Many game players who are adults today undoubtedly began their life-long gaming interest back in the early days of the video game industry. Game systems such as the Atari 2600, Intellivision and Commodore 64 provided home players with their first glimpse of arcade action and became wildly popular. One of the earliest third-party game developers was Activision, who produced classic games like Pitfall and River Raid. Of course, Activision is still churning out the hits today, but they haven't forgotten their gaming roots. The recently-released Activision Anthology allows PlayStation2 owners to revisit some of their biggest Atari 2600 hits in all their two-bit splendor.

Priced at about $30, Activision Anthology is a great value for any gamer. The disc contains a whopping 45 Atari 2600 titles, including a few that were never actually released. These titles cover the gamut of game genres, from sports to racing to adventure and everything in between. You get classics like Pitfall, Grand Prix, Kaboom! and River Raid all in one neat little package. The front-end to the anthology is a 3D representation of a kid's bedroom where you can select games, display modes and options.

It wasn't hard for Activision to map the one-button Atari joystick to the fifteen-button PlayStation2 DualShock2 pad. All of the toggles and switches from the actual Atari console are mapped to the joypad for convenient access. The only drawback is that you'll find yourself accidentally pressing the Reset button from time to time. Playing any of the 45 games is fairly simple: you just aim and shoot. Or jump. That's it. River Raid is about the deepest game on the roster, requiring you to refuel your jet as well as blast bad guys. There are no "endings" to any of these games, just your high score.

Of course, Activision has made attaining high scores very worth your while. Some of you might remember the embroidered patches that Activision would send you for sending them a snapshot of your high score. They've brought them back in Anthology as an unlockable reward for clearing high scores in certain games. This definitely gives you an incentive to play that you might not otherwise have. In addition to this you can also unlock additional display modes that can be used with any game. These novelties are simple visual effects ranging from motion blur and vertical scrolling to mapping the game onto the surfaces of a rotating 3D cube. They're neat to play with for a little while, so it's cool that Activision included them.

Most of these games are relics from the early 1980s, and their audiovisual components are downright pathetic compared to modern games. These games use only a handful of colors and the most rudimentary of shapes to represent objects and characters, and the resolution is extremely low. NES games look photo-realistic by comparison. Well, perhaps not, but suffice it to say that there's nothing pretty on this disc. Sound effects are similarly poor, with a small number of blips and bleeps used to represent a wide variety of sounds. (Of course, the engine sounds in Enduro don't sound too bad...) The appeal of these games certainly isn't their technical qualities, so just make sure you know what to expect from the beginning.

Luckily you don't have to listen to the audio in these games alone, as Activision has included a handful of "totally awesome 80s tunes". The selection is actually pretty decent (despite the disclaimer) and features the likes of Blondie, Soft Cell and A-Ha. Activision originally planned to offer downloadable games using the broadband adapter, but this idea was scrapped at the last minute. We're probably not missing anything spectacular, but it still would have been a cool feature. Regardless, this is an excellent package that offers a lot of fun at a great price. Remember this title for your game-playing friends this holiday season.