Missile Command (Atari 2600)

Ok I haven't really played Missile command to much in till I picked up the Atari Anthology for the PS2. It has both the arcade and the home version of the game. The game is pretty fun since it came from the pre video game crash of the 80's.

Story.
Well it finally happen the Russian has fired there nukes at us and it looks like where going to be burned to crisps. Our only hope is you operating an anti missile battery to stop the nukes from coming in and destroying the cities. If you fail then it will be nuclear Armageddon which will wipe out most of the human race, the rest will be whipped out by killer robots that look like Austrian body builders.

Graphics.
Ok if your expecting eye popping graphics your looking at the wrong place simple colors and dots was what the Atari 2600 produced, and Missile Command doesn t stray to far from that. The colors are good for the old system and the cities look fairly like the arcade. The explosion that appear on screen are pretty good for the ancient Atari 2600.

Sound.
The sound wasn t much on the whole 2600 we jump for joy whenever we heard a bell or a whistle. The sound is pretty much mute there are some pretty good explosions that come out of the old 2600 from this but that's it.

Gameplay.
Ok the game play is simple move your little line on to a missile and fire and destroy the missile. If a missile hits a city it's destroyed, when all your cities are destroyed it's gameover. Now there is one big change from the arcade game though and that's the fact that the arcade game had 3 missile batteries to fire from, each with a certain amount of missiles. Since the Atari controller only had one action button they decided to just put in one missile battery, with 2 reload tanks to the side. If you run out of missiles you use a tank, or if your missile battery get's hit you loose one of these tanks. If you run out of missiles then your at mercy of any nukes that may come at you for the rest of the stage.

Now when you blow up enough missiles the screen turns color your remaining amount of missiles are tally up for bonus points, and then more nukes get fired your way. Has the game goes along and the stages progress the nukes get faster and there will be more appearing at once, there will also be special nukes that move at different speeds used to throw you off.

While it's old and simple it is surprisingly addictive and I have widdle away an hour or two just playing this game.

Final Recommendation.
Finding Atari 2600 games that work right is hard thing to do anymore, but Missile Command is included in several of the classic packs, including the new Atari Anthology pack. And while this new pack isn t worth the 20 dollers for missile command alone, it's one of several games that make the pack worth while.