Have you played Atari today? It’s the old marketing slogan, and these days there are more ways to play Atari than ever before. The Atari Gamestation Pro from My arcade is the latest mini console that give you access to a library of Atari games, and our review comes hot on the heels of the Atari 2600+ console that also recently launched. Whilst that system is all about playing cartridge games, the Gamestation Pro is a new plug and play console that has games built in.
In terms of the games you get, you 82 Atari 2600 games, 7 Atari 5200 games, 10 Atari 7800 games, and 39 Atari Arcade games. This means there are 138 Atari games on the console which is great. But as the console is described as having over 200 games, we should also take a look at how this number is reached.
The console features bonus games. This includes 32 8-bit games, 19 16-bit games, and 12 Arcade games. Many of these are games that came out on the NES, Mega Drive or Game Boy originally and their inclusion means the console is capable of emulating a lot more than just Atari games. But more on this later!
These games are the likes of the Piko games that includes games like Street Racer, The Humans, Sword of Sodan and Mega 3D Noah’s Ark. Noah’s Ark is famous as the reskin of Wolfenstein 3D, but where you play as Noah and capture goats and things. Sword of Sodan is notoriously awful. It’s a mixed bag, but they add some variety to the package and there is a generous amount of them included. It’s like getting three or four Evercade Piko Collections built in as well as all the Atari games.
Coming back to the Atari games on offer here, there are some great games here such as various versions of Asteroids, Centipede, Pong, Breakout, Warlords and Adventure. I’ll get onto the controller a little later, but the collection includes fifteen games out of the 200 that uses the built in paddle and these play well.
Some of my favourite games available here include the arcade versions of Crystal Castles, Tempest, and Food Fight, the likes of Scrapyard Dog, and Alien Brigade for the Atari 7800 and Missile Command, Haunted House and the unreleased Adventure II for the Atari 2600.
If the console was just the Atari games it would be in the same ballpark as the Atari Flashback consoles, and you can also get many of these games on the Atari 50 Collection that came out on all the major consoles and PC. The Piko games do give you something extra and you do get two joysticks with paddle controls on them which could lean you towards getting this collection as the way to experience the games. But… there is another cool feature that may give this the edge if you’re on the fence.
The side of the console features a micro SD card slot which allows you to add more games. Before we discuss everything about this, let’s just talk you through updating the console to get the best results.
Luckily for me, I didn’t get the console until the first firmware update was already available from the My Arcade website. Head over to the section about the Gamestation Pro and there will be a link to download the update and give you instructions on how to install it. The unit itself doesn’t connect to the internet, so you’ll have to connect it to a PC with a UBS type C to Type A cable. You’ll also need a paperclip or phone reset tool to do all the steps.
Simply download the files and install the driver. Once that’s done, launch the firmware updater from it’s folder and it’ll bring up the RKDevTool. Click under the three dots menu of both the loader and firmware and choose the loader and firmware files from the firmware folder that you downloaded.
After this connect your Gamestation Pro to your PC with a USB Type C cable to the back of the device. Use your paperclip to click the reset button on the back of the device and whilst this is held down press the power button on the top of the console. The PC will recognise the device and RKDevTool will say it’s found the console. Click run on the dev tool and it will update the firmware.
This all sounds slightly complicated but is simple enough.
This will add a few features to the console including that there are game instructions on the menu and some fixed aspect ratios. To be honest, as I updated this as soon as I got mine, I can’t say what difference it made overall, but can tell you the main reason I did the update. From when I saw videos about the console, I saw that you could add extra games onto the SD card. This update improves this experience.
My understanding is that all the games would just appear in one big list, but with the update done I was able to organise the games into folders for each console. I also understand that the update may add support for more consoles.
I did some experimenting and this is what I found.
You can add extra Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800 games. These won’t appear alongside the built in games though and you’ll have to access them from the SD card menu. The games you’ve added don’t seem to allow you to change the controls or do save states at some built in games do.
As well as Atari games, the Gamestation Pro is capable of emulating games from a slew of other consoles. I tried Atari Jaguar games and had no luck. Same with Atari ST and Amiga games.
NES and Super NES games both worked. I did find that Super NES Doom ran slow and there were some controller issues, but we’ll get on to those later. I even tried N64 games, but none of these loaded. I do have a little hope as when I tried to load N64 Hexen it did go to a black screen, but didn’t get further.
Nintendo DS and Virtual Boy games were also a no. But Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games all worked great.
Mega Drive games worked great, but it didn’t recognise 32X games. Game Gear games also worked great.
PCEngine games worked well, but Wonder Swan, Neo Geo Pocket and ZX Spectrum games didn’t work, but I admittedly only tried a couple of games from each to see if the system would recognise the files.
Arcade games were a bit hit and miss, although most older games worked great. I was even able to get X-Men vs Street Fighter to work great, but Soul Calibur was a no. It’s great for something like WrestleFest or Pac-Man though
The console itself is smaller than the 2600+, but larger than some of the mini Atari Flashback consoles that have been released over the years. It’s about the size of a Nintendo Switch game box, but slightly bigger. The look of the console reminds me of the Atari 7800, but it has it’s own design rather than being a recreation of a past console.
The console features two large buttons on the top. One for power and the other is a home button. Why they needed to be as large as they are, I’m not sure, but they have a fun light around them when the console is on, and you can change the colour, so this may be why.
The console comes with two controllers and these are unique designs inspired by the classic Atari joysticks. I actually quite like how they’re shaped as the sticks are wider at the top and get narrower towards the base, which is the opposite to the classic Atari joystick. They also feature many more buttons and functions. Whilst the classic 2600 stick had only one action button, and the menu controls were on the 2600 console itself, the Gamestation Pro controller features three action buttons, three menu buttons, a on/off switch and a button to change the lights on the controller and the console. Oh yes, I should mention that the controller lights up around the base as well. This is similar to the Atari VCS classic joystick, but with a unique rainbow colour scheme.
Oh and a really important function of this joystick is that opposite the A button is a dial which allows you to play paddle games with this same controller. I found the controller worked well for all the built in Atari games, and felt good in the hand. Mostly… The C button, which is a trigger felt a little low for my reach, but I could get used to it.
Truthfully, it didn’t take long before I wanted to explore if I could use any other controller with the console. Thankfully, you can! There is some good news and some bad news on this front though. Whilst the console does feature two controller ports on the front of the machine, the two ports are USB Type C. I’m sure in years to come this will become so standard that my complaint here will seem odd, but as things are this very much limited the controllers I could try with the system. If you have a Switch, a PS5 or Xbox Series console, you’ll have controllers that feature a USB Type C connection on the controller itself. This is fine, but the cables you’ll have got with these controllers will have the regular old style USB connection on the other end. This meant that to connect one of these controllers to the Gamestation Pro I needed to find a cable that was USB Type C on both ends. Fortunately my newer iPad came with one of these, otherwise I would not have been able to test things!
The bad news is that I’m not sure you can get cables that are USB Type C on one end and then Micro USB or the old school Mini USB on the other. So, this meant I couldn’t test PS3 or PS4 or Xbox One controllers on the system. It also meant I couldn’t try the Atari VCS modern or classic controllers either which was a bit of a bummer. And unless there’s an adapter for the old 9-pin ports to Type C you can forget about using your new Atari 2600+ controllers on this.
I did find a USB Type C to lightning cable, but the console didn’t recognise my Steel Series gamepad. Likewise my Switch Pro gamepad and Switch Nintendo 64 style controllers didn’t do anything when plugged in via USB Type C. I don’t think the console allows you to search for Bluetooth controllers at the time of writing, but the joysticks work wirelessly, so in theory I’m sure this may be possible in a future firmware update.
I also tried a Google Stadia controller, and alas this didn’t work. The good news is that both a Xbox Series X and PS5 controller worked great! Well…almost great. The controllers worked fine for all the built in games, but when it came to games I’d added, I found that the mapping was slightly off the ideal in several instances.
For example, in the arcade game Smash TV, the ideal would have been that the right stick would allow you to shoot in the direction you push the stick. Unfortunately, the right stick doesn’t work on that game, and instead you have to use the ABXY buttons, but these were messed up. Pressing the Y button should have you shoot upwards and instead brings up the save state menu, and some of the other buttons don’t shoot in the direction you’d think.
Likewise Super NES games had the Y button bring up the save state menu, but also function as the button you’d expect it to. So, when testing Doom (which ran super slow) you’d have to press the Y button to open a door and just put up with it opening and closing the save menu.
On Donkey Kong Country, the Y button is needed to do tag team Kong moves, so you can pretty much rule out completing that game on the Gamestation as things are. Also, the run and jump buttons were reversed on the Xbox gamepad.
Fortunately if you use a PS5 pad, the run and jump buttons weren’t reversed, but unfortunately there aren’t start and select buttons on the PS5 pad, and you don’t get anything happen from pressing down on the touch pad.
I’d like to think in future firmware updates that they add the ability to map button layouts on controllers, especially for added roms. I’d also like if they added Bluetooth support to give more options for gamepads that you can use. It’d also be cool if a few of those other systems got support like N64, or Jaguar.
The big question is whether you should get the Atari Gamestation Pro. The quick answer is that it is worth getting. I imagine that there will be sales of the console in a few months and if you can get this at around £50-70 pounds or below $100USD it’s really good value. Chances are that it could go even less with the right deal.
The bigger question is whether this is the right way for you to experience the games on offer. If you want something plug and play away form your main console or PC, and want that joystick experience this is a good option. I’ll create a separate article/video looking at this vs things like the Atari 2600+ and VCS, but there are several options where you can play many of the same games. The ability to add your own games via SD card is the best part about this, but there are also many options where you can do that too.
I think if you already have Atari 50 on a console or PC, you should consider carefully if you need this as well. Even if you do, if you like the look of the bonus games, SD card functionality and included joysticks, and can afford it, then it’s a great device.
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