The new titles hit the Atari Age store for pre-order yesterday, 12/31. Included in the release this year are two Champ Games arcade ports for the Atari 2600: LadyBug and the much-anticipated RobotWar: 2684.
- Doggone It! (2600)
- Escape From The Castle (2600)
- Game of the Bear (2600)
- Hellway (2600)
- Lady Bug Arcade (2600)
- Mr. Yo-Yo (2600)
- RobotWar:2684 (2600)
- Soul of the Beast (2600)
- Unholy (2600)
- Intellidiscs (5200)
- Danger Zone (7800)
- Dragon’s Descent (7800)
- Knight Guy in Low-Res World – Castle Days (7800)
- Wizard’s Dungeon (7800)
- Dr. Typo Collection (Jaguar)
- Gravitic Mines (Jaguar)
The new store listings don’t have video clips as yet, and I think videos really help you to decide what to buy, but I’m aware that at least some of these games have had demo or beta romfiles available for a long time, and if you want to try them before you buy physical cartridges, you can seek them out.
Knight Guy in Low-Res World – Castle Days and Game of the Bear look like fun puzzle platformers in a similar style. I’ve played Game of the Bear, the platform action reminds me of Terry Cavanaugh’s Don’t Look Back, which I loved playing about 10 years ago. Cavanaugh’s game was made in Flash, which hasn’t been supported in current browsers since Adobe retired Flash in 2020. Wizard’s Dungeon looks like an action RPG in the vein of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons on the Intellivision.
I haven’t looked closely at the rest of the list, but the titles mentioned above looked the most interesting to me.
Unfortunately, prices are up this year. Atari Age games listed between $25-40 for many years, but this year they’re more like $45-60. This is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s gouging — there have been chip shortages, and inflation has been high since the pandemic disrupted the world economy. As well, Atari Age has invested in producing new plastic shells for cartridges, rather than cannibalizing them from old games. New games for modern consoles tend to run around $60, and often less than that, so to pay that much for new homebrew releases on obsolete consoles is really something only for the most die-hard fans of classic gaming to afford.