Before you read (or listen to) anymore of this, go ahead and pretend that I'm not exactly an expert on old arcade games. All I really know about them is what I've seen on documentaries and have played ported to one console or another. Unfortunately, I missed out on that era of gaming. As for Bandai/Namco, anything they made after the '80s I've probably played in one form or another. With the exception of Pac-Man, my experience with any of the games offered in the Bandai/Namco Blast! is very limited. What I do know about them is that they're considered the upper echelon of Arcade games. So what happens when AtGames, a company known for their retro gaming systems takes a swing at packing eight arcade classics into one pack and sells it for less than $30? You get a lot of mixed reviews.
For those of you who don't know anything about AtGames or the Blast packs they've been releasing, let me fill you in on what you may - or may not be - missing out on. The Blast! is AtGames latest attempt at repackaging old classics into a more accessible forms for both nostalgia and modern gamers. Bandai/Namco, Atari, and Activision each have their own Blast! out, each containing different games from the '80s. This time around, instead of an actual console, AtGames has packaged these classics into a wireless HDMI dongle that you connect into any HDMI port on your television. Once the controller is synced up, you can dive into the past whenever you want and play for as long you want, without costing you whatever quarters you might have saved up for the occasion.
Back to AtGames for minute. It's no secret right now that people aren't exactly huge fans of their work. Over the years, they've tried finding an audience with their reproduction Atari and Sega consoles. They even got into the handheld market with their portable game players. While they all work (to some extent), they have quite a few flaws. For example, controller syncing is definitely an issue. With the Sega Genesis Classic Game Console, you had to literally be right in front of the console to get a signal from the controller. Then there was last year's Sega Genesis Flashback Console HD, which allowed you to play all of your favorite Sega Genesis games using an HDMI output. While it was definitely a huge step up from the last attempt at a Sega recreation, it had its issues. For example, it had a cartridge slot, but the games that you could play with it were very limited. Also last year, Sega announced they would be putting out a Sega Genesis Mini. When fans heard this, they were pretty excited, when they announced that they would be teaming up with AtGames to bring this Sega Genesis Mini to life, the enthusiasm died pretty quickly, and the Internet had a field day. Now, it would seem Sega has gone back to the drawing board to figure out how they can make a mini console that rivals the Nintendo classics.
Now, let's talk about the Bandai/Namco Blast! I've been reading some rumors on the Internet that the review units all contained ports of the original arcade games, while the ones sent out to stores all had NES ports. I can't confirm or deny these rumors, but let's pretend they're rumors until you discover otherwise. The Bandai/Namco Blast! contains eight classic arcade games, including: Dig Dug, Galaga, Galxian, Mappy, Pac-Man, Sky Kid, The Tower of Druaga, and Xevious. The games themselves (at least for me) were incredibly difficult, and I'm completely okay with that, because they came from an era of gaming when you actually had to be good at video games to play them. I talked about this in my Battle Princess Madelyn review, a game that was attempting to recapture the challenge that games had when they were in arcades . . . and I loved it (https://www.popculturecosmos.com/blog/battle-princess-madelyn-a-satisfying-descent-into-madness). The games in this unit all felt great to play. There weren't any controller syncing issues, nothing ever froze, there were no glitches that I noticed. While I'll admit to not being very good at these games, I played them all until I was able to at least beat the high score that was programmed into them. During that time, I didn't notice any difference between the arcade versions I've seen and the various ports. If you take into account that the Blast! controllers are shaped like Sega controllers, the games felt even better during the time I spent with them.
Now, let's talk about the actual unit itself. I'll be completely open when I say that my experiences with AtGames products have been frustrating to say the least. That being said, when I first tried to sync the wireless controller to the Blast! dongle, the struggle was enough to make me want to give up on the endeavor altogether. Turns out, after finding a YouTube tutorial on how to do it, I had just misread the instructions. Once I got it all synced up, it completely surpassed my expectations in terms of functionality. I could sit anywhere in my office and the controller would work just fine. So I applaud AtGames for fixing something that's been a pain with their products for as long as I can remember. While AtGames doesn't have a great reputation at the moment in the world of retro-gaming, this product is a giant leap above everything else they've done. I know other reviewers have been bashing it, but I actually enjoyed my time with it. My only complaint is that they need to include a longer micro USB cable and an AC adapter in the box. Otherwise, this is actually a pretty solid effort on their part. Let's hope this is a sign of more good things to come from them.
Reviewed by: Josh Pederson
Score: 8/10
Comments