Atari and Mega Cat Studios have released Food Fight: Culinary Combat, a multi-player reimagining of the somewhat bizarre 1983 arcade game, into Early Access. The catch is that, right now, it’s exclusively available on the Atari VCS.
Review: Atari 2600+
27.11.2023 - 22:37 / destructoid.com
Being born late into the ‘80s, the Atari 2600 was an intriguing mystery to me. By the time the N64 hit, the NES felt old to me, so the idea of a console even older than that was exciting. This was before you could jump onto YouTube to look up gameplay. I wanted to see it for myself.
It wasn’t until college, around the time that the retro gamer identity really became a thing, that I finally found myself a 2600 Jr. Since then, I keep tripping into 2600 games. I own around 60, which isn’t as impressive as some of my other libraries, but considering I never actively tried to find Atari 2600 games, it says something.
A major issue with this, however, is that every model of the 2600 uses an RF output, and modern TVs hate it. Even late-model CRTs will sometimes refuse to display an Atari 2600, and those that do often do so behind a sheet of noise. I eventually modified my four-switch 2600 to composite video to finally get it to play nice with my modern setup. However, that’s not an option for a lot of people.
For people who want the 2600 experience without all the fuss, Atari themselves (and Plaion) have created the Atari 2600+.
The Atari 2600+ is based on the four-switch model of the 2600. Clone versions of the console are hardly a rarity, since the Atari Flashback has been around for nearly two decades. This one is unique, however, as it accepts Atari 2600 and 7800 cartridges. But rather than just be a reproduction, it outputs through HDMI and supports widescreen. It’s also a bit smaller.
If you’re a retro enthusiast, your first question is going to be what kind of emulation it uses. A lot of modern retro consoles have switched to using field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware emulation rather than software emulation because it’s more accurate. The Atari 2600+, unfortunately, uses software emulation through Stella for 2600 games and ProSystem for 7800. Stella has been around since 1996, so it’s damned good software emulation, but it’s software emulation nonetheless.
The major problem here is that compatibility isn’t perfect. There are games that won’t work on the Atari 2600+, but they are rare. Atari has a list of games, and there are only three fails as of writing, but there are quite a few that are untested, and a few that I noticed aren’t even listed at all. For example, one of my favorite Atari 2600 games, 1986’s Solaris, isn’t listed. However, I can confirm that it’s a pass.
Another downside is that the system needs to load at startup. Whereas the Atari 2600 gets an image on display the moment you flip the switch, the Atari 2600+ displays a splash screen, then states that it’s loading, and then you get the image. I don’t find this to be that much of a nuisance, especially since you can hotswap
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