By WILSON ROTHMAN
By now, the retro-gaming trend — dusting off an old Atari 2600 or Nintendo Entertainment System to play the classics — has outlived a number of more technically advanced new platforms. Jakks TV Games are whole classic game systems, including at least 10 games, built into AA battery-powered controllers that connect directly to the TV. The first, an Atari joystick, it was cool but lacked my favorites. Why? Because, way back at the dawn of the '80s, I was a paddle guy. Atari's paddle, with wheel instead of stick, was what you used to play games like Warlords, Breakout and Night Driver. Jakks' latest creation includes those gems plus 10 other titles.
As I mentioned, the joystick connects directly to the TV and, optionally, your sound system, so you have to pull up a chair or couch to within about 8 feet of your TV. Once connected — a simple matter of RCA plugs — and switched on, a menu screen presents you with the 13 games. As you select one, your TV is transported back in time 20 years, to a world of smart moving dots, two-tone brick graphics and untextured musical tones. (Ironically, the old-school graphics with all of their right angles look better on high-definition TV sets than do newer video games, whose visual trickery is often laid bare on better screens.)
It's funny how muscle memory can last two decades: When I sat down to play Night Driver, I wrecked a few times and then got past my anxiety and began cruising, headlights off, down a road lined with sticks. Warlords took the floating dot of Pong and Breakout to a new level: each player, tucked into a corner of the TV screen, protects his or her own bricked fortress while deflecting the bouncing blip at the other three opponents.
Other games that offered a welcome homecoming were the blackjack table in Casino; Video Olympics (a.k.a. Pong a.k.a. digital racquetball), which still lets you put a little "English" on it; Circus Atari, a physically challenging game involving a teeter-totter and flying Atari men; and of course, the mindless Breakout and Super Breakout.
Some games, not terribly delightful in the past, still don't have any gravitas. Steeple Chase, Canyon Bomber and Street Racer are just too boring, and Demons to Diamonds — which I don't recall from my earlier days — just looks awful.
A welcome surprise is an arcade version of Warlords, with more intense graphics and a few thrilling twists on the old favorite. Less appealing is the original arcade version of Pong: slow, colorless and noisy, even for a retro game.
As engrossed as I got in playing all of these games from my past, I almost failed to notice a sales slogan on the box: "A blast from mom and dad's past." I know Jakks wants to pitch this to younger gamers, but I have a feeling that "mom and dad" will be the ones buying — and playing — the Atari Paddle games.
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