I Grew Up on Atari. Now I’m Reliving My Childhood on the Gamestation Go

On Christmas Day 1982, I unboxed my very first video game console, an Atari 2600. Even though it was released in 1977, it was new to me, and I’m pretty sure the reason my parents bought it for me was because of a 2600 game released around that time: ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. My parents knew I was obsessed with this film, a transformative film that I almost missed because I was so afraid to watch it.

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I was delighted. At 7 years old, with my gigantic brown glasses on my nose and wearing a red ET shirt, I had one of the best Christmases ever. Despite my love for the movie, I didn’t get far into the game, which left me frustrated and confused. I didn’t know that it wasn’t because I wasn’t competent, but because it was bad. Even today, people find the game too complex and inscrutable to play.

(How bad? Copies of the game were literally buried for decades because it sold so poorly.)

The Atari 2600 came with Combat and two controllers. I played it for years, starting out as a dedicated player like millions of other kids of the era. If you had asked me a few months ago how many games I remembered from the 2600 or its later successors, the Atari 5200 and 7800, I would have been hard-pressed to answer. I could have cited maybe a dozen titles at most.

So when Atari loaned me a Gamestation Go handheld gaming console to try out, I was shocked to see dozens of titles come rushing back to me. From the moment I saw their cover art, their animated screenshots or simply their titles, the memories quickly flooded in. I’ve played so many.

And the ones I didn’t get a chance to own or try, I pored over, pointing out at the store or poring over every gaming magazine I could get my hands on.

Asteroids and Berserk and Centipede and Night Driver and Yar’s Revenge – so, so many games.

Old games, new console

The Gamestation Go, sold for $179, brings together about 200 of these Atari home console games. But it also includes versions of arcade games including Crystal Castles, Food Fight and Tempest, as well as seven Balls of Steel pinball tables, Classic and 2600 versions of Pac-Man, and games from Jaleco and Piko Interactive such as Bases Loaded and Bad Street Brawler. Many games can be played in multiplayer mode by connecting a game controller.

This is a wide range of games, and Atari presents it in a nice hardware configuration with a larger screen than the original Nintendo Switch.

There are no detachable controllers like on the Switch, but the crazy array of controller options makes up for that: the usual D-pad and shoulder buttons, but also a dial you can rotate (good for games like Breakout), a trackball wheel (for games like Centipede and Crystal Castles), and even a physical numpad, handy for some Atari 5200 games and if Mattel’s Intellivision titles are ever added.

It has an HDMI port, three USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a micro-SD slot for side-loading additional games. A sturdy but flimsy-looking crutch can support the system. An additional set of small buttons lets you access settings, credit, select and start. Instructions for using the gaming system, such as navigating in and out of titles, are clear and available from the main menu.

You can perform system updates via the built-in Wi-Fi, but there’s no app store to purchase or download additional games.

Retro versus modern

The biggest challenge I faced during my time with the Gamestation Go was devoting time to games from past eras and ignoring the siren call of modern gaming on modern consoles and computers.

Did I really want to explode an endless waterfall of centipedes or play slow-paced tennis when I could finish Act II of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or play a game of Marvel Rivals with my friends?

Some of the gameplay from the older Atari games and a few of their Recharged redesigns still hold up incredibly well. Missile Command always gets your pulse racing no matter which version you try, and it’s fun to control with the included trackball, although its ball size makes it a challenge to use as accurately as the larger one you might remember from the arcade.

Balls of Steel pinball machines look great and play very well, although viewing them on a horizontal screen presents a gameplay challenge. Storming with the dial or trackball controls is always a twisted joy. I found myself particularly drawn to arcade games that I either completely missed, like Cisco Heat All American, or that I remember spending many, many quarters in, like Asteroids.

Missing? AND, the game that started it all for me. But there’s Steeplechase, with its horse animations, and Ninja Golf, which is as strange as it sounds.

Getting bogged down with ET

I’m not a big emulation gamer, although I’m curious about the possibilities of home arcade cabinets which allow you to add many more games than those supplied as standard.

The Gamestation Go makes retro games easy to access, provided you have access to the ROM files and a microSD card to store them. The process involves creating a set of folders to store the files in, then booting from the microSD card when the Gamestation boots.

In my testing, the Gamestation handled Sega Genesis and Atari 2600 titles like a champ. However, online reports vary as to how well it reproduces games from more advanced consoles, such as Sony’s original PlayStation or the Sega Dreamcast.

There is some controversy over ROMs, digital copies of game software. Most ROMs are copies of games that are still copyrighted, meaning the original creators, such as Nintendo or Sega, legally own them. Downloading or distributing ROMs without permission is illegal in many countries, even if you own the original game. That said, some ROMS are available on the Internet Archive, and there is no shortage of sites that collect game files and descriptions on many game consoles.

Atari offers this ability to play ROMs in the hopes that you will find legal ways to purchase ROMs or only use ROMs from games for which you already own a cartridge of a digitally purchased version.

For the sole purpose of seeing if ET was what I remembered as a young boy, I found a copy of the game after trying in vain to find a way to purchase it as a digital file or even a physical copy with a ROM included.

ET’s face appears on the title screen as a chiptune version of the John Williams theme plays. When I started it, I got goosebumps.

But that tingling sensation disappeared almost instantly when the game started. I immediately fell into a bog. I tried tracking down tiny dots purporting to represent Reese’s Pieces candies, but was repeatedly accosted by FBI agents and scientists. I went to the bog. Again and again. Soon I was dead, my alien body turned white to indicate loss of life. The frustration I felt back then was now combined with adult annoyance at the game’s poor design. How dare they rush this game to appeal to parents of kids like me from the 1980s? Who thought this could be fun?

After a few more bored minutes, I stopped the game. There’s probably a walkthrough online on how to easily beat ET, but I didn’t even bother. I was done for a few more decades, at least.

AND for Atari 2600, like so many other things, is a thing of the past.

Should you buy a Gamestation Go?

As ET proves, not all early games were good. Many of them were and continue to be trash. (Sorry, Swordquest.)

But there are plenty of gems packed into Gamestation Go that draw you in, even if only for short periods before you tire of the repetition and want to play something from this century.

But what a rush of warm feelings the Gamestation Go will give you the first time you boot up and look at that long list of titles, games you might have already wanted and wished for and spent weeks trying to master!

Is it worth buying? It really depends on how much nostalgia is valuable to you these days, or how curious the kids in your family are about retro gaming and emulation.

My inner 7 year old, the one who would have been in 8-bit heaven with so many games to play, says you’d be an idiot not to. But as an adult, I have some reservations.