The Twitter account for Atari X has 1 single tweet, and a whopping 18 followers.
Regardless of its mission resembling a sport fisherman looking for dinner on an empty stomach, the one thing "The Company Known As Atari" has done well is acquiring defunct IP for re-releases and potential sequels to be created as new physical cartridges. That, and well-made nostalgia driven Atari branded merch.
And the cartidge-based side of the business is actually really very cool. They produce very high-quality boxed games with physical cartridges that are leagues above the black carts from the early 80s. The carts themselves have silkscreen prints as well as LED signs that light up when in use. Included in the boxes are enamel pins and detailed patches, among other things.
How do they do it? They put games out there in the form of pre-orders via a company called Limited Run Games. This way they never have leftover stock, which also makes the new limited edition re-releases collector's items in their own right.
When I went looking for a game or two I soon realized that Limited Run was a literal description of the business: nearly every game was sold out. And the games aren't cheap, but when you consider what you get in the box (and it is a very nice box) it frankly felt worth it IF you really liked a particular game.
And I saw one that I did: Crystal Castles.
Back in the 80s when my brother and I dreamt of running through arcades, there were a few that always got our quarters. Some of the titles include:
- Tron
- Gauntlet
- Tetris
- Star Wars
- Shinobi
- Galaga
- Defender
- Xevious
Gorgeous cabinet art and graphics, the game is extremely memorable for its trackball for character movement. And the trackball makes movements at times ludicrously fast and exhilarating, offering very precise movements but at times heart-poundingly difficult when under stress, too.
The game is kind of like an isometric (or, trimetric?) version of Pacman where each level presents a very different maze we need to navigate our character Bentley Bear. The object is to collect all of the gems on a given level and avoid touching any of the bad guys. Pretty easy to understand gameplay, yet presented in a very unique way.
- Escher-esque graphics make Crystal Castles a joy to feast your eyes upon. The 1st level maze is built from the initials of whoever has the current high score.
- You got a trackball for movements and a jump button to navigate each maze. It feels right that a 3D-ish game would let you move on the Y-axis. At least I think that's the Y axis. Hm...
- I love the graphics even though I'm not great at this game. Each of the 37 trimetric-projected castles consists of a maze of hallways filled with gems and bonus objects and also includes stairs, elevators and tunnels.
It was ported to various home consoles and computers including the Atari 2600 and C64 (natch).
Anyway, when I was browsing the store in October, 2022, there were only a couple of options available. To my delight one was Crystal Castles. I didn't hesitate.
It showed up on my doorstep yesterday. I have to say: everything about it is gorgeous. Could I have bought an ancient cartridge for $15 on the Bay? Yes - but nothing close to this total shrine.
Atari: keep making stuff like this for as long as you can, and maybe re-release some of the cartridges that sold out in days, hm?
- It even came with a small acrylic cartridge stand that you get to assemble. Totally dig it!
I'll be popping this into my custom Atari 2600 device next week to try it for the first time with some friends. I'll take more pictures of it in action and post them.
