ATARI Gaming Is GO
Retro gaming is big these days and why not? The games may seem simple to play but they are always challenging and provide hours of fun. But what’s not fun is trying to play some knock off/emulated version that doesn’t cut it stuck on some tiny arcade-like toy you got to use your pinky to move a real-ball around with.
What’s needed is a game console that’s handheld and filled with official games. Which means ATARI because they started it all, right? So stop looking around and grab hold of MY ARCADE’s GAMESTATION GO because the world’s ATARI and you’re playing in it now.
The GAMESTATION GO Is Your ATARI Gaming Handheld
Yes it’s all about the games but let’s look at what’s going to be playing them. The GAMESTATION GO has a high-resolution 7” LCD screen (full color obviously) and so is big enough to carry the screen and all the surrounding controls. You got an integrated paddle, a D-pad, a trak-ball and numeric keypad. But that’s not all — there’s also a ? Set of bumpers and of course the classic gamepad buttons (A,B, X, Y). The placement of the keypad at the bottom right makes perfect sense and doesn’t get in the way, nor does the other physical tabs for Settings/Credit and Select/Start.
It’s all being powered by a rechargable USB-C charging battery, which makes the 4-5 hours of gameplay fly by far too fast. YMMV but expect over 3+ hours without any aggravation.
You Can’t Handle The Games
These are official games, not replicated attempts, and it ain’t no lie that there’s over 200 of them — examples being classic favs like Asteroids, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Canyons, Yars Revenge among many others such as PAC-MAN of course. Also some Recharged editions, which takes a classic ATARI title and enhances it for the 21st Century. Plus licensed titles from M-Network and Jaleco and PICO in both 8 bit as well as 16 bit (ATARI’s titles span the 2600 to 5200 to 7800, each console with increasing capabilities). Two player games mean taking turns but so what?Pinball lovers aren’t left out either. Balls of Steel means a number of cool pinball tables to flipper at.
What’s really cool is the SmartGlow tech because all those controls can get in the way of muscle memory when a particular game comes up. What this tech does is light up the relevant controls, making it a lot easier to know what to press, rotate, trigger, finger smash, etc. For those returning to the arcade thrill remembering the precise controls to press might cause a bit of consternation the first time out, memory being what it is.
But while the games are considered “retro,” the console itself has a lot of modern enhancements besides that great looking LCD screen. First up is a HDMI output going to any of today’s TVs. There’s also WiFi for updating the console — no it doesn’t mean being able to download/add games (at least right now anyway but there IS that micro-SD slot). Plus game save options are placed in there so you’re not running crying to the retro gods every time you stink at playing. So you can put the game up on a really big screen and get po’d at how bad you suck at these “simple” games while not looking at the controls as you play — that certainly comes close to the experience of standing in front of an arcade box. To do that best, you might want to buy the company’s wireless gamepad or arcade stick. If not, you’ll find that for all its well made contours, the GAMESTATION GO is certainly not heavy.
What Makes The GAMESTATION GO GO
So we can hear those gears in your head turning. — “why do I need a stand-alone game tablet when I can download retro games and play them on my mobiledevice?” For one thing you’re not going to have this wealth of classic ATARI games staring you in the face. Nor are you going to have the exacting controls needed to make playing the games as challenging as they’re intended. But most of all you’ve got more games than your eyes can googgle at or you wallet can handle ready to go when you’re ready to go.
The GAMESTATION GO comes with a certificate of authenticity, an HDMI cable, 2 slots for game controllers, a super inconspicuous earbud plug, an AC adapter for playing without relying on the battery alone and a charging cable. A small instruction booklet also but it’s not needed because that’s also built-in with a FAQ as well. Plus so many games inside that even our wife (a non-gamer) couldn’t believe it when viewing the game-laded text on the box’s flip-out flap.
For more details go to http://myarcade.com
