitfall all of the classics, right? So super old-school stuff But that's not all they are doing in what I can only describe as a whirlwind of information during this meeting team took me through rollercoaster tycoon Barbie a console they've had in the works and why they've been talking about remaking some fan favorites like Toy Story or Godzilla destroy all monsters melee and And if you look at the trailer views on these things, it's very clear there is a hunger for these titles.

So with that said, here's five things I learned from my conversation with Atari that I found super exciting.

Number one, Atari has been building their brand around revitalizing retro games that fans love.

Well, so, but the reason I brought up when we met at PAX East is because it's when we got to see, I got to play Bubsy 40 for the first time.

It's the folks at the Atari booth showing it off.

And Atari has built such an incredible community, especially since they have done this new push of new games and re-releasing classics.

The team over there is incredible.

And what really, drew me for Bubsy 4D and Atari's new kind of wave of stuff in general is this passion that is palpable in a way that I cannot even explain.

Look no further than the most recent update for Bubsy 4D because I will be honest with you, I read the reviews because I'm very nosy

and want to know what people thought

Like, it couldn't have happened any other way.

And you want to know why? Yes.

The Atari 2600 was released.

Ah.

It was the unbelievable revolution of video games.

You have to know where, you know, oh, did you press the L1 button? What L1 button? I had one button.

That's it.

But the Atari was so good.

The Atari 2600.

Welcome back to the official Atari Games Podcast.

I'm your host, Jason Polanski, and joining me today is returning guest, the legendary Chris Kohler, Editorial Director at Digital Eclipse and Editorial Director on Toy Story Retro Roundup! Gotta say it with the exclamation point.

How's it going, Chris?

Super jump is, you know, that super jump is a...

That's a power-up, a limited-time power-up that you can get, and you can just let them turn it on for the duration, basically.

So a lot of this is we work very closely with Implicit Conversions, who does our PlayStation 1 technology within Atari, and they're very good at figuring out how to you know, how to essentially turn these things on and off, you know, permanently for players.

We, for the berries, there are other types of berries and we sort of did a thing where it was like, oh, you could always have this berry or always have that berry, but it's actually not good to always have like the blueberries, for example.

And so we kind of figured out that what people would like would be always purple or always gold.

it would not be on brand if i didn't start with this game uh there was one one not like i guess double a game that i was like i it was the first game i played at pex okay it's the first game i played at pex i was like i saw it i got in line and i played it and i was super excited i got to i got hands-on with godzilla destroy all monsters melee remastered Yes, it would be.

This is from Pipeworks Studios and published by Atari.

Not real Atari, but still Atari, right? Right.

You know, they're still making games, but they're mostly doing publishing.

And yeah, your boy loved these games as a kid.

But before I get there, like I said, just a few honorable mentions, because when you really sit down and think about Star Wars games, especially if you're someone my age, you know, in their mid 40s, there is a ton of them.

I mean, we're talking from Atari to classic arcades to Nintendo, Super Nintendo, GameCube.

I mean, there is just, it's got a long history in the video game space.

Some fantastic ones on PC, some fun ones on consoles, and like I said, even classic arcade games.

It is two appointments.

Atari and Sega.

So excited for those.

Gonna play some Godzilla.