Atari Paddle

Ah, the Atari 2600… those low resolution graphics, primary colours and raw sounds evoke so many emotions in people of a certain age (and yes, I’m one of them) so it’s quite hard to resist a bit of tat when it comes along. I’ve already had a look at the Atari 10-in-1 (a few weeks over one year back, in fact) and now, through the miracle of our local market, here’s another device to examine.

There are thirteen games included in total, Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Casino, Circus Atari, Demons to Diamonds, Night Driver, Steeple Chase (I’ve never actually caught a steeple), Street Racer, Super Breakout, Video Olympics (which in turn houses the seminal Pong) and Warlord are all Atari 2600 games and as a bonus the hardware also simulates the coin-op versions of Pong and Warlords. All of these games were originally designed to make use of paddle controllers and, despite having played versions of some of them with the previous unit, it makes all the difference. Similarly, having the option of two players for the Video Olympics games and Pong is a Godsend, the single player AI included is still about as disinterested in the prospect as the one included with the 10-In-1 but with a second controller present it’s thankfully no longer the only option.

Got to Breakout of this place

The actual hardware is… well, “chunky” is a good description since player one gets daddy paddle and player two is left holding the baby (which, if my memory serves, is a reasonably accurate copy of the original design). The disparity coming from the insertion of the NES on a chip hardware and a battery compartment into one of the controllers. It’s not actually an issue as such because the controller itself works fine and the overall build quality is pretty high, but I’ll just lay money that it’s already caused all manner of arguments about who is using the house brick of a controller and what advantage or otherwise the person complaining believes that entails.

It doesn't exactly look like a 2600 here!

Looking through the list of games, there are a few stand out titles; Circus Atari is still excellent and, of course, benefits from being on its native controller rather than being modified for joystick use, Breakout and Super Breakout are tough but playable, both versions of Warlords are enjoyable (although the visuals and attention to detail of the arcade version makes it the one to play) but Casino is somewhat bizarre at multiple levels – quite why it was released with paddle control in the first place is open to debate and what it’s doing buried amongst all the arcade action. Oh, and it would appear that I still can’t play Night Driver for toffee even after all these years…

Bruuum - eeeeeee!

As with the Atari 10-In-1 this really is a device to cash in on late 1970′s nostalgia, the standard of accuracy is a little higher than the previous effort (presumably because a different studio handled the work, Digital Eclipse have an established track record as regards emulation and 2600 homebrew legend Thomas Jentzsch is credited as well) and, although some of the games included do seem to be “filler” (or more likely the only other examples of paddle-operated games after the good stuff was already included), generally speaking there’s a good selection of titles to play and the Breakouts, Circus Atari, Pong and Warlords alone make the entire thing worth what is currently a low asking price, so the rest is pretty much a bonus.

Simulating the arcade version of Warlords

The Atari Paddle (I’m not sure it has an official name) is still available from online retailers and eBay, but I got mine for three quid on a second hand stall at the local market.