With over fifty Atari 2600 games on one cartridge, Activision Anthologies for GBA is a verifiable museum of gaming in the palm of your hand. Thank goodness they are emulated very nicely and come with manuals, box art, and other goodies. Activision was the first third-party console publisher, and they were quite prolific on the 2600.

I was a bit disappointed to find that favorites like Combat and Yar’s Revenge aren’t included in this compilation (because they were published by Atari), but it’s hard to complain with classics like Pitfall, Kaboom, and River Raid. Sure, there are some stinkers, but many of these games are still fun to play and REALLY addictive. The cartridge saves your top three high scores for every game, and you can even earn virtual patches, like the ones Activision used to send out to people who scored well enough. I don’t think anything becomes unlocked by earning patches or high scores, but it’s still fun to master the games.

The emulation is very faithful and appears to be running at full speed. It’s easy to be confused with some of the system’s quirks, like having to reset (Select button) after loading a game in order to start it. There are also difficulty and mode switches, which are controlled with the shoulder buttons on the GBA. Most of these games used the standard joystick button, so all you need to use are the control pad and the A button. The paddle controller has been simulated pretty well and can be manipulated with either the control pad or shoulder buttons. It feels a bit more slippery than in joystick games, which is about right.

One of the best parts of Activision Anthologies is being able to use it with a Game Boy Player, so you might as well have a perfectly functioning Atari 2600 with a huge stash of games. The compilation also has support for two-player link in those games that originally had multiplayer modes. And no, you don’t need another cartridge! However, the second player has to look on the first player’s screen, oddly enough. Using a Game Boy Player fixes that problem beautifully. My friends and I had some trouble setting up two-player games, but I think it might have to do with changing the game variants to one that activates both players.

Activision Anthologies is a very impressive compilation of gaming treasures. The two-player mode and full game manuals are both great inclusions, but the solid emulation and great game selection are what will endear nostalgic players.

Discuss it in Talkback!