Forgive me, Apple, for I have sinned. The never-tiring Microsoft propaganda machine had hypnotized me to the point where I was ready to swallow down whatever hype their PR department was dishing out. As the world waits for their word processors that correct spelling as you type, the Redmondians of Washington have decided to quell their GUI masses with a new line of products under the banner Microsoft Home (not to be confused with Microsoft Office or their forthcoming church-management package Microsoft God). One of the first offerings from this new division is Microsoft Arcade, a collection of arcade classics for Windows users who have decided life does, in fact, go beyond Solitaire for Windows.
Like some Pavlovian canine, I immediately salivated. This is great, the chance to relive some of the arcade classics that made video games famous. Will Microsoft port it to the Mac? When? I couldn’t wait to relive the good old days. In a fit of pique, I ran down to my local Egghead to catch Microsoft Arcade in action. Their resident Windows box was a 486sx with enough Microsoft software on it to qualify as a trade show exhibit. Unfortunately, it had no sound card, so I was unable to hear those sounds digitized from the original games. And since all the Arcade games run under Windows, they were crawling on this machine.
Microsoft has extended to Atari the same liberties they have taken in the computer market. The software behemoth, which often acts as if it invented graphical computing, has bestowed upon Atari the honor of Arcade Progenitor. Now, I’d never want to take anything away from Atari—which did introduce numerous classics during the heady early days of the arcade. But just because they were the easiest to cut a licensing deal should not mitigate the contributions of such companies as Williams, Namco, and even Nintendo (whatever happened to them anyway?) as the makers of arcade classics.
 
So, now that we’re straight that the package should actually be called Microsoft Atari, we can finally relax and enjoy the good old days. Microsoft has done an amazing job of bringing back Asteroids, Missile Command, Tempest, Battlezone, and Centipede to the smallest detail—from the explosions in Missile Command to the hyperspace scenes between Tempest rounds. And yet, Microsoft Arcade is strangely unsatisfying.
The main problem with Arcade is that, unlike wine, arcade games do not improve with age. In fact, the whole Arcade collection has aged about as well as most ABBA songs. Clearly, the worst offender is Asteroids, whose hollow, monochrome graphics look positively Cro-Magnon compared to the rendered graphics now de rigeur in most Mac arcade affairs. And the cities in Missile Command look sort of like cheese hors d’ourves that someone forgot to throw out the day after the party.
It looks like arcade offerings from the Mac commercial and public domain/shareware markets are avoiding many of the weaknesses of Arcade. The high quality graphics and sound of Ambrosia Software’s Maelstrom is an obvious contrast to Asteroids, but Casady & Greene’s Zone of Avoidance puts a 3D spin and a plot as it has brought blasting asteroids into the 90s.
MacBZone is a shareware package that does a pretty fine job of providing the thrill from the original find-the-wireframe-tank-and-shoot motif, although Velocity Development’s Spectre Supreme has updated the classic to a plateau that would have most Battlezone fans shaking in their combat boots. The nostalgic can even switch it to wireframe mode.
Until recently, only Mac old-timers could remember the Centipede-like thrills of Mouse Stampede, but those bug swatting authors of the shareware game Blood Suckers have turned their renderers toward Centipede and created Inline Software’s Firefall Arcade. Complete with an original soundtrack and dazzling explosions, Firefall puts an abstract twist on Centipede, but has spruced up the classic to the point where only the mechanics have remained. Even the Options screen is mesmerizing.
This is not to say that purists are lost on the Mac. The Storm Project’s Arashi is about as faithful recreation of Tempest as Microsoft’s version, and M. Tsugi’s Pacman would be a near perfect recreation of the dot-gobbling yellow one if the munching sound were less whiny. Heck, we even get handed a legitimate—if imperfect—arcade translation such as Readysoft’s Space Ace once in a while. Yet, many classics remain open for full-blow, full-color reinvention—Time Pilot, Xevious, Jungle Hunt, Zaxxon, Gyruss, Defender, Robotron, and Donkey Kong, to name a few.
When it comes to recreating arcade classics, Mac developers seem to have the right idea. Those who don’t remember the past may be condemned to repeat it, but those who blindly recreate the past are condemned to creating lackluster games.
