This is it! I'm giving my first overall 5 as a reviewer. Happens to all of us I suppose. A game comes along that just does everything it is supposed to. Activision Anthology for the Game Boy Advance by Aspyr is such a game.
(In my best Mr. Peabody voice.) "Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for the year 1980. We're going to California to see the founding of the first third-party video game company." We take for granted today that companies other than the console manufacturer will make games for a system. In 1980 that was not so. An upstart company, formed by defecting Atari programmers and a marketing executive from the music industry, decided they wanted a piece of the software-sales pie. Activision was born. They beat Atari at its own game by releasing the best games the system ever saw. (I didn't say it was a long story!)
What is Activision Anthology? Well, it is 48 games and one technology demo that originally appeared on the Atari 2600 Video Computer System back in the 1980s. And these are not just any games. Many of today's games can directly trace their lineage to these early, groundbreaking games. Added to the mix are seven new games.
Exactly what the cartridge contains is:
1.) Released Activision Games - Barnstorming, Baseball, Beamrider, Boxing, Bridge, Checkers, Chopper Command, Cosmic Commuter, Crackpots, Dolphin, Dragster, Enduro, Fishing Derby, Freeway, Frostbite, Grand Prix, H.E.R.O., Ice Hockey, Kaboom!, Keystone Kapers, Laser Blast, Megamania, Oink!, Pitfall!, Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns, Plaque Attack, Pressure Cooker, Private Eye, River Raid, River Raid 2, Robot Tank, Seaquest, Skateboardin', Skiing, Sky Jinks, Space Shuttle: A Journey Into Space, Spider Fighter, Stampede, Starmaster, Tennis, The Activision Decathlon, Titlematch Pro Wrestling and Tomcat: The F-14 Fighter Simulator.
2.) Unreleased prototypes - Bloody Human Freeway, Kabobber, Thwocker, Unknown Prototype 1 and Unknown Prototype 2.
3.) Venetian Blinds technology demonstration used in the Atari vs. Activision law suit.
4.) New homebrew games for the Atari 2600 - Climber 5, Okie, Oystron, Skeleton+, Space Treat Deluxe, Vault Assault and Video Euchre.
