52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[realpoketendonl]

16. Yoomp! [Atari 8-bit]



Another game from Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. Yoomp! is a game for Atari 8-bit computers, developed in 2007 by homebrew developers Marcin 'Eru' Żukowski, Łukasz 'X-Ray' Sychowicz, Bartek 'BeWu' Wąsiel and Piotr 'OxF' Fusik. It was included in Atari 50 both as a symbol of the homebrew community surrounding Atari systems, and as an example of how much the Atari 8-bit hardware was really capable of. And wow, yeah, this game really shows that off. I am super impressed that they got something like this running on Atari 8-bit hardware. I mean, just look at it! THIS butttery-smooth pseudo-3D title is running on the same platform as that choppy barely-playable Food Fight port??

But not only is Yoomp! technically impressive: it is also really fun to play! I think the best term I can give it is a rhythmic cylindrical platformer? You control the ball, bouncing through the cylinder. You can move it left and right, and it will move forward one square with every beat of the music (which is very catchy by the way). Different tiles will have different effects on the ball, like launching it over a tile, sending it sideways or warping it to the other side. Your goal is simple: make it to the end of the 21 levels.

It's really addicting! Most games in Atari 50 were games I was content trying out for a few minutes and then moving on from, but this one instantly hooked me. I just kept playing it until I beat it. This is without a doubt a highlight of the collection. Hats off to the developers.

You can download the game for free on the official website by the way, to emulate or to run on a real Atari 8-bit computer if you have one. And I recommend it! It's really fun! https://yoomp.atari.pl/

EDIT

17. Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration

So Atari 50 is a collection of games from across Atari's history, but it's also a digital museum tour with a lot of background information. I've decided to count finishing the museum tour as "beating" Atari 50 itself, and then counting all the games in the collection (when beatable) as separate entries. Hence why the last two games before this were games that were in this collection. So I've now finished the museum tour, and at least tried out every single game that's part of that tour.

Context: I'm from 1998, so I didn't grow up on Atari. However, I am of course aware of their impact and legacy, and ever since I was a kid, that did intrigue me. I remember once finding and playing an Atari machine (I think it was Centipede?) as a kid and just being fascinated by it. And as someone with interest in that history, I found this to be a joy. This game is filled with video interviews with some of the key people from Atari's history, along with scans of ads, behind the scenes documents, manuals, box art, artwork, etc. I think in that sense this title holds a lot of value, as a digital archive of those stories. I definitely enjoyed watching these interviews and looking at these images.

Since this is an entry about the whole title, I'll also briefly mention the game collection as a whole here. It's Atari. I think you can estimate from that what you think of it. It covers their entire history: arcade, 2600, 5200, 7800, 8-bit computers, Lynx, Jaguar and a few miscellaneous things. Of course you have your classics like Asteroids, Missile Command, Pong, Centipede, etc. You've got some cult classics too that this title makes easily accessible, like Tempest 2000. And there's some hidden gems in here too: Yoomp! was a standout for me. The modern reimagenings of titles are a nice touch too, even if I mainly just like the novelty.

However, let's also just be fair: a lot of Atari's library either just does not hold up or has never held up. A lot of the 2600 titles may have been good for the time, but have not aged well. And many of the titles for the Lynx and Jaguar were never good to begin with. Now granted, especially the older titles also need to be viewed through the lens of time. And Atari 50 isn't a simple rerelease: it's a digital museum of Atari's history. And in that context there's absolutely value in these games being preserved here. But if you're going to get into this title, I think you need to see it through that lens. As a look into history, a museum tour, rather than a compilation of games you all want to endlessly replay. And thus you need to be interested in that.

If you are though: I can recommend Atari 50. It was neat to learn about this essential part of gaming history, and to try out all of these classic titles. I'm not sure how often I'll come back to it, but who knows, there's some stuff in here that even decades later is still as addicting as ever.

[bikingjahuty]

110. Layer Section (Saturn)

In the late 2010s and into the early 2020s, I was in the middle of a SHMUP renaissance that had me feverishly playing any and all SHMUPs I could get my hands on. I played some of the very best STG titles I've ever played during this time, as well as a few that are probably among the worst. But regardless, I was all about this genre for about half a decade. While my enthusiasm and adoration for this time honored arcade genre has cooled off since then, I still consider SHMUPs to be among my favorite genre of games and one that I return to often several times a year. One of the most enjoyable shooters I played when I was at the height of my STG fandom was Taito's Layer Section, a game that I considered one of the best SHMUPs ever made. After replaying and beating Layer Section again today, I still carry that sentiment.


Layer Section is a phenomenal game from all angles. Visually, the games sprite art mixed with limited 3D assets made it among the very best looking mid-90s shmups and eve none of the best looking games. This game just has ridiculously good production values all around. Everything from the stages, the basic enemies, the destructible backgrounds, and the crazy bosses are an absolute treat for the eyes from start to finish. Not only that, but the way this game is laid out has you on a continual journey where you do progress from stage to stage like in most shooters, but it is done seemlessly without any loading screens or end stage report cards before things transition into the next stage. The result is Layer Section feels like this epic journey where you're the lone ship battling an armada of futuristic ships, mechs and other awesome vehicles into the Earth's core for the final showdown against the boss. I struggle to find any flaws with this game visually, however, there is one fairly decent one which also ties into Layer Sections gameplay.


The name Layer Section is derived from the fact that this was one of the first SHMUPs to have two planes of combat. There's the top layer which is the one where your ship resides. You'll be dealing with enemies the way you would normally in most other SHMUPs by aiming your ship's primary lasers at whatever's in front of you and blasting away. However, in addition to this there's also a bottom layer where other enemies lurk and the only way to attack them is with your secondary weapon, a homing laser. Layer Section's gameplay depends on you being able to manage the bottom layer enemies and top layer enemies simultaneously, and especially addressing the bottom layer enemies before they make their way to the top layer. By the time enemies have made it to the top layer, they are far harder to kill than they were if you'd blasted them in the bottom layer, and they also often fire more projectiles at you as well once their on the same layer as you. This creates a very engaging, albeit very hard style of gameplay that is pretty fun, but at the same time very frustrating too.


Often, to take out bottom layer enemies before they make it to the top layer, you'll have to move ship somewhere that makes it easy for you to be point blanked by another enemy laser blast, or have an incoming enemy kamikaze you before you're able to react. I get this is likely an intentional design choice, but it often can result in a lot of cheap deaths or "WTF just killed me" moments. Where the game's visuals become a hinderance has to do with projectiles and enemies making their way from the bottom layer to the top layer. Often it can be hard to gauge where a laser is until it's too late. Luckily, these issues are fairly minor, but are still noteworthy blemishes on what is otherwise an excellent game.


Having address Layer Section's visuals and gameplay, the only thing left to talk about is the game's audio, which, oh man, is it good! The OST in Layer Section is incredibly catchy and undeniably has that mid 90s arcade sound to it which I'm admittedly addicted to. The other sound effects are pretty good too, but what really makes this game's audio stand out is that excellent soundtrack which you'll want to continue to listen to even after you've turned the game off.


Admittedly, I don't enjoy Layer Section as much I did when I first experience it 6 or 7 years ago, but even with that said, I still love this game. In fact, I'd still include it in a top 10 SHMUPs of all time list, which is saying something given all the SHMUPs I've played over the years. It is in good company too, even beating out excellent contemporaries like Hyper Duel and even more modern classics like Ikaruga. If you haven't played Layer Section and don't mind a very challenging game here and there, track this game down by one of its many names (Galactic Attack, Ray Force, or Gunlock) and try it out. It's amazing! (11/19/25) [40/50]