Atari VCS 1 month later

So, it's been a month, and I've had some time to really mess around with the Atari VCS. Here's some things I've learned from both lurking and talking in the Discord and just from my own gosh darn experimentation.

1- When you buy the VCS, you're buying the brand and the Atari joystick controller.  Ultimately, that's what it boils down to.  There's nothing really exclusive to the Atari VCS shop that you can't find in other places or on other consoles. It's a tweaky little unit with a cool look, and the special Atari branding that someone who grew up with the Atari (like myself) will find fun an attractive. You'll get the great Asteroids start up screen, some modern classic vibes, and all the things I mentioned in the previous post . . . just don't expect to find something here you won't find in other online game stores.

2- Expect to spend a lot of money in search of the perfect paddle or trackball controller for the VCS if that be your desire. Sure sure . . .you can use the built in paddle on the classic controller that comes with the console, but outside of this, you're going to be spending over $100 (on sale) for something along the lines of the Atari Ultimate Arcade Controller from Microcenter. Granted, you would probably spend this much money on a paddle even if it was just for use on your computer though as far as I can tell.

Maybe next Christmas, beautiful controller . . . maybe next Christmas

3- Antstream Arcade is the perfect classic game streaming service for the Atari VCS.  It's easy to see why this is a natural fit for the console.  I think it's a brilliant choice, and you'll want to download this from the app store ASAP. Of course, if you don't want to wait for the VCS, you can just download Antstream and use it right now with your computer or android device. (Add Stingite as a friend while you're at it!)

All the old favorites!

4- I put my VCS in PC Mode exactly one time.  That's it.  I loaded up Ubuntu onto a USB Thumb Drive, plugged in a mouse and keyboard and thought . . . ok . . . um . . . not needed for me. Sure I got to surf the Internet from my TV and play a game of solitaire. The next step there would be to download Steam and play your steam games from the VCS . . . or possibly a classic games emulator, but I personally would just use my desktop or laptop to do that instead of the VCS.

5- I downloaded the game Donut Dodo from the Atari app store and played A TON. Holy sheeemoly this game is a fantastic arcade game with an amazing amount of replay-ability! Really some great implementation of a modern take on the classic arcade game. As it turns out, it's also available for download on Steam. I think you can play it on other platforms like the Playstation as well. It's $4 well spent. Between Antstream and Donut Dodo, that's where I've spent the majority of time on my VCS.

TFN (The Friendly Necromancer) finally made it to the Weekly High Score Board!

6- The only streaming service that seems to work well with the VCS controllers is Plex, which makes it the logical streaming platform of choice for the Atari VCS. The problem here is . . . Plex? I haven't found a really good reason to justify yet another streaming service. Plex does offer random news channels from each US time zone, so that's cool. I guess I should explore more of what Plex has to offer.

And that's about it! 

So what does the future of the VCS hold for me?  Well, there are a couple more games I have my eye on in the Atari VCS store.  All the "recharged" classics look like a lot of fun, and the developer for BPM Boy is on the VCS Discord chattin' up the fans.  I'm down to try that game. I also want to try loading up the built in Chrome Browser on the VCS and streaming games from Geforce Now. That sounds like it could be amazing!   

So far, the VCS has given me a lot of entertainment for the price. I'll be back with more thoughts as I continue to explore this great little console that I've been having fun with.

Happy Dueling!

Atari VCS First Impressions

Hello team! It was Christmas just a few days ago, and I got a cool new present from Santa, an Atari VCS. Check it out!

Going Retro!

Lemme just do my best to quickly catch you up on the world of Atari VCS in case you have no idea what that is. A couple years ago Atari released a modern console that plays the Atari retro games you came to know and love back in the 70's and 80's in a brand new expensive package that includes an exclusive game shop, a few streaming video services, and even a blank slate PC Mode. It's Linux based, and it comes with an updated classic joystick controller, a more modern controller, and a free series of games known as the Atari VCS Vault.

Now for the bad news . . . just on the 20th of December (8 days ago as of writing this post), Atari provided a statement to Tom's Hardware that sounded troubling. Basically they stopped manufacturing the VCS with their current partner, but Atari swears up and down that they are committed to keep the VCS platform software chugging along. The best guess here is that the early adopters of the Atari VCS that accounted for a 2.44 million dollar hardware revenue in 2021 have fizzled out, and last year they only made $212,466 in hardware sales. That's a big drop in sales. (Honestly, the sticker shock of paying $250 plus for a newfangled trip down memory lane has got to be the big stopping point for many people.)

Over the past three days I've had a chance to dabble a bit with my new VCS and have some initial impressions and stories that I wanted to share.

Day 1

My first experience (after downloading updates and whatnot) was loading up the Atari VCS Vault and playing a few of the old classic stand up arcade games that they featured . . . and it was awful. I mean it. The classic joystick controller they give you is actually pretty cool -- they've tied a paddle controller function to the joystick so you can rotate it like a paddle, but even after turning the sensitivity down, it was still bad. This was exactly the same for all the games that would have traditionally required a paddle controller. 

Trying to turn the sensitivity down is an adventure unto itself

Side note: The VCS can't take screenshots . . . so . . . camera photos it is . . .

Atari likely knows this and simply doesn't care, but MAN . . . that's a really bad first impression to provide me with a classic game alongside a poor play experience.

Day 2

On my second day of the VCS, I dove back in to give it another shot and reloaded the Atari VCS Vault app after I read somewhere on the Internet that there were a lot more games in the vault than I realized.  You're actually able to go down a level from the classic arcade game cabinets and play a slew of classic Atari games.  It's just a menu selection down. (My bad for not reading the line of text at the bottom of the screen)

Adventures of the Atari VCS Vault

Now we were talking.  The classic Atari games really played well with both of the controllers, and it was an absolute blast down memory lane.

My favorite comment was from my youngest who was watching me play Slot Machine (an Atari game I never got to play with as a kid), "Imagine coming home from school and this was the game you were looking forward to playing."  It's got such bad graphics. LOL. On the other hand, I had a chance to talk to him about slot machines and how they work. By the end of the play session he was cheering me on while I went on a losing streak that amounted to losing 300 bucks of game money while trying to hit the jackpot. 

He then got in on the action and played against me in the classic Atari games of Basketball, Bowling, and Combat.  Good times.

Day 3

The VCS comes bundled with a game streaming app called Antstream.  You can download this app on to your phone by the way. You don't need a VCS to play, but the controls on phone are really lacking. 

It's all about the challenges! The Pac-man challenges that is!

Antstream asks you to subscribe, but you can play for free until your gems run out.  A little tip here. Don't use Facebook to log in to Antstream if you're also going to use it to login on Atari--also, don't use the number sign as a part of your password . . . for some reason the Antstream keyboard doesn't have a number sign.  

Anyway, with Antstream you can play "challenges" that give a new twist to classic games . . . things like, get a high score in Pac-man using only one life or play Pac-man with power dots disabled and see how high you can score.  Your score earns you a medal and a placement on the leaderboards.

So there you have it.  That's my first experiences with the Atari VCS. It's a quirky little machine that's probably being discontinued. You have to struggle a bit to use it, it doesn't take screenshots, and has some weirdness to it, but once you figure it out, there is actually fun to be had there.

Up next for me with the Atari VCS is actually buying some of the weird games they have for sale in their Atari game store for the VCS. There's some cheap games in there that look pretty fun. 

Happy Dueling!