
Update [Thu 22nd Feb, 2024 09:35 GMT]: Since publishing, we've been contacted by Atari, who have given us an update on some of the issues users are reporting with the "Atari Presents" series.
According to an Atari spokesperson, the team has acknowledged it still has "some work to do to address some of the crashes and other issues that users are reporting", but has "already addressed some of the reports and will be continuing to push updated builds to GOG until we address what we find, both in the builds and the documentation".
The spokesperson also tells us that Atari intends to push "a complete rebuild of the Gunship bundle that has the Islands and Ice expansion for Gunship 2000", as there was an "internal miscommunication about versioning on Gunship 2000". According to the spokesperson we spoke to, it was always their intent to release the more complete version.
In other words, more fixes are coming, though an exact ETA/timeline is yet to be communicated for these.
Original Story [Mon 19th Feb, 2024 11:00 GMT]: Last week, without warning, Atari launched a brand new label on Steam and GOG called "Atari Presents", which will see the publisher releasing a bunch of old retro games on the digital storefront.
The company describes the initiative as "being geared toward the preservation of cult classics, forgotten favorites, and titles that would otherwise be lost to time", and claims the releases "are unchanged" from their original versions apart from being altered to be compatible with modern machines.
Eight games have already been released as part of this new label, including MicroProse's flight combat sims Gunship & Gunship 2000, Rainbird Software's cinematic platformer Weird Dreams, Accolade's Hardball! & Hardball II, Infogrames's 3D platformer Zapper: One Wicked Cricket, Flight of the Intruder, and the space flight simulator Lightspeed (these games cost between £5.89 to £8.50). But before you go getting too excited, it's worth noting that early Steam reviews for these rereleases haven't been particularly great.
The Steam reviewers BrianRubin and Damson, for instance, have been quick to warn people away from the Gunship + Gunship 2000 bundle due to crashes, copy protection issues, and the game seemingly being an earlier version of the title than what was shipped on CD-ROM.
Meanwhile, others have cited difficulty in getting Zapper to boot on their device (note: we could launch it just fine), with the developer Big Boat Interactive and Atari so far being unable to identify why some users can run the game and others can't.
All in all, it's probably best that you exercise caution regarding these rereleases for the time being, at least until Atari or Big Boat Interactive announce fixes for some of the issues that players have identified. We'll be keeping an eye out for any updates and will let you know if any adjustments are made.
[source store.steampowered.com]
Comments 7
Oh man, Weird Dreams, I'd forgotten all about that game. I only bought it because it was on one of those Saturday morning shows where you'd ring in and play the game by barking commands down the phone line.
The controls were so laggy and slow it made it impossible to dodge things, so doing it down a phone line must have been doubly impossible! I might buy it to see if it's as terrible as I remember! 😅
I hope these come to console.
The issue with PC gaming is everyone's setup is different...
Time Extension what is this article? There are roughly only a combined 8 reviews total for the entire 5 game Atari Presents series on the Steam page. Steam has an excellent return policy if anyone has any issues.
Dude101 wrote:
It's the same story with users on Gog. Games are unplayable.
Weird Dreams! Had this on my ST back in the day. I still fire it up on an emulator to hear the music now and again. Very odd game but the surreal visuals created a bit of a buzz back in the late 80’s.
@BulkSlash Agree 100%. Try dodging the stick that comes down in the candy floss machine, or the bee that stings you. Very slow response rate, but oddly has its own charm.
Blog post on the releases here: https://medium.com/atari-club/eight-classic-pc-game-re-releases-youll-want-to-play-005dde9abf96
We (Atari) are updating the builds to include the final builds of Gunship and Gunship 2000 with the expansions, and addressing the crash reports. We will note them on GOG as the updates are made.
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