I totally understand why there was disappointment amongst a segment of the Evercade community when the milestone 50th cartridge was announced.

Expecting something truly special, for it to be another collection of incredibly dated, simplistic Atari 2600 titles was a bit of a letdown for many.

Yet this cartridge really does feature some absolute classics, many of which are now very expensive to pick up as  original Atari cartridges.

Let’s get my personal favourite dealt with straight away: H.E.R.O.

I spent countless hours playing H.E.R.O. back in the day, even using a looser, more responsive joystick to get better results (and it worked; I got extremely far into the game, being incredibly close to reaching the maximum score). These days my reflexes aren’t what they used to be, but H.E.R.O., in which you’re a jetpack and laser-equipped demolitions expert on a mission to save trapped miners, remains a superb, incredibly addictive title to play even now.

Is that just nostalgia talking? Perhaps, but then how would you explain my enjoyment of other games on this cartridge, which I have had less, if any, experience of in the past?

Pitfall II, for example; despite never having played it back in its day, it’s a superb platformer, and an excellent sequel. Despite its advancements, I still prefer the simplicity of the original game, but this was a seriously impressive technical achievement on the Atari 2600 upon release. Pitfall II’s less linear structure is pretty cool too.

Robot Tank is an excellent take on the first person tank shooting of Battlezone, complete with weather systems, a night/day cycle and the possibility for your tank’s functions to be destroyed the more you get hit. Very cool.

Oink! almost feels like a reverse Breakout, as your little pig (not so little in reality; it’s an impressively big sprite) protects their house from the Big Bad Wolf by laying the bricks to fill in gaps he destroys.

Seaquest is a fun underwater shooter in which you rescue humans from dangerous wildlife and enemies.

Another shooter, Spider Fighter is a blisteringly fast-paced experience; perhaps too speedy for my ancient reflexes to keep up with. Enjoyable though!

I wasn’t sure what was going on in Cosmic Commuter at first, especially as it kicks off with a mini game in which you land your craft before taking off and making a Defender style journey across a planet’s surface to pick up and drop off people heading to work. Once you settle into it though, it’s a really cool little game.

Though simplistic, Boxing has a nice rhythm to it, and excels in two player mode, which is hilariously daft fun.

Plaque Attack is a great shoot ’em up with a theme that sees you as a tube of toothpaste, defending a mouth full of initially perfect teeth from bad food.

Stampede, while looking incredibly basic, offers some enjoyable, rodeo round up fun.

Now onto the games I didn’t particularly enjoy. Skiing felt too slow and not particularly interesting to me, at all.

Dragster suffers from being too simplistic and having a ridiculously fiddly control scheme all at once.

Moonsweeper is technically impressive, but the gameplay did nothing for me.

Likewise River Raid II, which overcomplicates the basic vertical shoot ’em up formula with altitude and speed adjustments; I don’t know if I would have enjoyed this more as a kid when its innovations would have been more impressive, but it just feels far too fussy to me (you can even crash before taking off properly!).

Finally, Checkers is probably the weakest game here; it’s a shame because it plays a decent game of what we Brits call Draughts, but it’s ruined by being so painfully slow.

So there you have it; though there are several games I didn’t enjoy in Activision Collection 2, the highs of the compilation really do make this a worthwhile purchase for me. Your mileage may vary of course; it’s true that even the decent games here are incredibly basic and technically dated, but for me their arcade style simplicity makes them well worth playing.

You can buy Activision Collection 2 from Amazon.

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