Evercade Retro Games - Cart Collection Review

A Quick Look A My Favourite Games From ATARI 1 & PIKO 1 Carts...

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I've now had my Evercade EXP handheld retro gaming console for two years now but haven't actually written very much about my experience with it. So, I intend to rectify this by going back through my collection of cartridges and picking out my favourite 3 or 4 games from each (or the best if they are duel game carts OR my opinion in the rare cases where it is a single game)! 😉

ATARI Arcade Collection 1

It's kinda fitting that I start by looking back on the first Atari cartridge as it has a few classic games that harken back to the very early days of my discovering arcade games. There are some games on this cart that really take you back through the mists of time!

My personal favourites from this collection are; Asteroids, Luna Lander, Missile Command, Crystal Castles and Centipede. Asteroids goes all the way back to 1979 (!) and it is my earliest recollection of playing an arcade game - I discovered this cabinet game when on holiday with my partents in Blackpool (at the famous 'Pleasure Beach' of course)!

These were all 'pre-home computer' (in my case Sinclair Spectrum 48k) games which I played in actual arcades. At 10p a go these machine could soon swallow up a kid's pocket money! 😆

But despite these being the original classic arcade game - which lead the way - their lifespan was surprisingly long, which says a lot about the unique quality of these early games. And they were still very popular for years to come, I remember still playing Centipede at the Students Union when I was at art college in the mid 1980s, and Asteroids at one of our local night clubs later than that!

Even today they are challenging and fun, despite their graphical simplicity and I have a blast going through this cart...

PIKO Collection 1

Now, the PIKO collection - on the other hand - was completely new to me. Most of the games on this cart are the SNES (Super Nintendo console) versions of these games and I was never a 'console guy'!

As mentioned, I was a 'Speccy' (Spectrum) home computer owner and there was a sort of rivalry between home computer owners and those that had consoles. The console guys would brag about their graphics and we computer guys would retort about the relative sophistication that a 'proper commuter' could add to a game. Though that did not stop us from playing the 'ported' versions of console games on our Speccies, C64s or Amstrads - we just hade to put up with less colours (particularly in the case of my poor Speccy)! 😟

So, as I said, this was my first real chance to experience the console games in their original form, and I have to say I was very impressed.

My only slight niggle, might be that trying to play the beat'em'up games (really best played on an arcade cabinet) where a bit taxing on my poor hands when using the Evercade's Dpad controls. I think that to do these type of games justice you really need an arcade joystick (another excuse for me to think about buying the Evercade VS console as that has USB ports for third party controllers).