Atari Mania, creatively presented microgame collection, due this summer

Atari as a company occupy such an intriguing place in video game history. Being responsible for both creating and savagely murdering the initial video game market, I’ve never quite been sure whether to appreciate them or curse their grave. I mean, I WOULD curse their grave – if they’d ever died to begin with. Somehow, the Atari brand has gasped on through the 90s and into the current millennium, undead and persistent – like someone with the first name Sheev being forced into a film series of some kind without explanation, long after they served their purpose. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you what it is.

So Atari, so good

Well, the good news is the Atari name has lasted so long, people now have sufficient nostalgia for it that the company can begin mining said nostalgia for bucks. Mini consoles, merch, fan events, you name it. The latest in this line of retro-leaning projects is Atari Mania, a WarioWare-esque microgame compilation themed around classic Atari titles. While the gameplay itself looks pretty standard for this sort of thing (short, snappy, barely comprehensible little events that flash by), its presentation has a fair bit of merit.

Take a look at the trailer, which declares the game to be due out this summer:

The concept is thus: you are “the Caretaker of the Atari Vault, the storehouse of classic Atari games.” This is of course not to be confused with the Disney Vault, which would make for a rather boring game as that one is hardly ever opened. One night, “a dead pixel appears and soon enough, all heck breaks loose,” says the description. Presumably, wacky hijinks and savage fourth-wall breaking will be had.

Over 150 microgames are to be included, spanning such hits as Asteroids and Centipede. Think Adam Sandler’s Pixels, except decidedly less crap.

Will you be picking up this novel title? Do you have any Atari games you’d like to see represented? Let us know!

Via, YouTube.