The Flashback 2
The Atari Flashback 2 is (to the best of my knowledge) Atari's second attempt at capturing a piece of the ever-growing nostalgia video game market. There have been previous attempts at bringing classic Atari products to the market by both Atari and Jakks, and while these have met with a certain degree of success, overall quality has not been that great. This time, however, I do believe that Atari has finally delivered the goods.

A brief history
The Atari 2600 was the system to have in the late 1970's. Indeed, while Atari was not the first video game console system, it was the first that popularized video game consoles and put them in nearly every household. The games, while rather simple, were quite colourful and fun to play. Memory chips being worth more than gold back in those days, the programmers definitely made the most out of what they had. The Atari 2600 was to the video game industry what the Sony Walkman was to the portable music device industry. Atari Parties, which usually involved marathon championship game playing, was born in the basements of suburbia.

The Box
The box which contains the Flashback 2 console very closely resembles those that Commodore used for its home computers back in the day. The package is every bit as colourful, with cheesy shots of people having way too much fun and a bold logo across the top. Indeed, this package could have come straight from 1985. Flip open the box, and you are presented with the console, a manual, an AC adapter, and two controllers neatly placed and well presented. The folks at Apple would call this the “Out of box experience” and I would rank the out of box experience with this product very high. I didn't have to plug it in or use it to feel good about it.

The Console
Unlike previous attempts, the Flashback 2 is a genuine Atari 2600 and not an emulation. It contains the original 2600 circuitry. Although it lacks an all-important cartridge port, people have bought a Flashback 2 and have managed to hack in a genuine Atari cartridge port to play those classic Atari cartridges (yes, they still exist); a Google search will turn up a good number of web sites that explain how this is done. Still, it does contain 40 games, which is more than what I had when I had my Atari 2600 years ago. The Joystick ports are identical to the original, which means you can use the old controllers. All the switch settings are there; even the Black & White mode switch. The case looks like a classic “Woody” Atari 2600, and has the same feel, but has been reduced in size significantly. Unlike the classic Atari, this one does not require a “Game” switch box to hook up to your TV. Instead, it has separate audio and video out, which will plug directly into any modern TV. This improves the crispness of the sound and video significantly over the original.

The controllers
Next up are the controllers. Next to this controller, modern day controllers included in consoles like the Playstations and Nintendos appear emasculated; indeed, the “Stick” that juts up out of the controller three inches is definitely phallic; hence, this controller was commonly referred to as a “Joystick.” There is only one button; a fire button. You know its purpose because it is bright red. The controllers that come with the Flashback 2 do indeed look identical to the ones sold in the 1970's, right down to the orange directional accents that surround the stick; however, upon closer inspection, these are very much improved over the original. The stick part is now a solid piece of hard black plastic that screws in to the base, rather than a rubber jacket over a skinny tube of PVC. It feels as though the contacts inside have been improved as well. The end result is a joystick that is much more responsive and much more substantial than the original. The unergonomic boxy base can still induce hand cramps, which is part of the nostalgic experience, but thanks to the better responsiveness of the new stick design, the cramping doesn't happen as quickly as it used to.

Using the console
Using this console is rather mixed; though overall a pleasurable experience. The A/V cord is a good 7 feet long and connects as any A/V cord ought to. I plugged in the A/C adapter, the controllers, and pressed the red “Power” button. Other buttons across the front include reset, a difficulty button for each controller (left and right), and a “Select” button. Though the use of the power, reset, and select buttons were obvious, I couldn't tell which position the difficulty buttons were in; pressing each of these buttons toggles between two difficulty settings for each controller, but there is nothing to indicate which position they're in. There is also a TV type switch on the back that toggles between colour and black & white, which works only with some games (as was the case with the original). It would've been nice if the difficulty switches were more like the TV type switch. Each controller has a 5 foot cord, which means one can sit up to 12 feet away from the TV.

The Games
The included games are a real mixed bag; like a bag of mixed nuts, there's never enough of what you want and too many peanuts. In this case, there are 20 original games, and 20 “New” games. These new games are ones that were never released to the public, and raises the appeal of this product to people who were really into video games and the 2600 back in the day. The games are sorted into four categories: Adventure Territory, Arcade Favorites, Space Station, and Skill And Action Zone. Two of the games are licensed from Activision, which I thought was a really great idea. Playing some of the prototypes such as Combat 2 and Saboteur will make you realize why these prototypes were shelved and never released to the general public. However, the inclusion of the original 1972 arcade version of Pong lets you see that even the most simple and primitive of video games can still be fun and addictive.

For sakes of completeness, here are the games in their respective categories:

Atari originals: Adventure, Haunted House, Battlezone, Centipede, Millipede, Missile Command, Space War, Yar's Revenge, 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, Combat, Dode 'Em, Hangman, Human Cannonball, Maze Craze, Outlaw, Space War, Video Checkers, Video Chess. Note that Asteroids and Millipede have been updated with slight enhancements.

Activision originals: Pitfall, River Raid.

New or previously unreleased games: Adventure II, Return to Haunted House, Secret Quest, Wizard, Arcade Pong (actually a 1972 original never released on the 2600), Asteroids Deluxe, Lunar Lander, Space Duel, Caverns of Mars, Quadrun, Saboteur, Yar's Return, Aquaventure, Atari Climber, Combat 2, Fatal Run, Frog Pond, Off the Wall, Radar Lock, and Save Mary.

It was a let-down to discover that they omitted some Atari classics such as Pole Position and Space Invaders. Those of you looking for Pac-Man ought to know that Pac-Man is not owned by Atari, which explains why it is absent; but Pitfall and River Raid were much better games anyway. Another sore omission was the lack of documentation for the games. The manual does give you a good overview of what the game does, but some games have dozens of variations and do different things with the controls like the TV type switch. This detail is missing, forcing me to go on-line to look up the original documentation.

The “Secret”
Did I say there were 40 games? If you can get your hands on a set of original Atari paddles, you can unlock two “Hidden” paddle-only games. I don't have the paddles, but have been haunting thrift shops and flea markets every weekend now in search of a set ever since I discovered this secret in the Flashback. Move the Joystick up once, down nine times, up seven, then down twice...to spell out 1972, the year Atari got things started. This will unlock Warlords and Super Breakout.

Conclusion
If Atari is going to survive in today's competitive market, they'll need to exploit the nostalgic market. This Flashback 2 is a step in the right direction. This product represents excellent value for the dollar. It is not meant to compete with Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony; indeed, next to these modern wonders of technology, the Flashback 2 is like a stone hammer with comparatively crude sound and video. You will be disappointed if this is what you expect. That said, many of the games are timeless and fun for any generation to play. Seriously, it gets no better than Combat. In spite of the fact that this is an excellent product, it is lacking in certain areas; these being documentation, design flaws (the difficulty buttons), and the lack of a cartridge port. Here's hoping Atari can address these imperfections and get it perfect the next time around. Overall, the low price makes up for the deficiencies, so I give it a 4 out of 5 and recommend it to anyone.

*UPDATE JANUARY 28, 2007*
After haunting thrift shops and flea markets for the past few weeks, I finally managed to obtain a pair of Atari paddles. This is what I've discovered:

-The original Pong game, which is normally played by joysticks, recognizes the dual paddles connected to Joystick port 1. After getting to the game, simply unplug a joystick, plug in the paddles, select one or two player, press the paddle fire button on the player one paddle, and you have the original Pong the way it was meant to be played.

-Warlords is a four player game, so two sets of paddles would make for great fun between four people at an Atari Party.

-Super Breakout is a single player game only.

Overall, this paddle support is impressive and makes games like Pong so much more enjoyable.

Recommended: Yes