Videogames Go Retro
Arik Hesseldahl, 05.16.02, 10:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - For those old enough to remember it, there is nothing like the sound of a round of Missile Command as played on the Atari 2600 game system, circa 1982.

The premise was simple and, considering the year, timely. Protect six nameless cities from the onslaught of a nuclear attack by blowing up enemy missiles in midair using fast, accurate projectiles. There it was: World War III right there on a TV screen.

Toymax's Activision 10-in-1: a trip back to the 1980s; a similar product based on old Atari games is coming later this year.

Something about the machine gun-like sound of the count-off between each successive wave of attacks made the game hypnotic and, among those with the patience and skill to play it for any extended period of time, instantly recognizable. To this day, Missile Command is one of the best-remembered Atari 2600 games and one of those most sought after at garage sales and eBay (nasaq: EBAY - news - people ) auctions.

It's about to make a comeback. Toymaker Jakks Pacific (nasdaq: JAKK - news - people ) said this week it is teaming up with videogame concern Infogrames (nasdaq: IFGM - news - people )--which now owns all the old Atari game titles--to create a handheld gaming system that connects to a TV set for playing Missile Command and nine other games that date back to the era of the Atari 2600 system.

It will be called the Atari 10-In-1 TV Games and will be similar in concept to a previous device sold by Toymax last year based on games for the 2600 created by Activision (nasdaq: ATVI - news - people ).

Twenty years is an eternity in the videogame industry. Saying old 8-bit games are primitive next to a 128-bit system like Sony's (nyse: SNE - news - people ) PlayStation 2 is more a joke than an understatement. Yet they retain an inexplicably strong hold on certain segments of the gaming community who are determined to preserve their legacy and keep the games alive for modern platforms.

Ancient as they may be, that certainly doesn't mean they aren't still fun to play. Some games are playable on PCs via emulation software and downloadable ROM files that can be found floating freely on the Web. And some companies, notably Activision, picked up on the yearning sense of nostalgia some years back and released a CD of the old games for the PC.

But the genius with the 10-In-1 series has been its packaging. The entire collection of software--what used to require ten separate cartridges--are programmed into the innards of a modern game controller. It connects to the A/V inputs of a TV set and is powered by four AA batteries. No console, no cartridges. Just plug in and play. It sure wasn't that easy in 1982.

The Activision version of the 10-In-1 debuted last fall and sold for about $20. Jakks says the Atari-based unit will hit shelves in the third quarter of this year, just in time for the holidays, and will sell for the same price. Missile Command will be there, as will Centipede, Combat, Asteroids, Battlezone, Adventure and four more as-yet-unnamed classics.

Time to save those six anonymous cities all over again.