Back again for our regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both…

As tentatively announced in the Retro Arcadia Gaming Pickups – Spring 2025 Recap, my cartridge-buying addiction since I got an Atari 2600+ console last Christmas seems to be under control now, but that’s not to say I’m not still filling gaps in my instant collection when the opportunity arises, so this week I’m going for a quick look at each of the next batch I’ve picked up over the couple of months since… Amidar first, and this is the 1982 port of the Konami arcade game from earlier that year, which pioneered the grid capture-type maze game. You need to guide your alternating gorilla or paint roller all the way around each rectangle on the screen to fill it with colour while avoiding the enemies out to stop you, and when they’re all filled you move to the next level. It’s a very basic version of a delightfully simple game, and plays a bit sluggish too, but I like it! We’ll go with an anything but sluggish port of another mazey arcade game next, Ms. Pac-Man from 1982. It’s pretty amazing, with virtually all the features of the original, as well as all the polish its predecessor never got on this platform, and it plays just like it should, which is all you can ask for! While most of what I’m still picking up for the 2600 is now fairly well curated, Starmaster was more of an impulse buy, coming across like a simplified version of Star Raiders that was more suited to the system as a result… And that’s exactly what it turned out be! 

It’s a 3D space combat sim with a bit of strategy from 1982 that might not be as immersive as its undoubted inspiration but that doesn’t stop it being a lot of fun with plenty to keep coming back for. If you want really simplified though, then you want Sky Jinks – fly your plane either side of as many pylons as possible in the shortest time possible while avoiding trees and hot air balloons on four different courses and a randomly-generated one. There’s really not much to it but when did that ever stop you finding a good time back in 1982? Conversely, a year later we got Enduro, a kind of pseudo-3D endurance racer where you need to weave back and forth past a target number of cars each day to move onto the next, which not only gets more challenging the further you go, but you also have to negotiate changing road conditions as the temperature drops, and limited visibility through fog and at night. Remarkable stuff for the time, with responsive controls and a real sense of speed, and it still holds up as the best racer on the 2600 today. Last of these for now is Atlantis, a vibrant single-screen shoot ‘em up from 1982 with a nice variety of game modes, where you’re protecting the legendary city from waves (pun always intended) of enemy invaders by shooting back from three gun towers at once, a bit like Missile Command. It’s very much its own thing though, fast-paced and wildly addictive, and a perfect example of why I love this machine!  

I am mostly still playing Death Stranding on PS4 but I don’t have too much to add to what I said about it here last week, so I’m going finish this week with Last Resort, a horizontal shoot ‘em up from 1992 that I still reckon has one of the most stunning parallax cityscapes you’ll ever see in a game, and in the very first level too! Both the graphics and soundtrack are on another level throughout though, as you find yourself protecting the last remaining human colony from a computer virus and its minions across five stages that I think you need to beat twice, but it’s so tough I’ll never even do it once no matter how much I play – and as regular readers may be aware, I do go back to this a lot! As well as the environments, the enemy designs are superb, and in particular the bosses, which can be vast, multi-screen affairs, full of sci-fi detail and creative colour choices, while this dramatic orchestral synth-rock epic evolves and wanders and ties everywhere together in the background. There’s bullets and lasers and gunfire and general violence right in your face stuff too, with non-stop sirens and beefy sound effects giving its R-Type-ish gameplay a whole new level of frantic. I guess a bit of its majesty is lost on the small Neo Geo Mini screen I’ve been playing on this week, and from its weedy speakers, but having been playing it on PSP for years before that came along, it’s something I’m well used to now, and that little arcade stick does feel really nice!

Although I’ve been sitting on some of those 2600 games for a few weeks now, until I had enough to share with you all in one go, it was the perfect excuse to spend some quality time with all of them again, so I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got for you this week! However, in case you missed it last Wednesday, it was the start of the month, so it was time for our regular trip back exactly 40 years for the very latest in video gaming in Retro Rewind: July 1985 in Computer & Video Games, straight from the pages of the original magazine! The next Wednesday, something a bit different, and kind of of a mid-year break meets state of the nation address, with a quick personal update from your host… I’ll even give you a rare glimpse of what I look like, but don’t get used to it! Hopefully see you then! 

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