The Atari Gamestation Go feels like a system built for fans

Hands-on with a delightfully unusual retro handheld

In an era when handheld gaming systems are growing increasingly bland—an army of glossy black rectangles framed with a familiar array of buttons and thumbsticks—My Arcade decided to do something very different: Embrace the potential chaos of too many controllers.

The Atari Gamestation Go features four face buttons, a directional pad, right and left triggers and bumpers, a spinner knob, a roller ball, and a number pad, all in the service of ensuring that people can play the games packed into the system in the same way they were played when they first hit consoles and the arcade decades ago.

The Gamestation Go comes packed with more than 200 games and lets you easily load your own legally obtained ROMs.

With its 7-inch screen, relatively light weight, massive game library, and ability to plug into a television via HDMI, the Go is likely to be my system of choice for visiting family over the coming holiday months.

And even without the excuse of family, I’ve found that the Atari system is getting a lot more attention than any of the other more than 200 handhelds I have in my collection.

A big part of that is the controls, and what a good job My Arcade did with implementing them in a practical, non-confusing way.

To be clear, if you’re a heavy retro gamer used to playing on the original systems—especially arcade machines—this is not a one-to-one experience. The spinner, for instance, is smaller than you’d expect and doesn’t have any travel when you stop twisting. It’s still very usable, but if you’re looking for something that does a better job of authentically recreating the arcade feel, I’d pick up one of the kits I’ve seen advertised for adding heft to the knob.

The roller ball, on the other hand, is a much faster ball than what you’d find in an arcade, and of course, much smaller. It’s designed to be used with your thumb, not your fingertips or hand. It can take some getting used to. Fortunately, several of the games do allow you to tweak the sensitivity of controls before you play.

The directional pad is slightly mushy, but nothing that will be noticeable in the sorts of games you’ll be playing. The face buttons are very snappy, but again, you’re using them to play games that once ran on systems like the Atari 2600 with a monolithic joystick and a single big red button.

The number pad is only currently used for the Atari 5200 games loaded into the system. They don’t come with overlays, but it’s fairly easy to flip back and forth between gameplay and the built-in instructions when you’re about to, say, pitch in RealSports Baseball. The instructions include overlays for the games that support them, showing, for instance, that pressing one on the number pad in Baseball will pitch a high curveball.

Despite my nitpicking, the controls were fine in general, especially for a system used mainly on the go, and that offered so many options.

One of the neatest design choices for the system is also tied to those controls. When you start a game, the controls or a circle around them light up a soft orange to let you know which will be needed. It’s a fun touch that speaks volumes to the overall approach My Arcade took in designing the system.

The system also features the iconic Atari logo badging at the top center, as well as some very ‘70s orange-to-black striping across one side.

The back of the handheld has a tuckaway stand that works nicely if you want to play with a controller, as well as two controller ports that are almost dead center on the back panel.

The game selection is quite robust, including not just titles from the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, M-Network, Recharged, and arcade, but also Pac-Man games, Balls of Steel pinball tables, and Jaleco and Piko games.

That’s a lot, but you’re sure to find something missing even among the list of 200 titles. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to load your own library of games. You just need to install the legally obtained ROMs onto an SD card in a folder called games, and pop the card into the system. On boot-up, it will ask you if you want to load local storage or the Micro SD Card. If you choose the SD card, you’re presented with a list of the games you loaded, which are supported. I found that some of those titles even support the specific controllers found in the system.

I haven’t spent a ton of time messing with ROMs, but I can say that the system does seem to support Lynx games, which is amazing.

I was also delighted to discover, when speaking to Michael Ponce, Vice President of Design at Dreamgear/MyArcade, that the built-in Wi-Fi functionality will eventually be used to expand the system’s library with the possibility of downloadable add-on packs. (Make sure to read my full interview with Ponce here for more insight into the system’s inspiration and design iteration.)

Playing the Go over time is surprisingly comfortable. Even running through the four to five hours of battery life didn’t leave me with sore hands or any annoyance caused by poor design choices. This is a system meant to be held and played a lot.

I’m not surprised to see that the pre-orders for the system seem to be selling out quickly. It’s the sort of handheld that skillfully bridges the gap between casual gamer, hardcore gamer, nostalgia player, and retro enthusiast.

Who doesn’t want to play the original Adventure on a system you can walk around with that sports the Atari logo, or Missile Command with a roller and Tempest, a spinner? Despite the fact that the system’s games hit the sweet spot of my pivotal console gaming years, I also still managed to find several games I’d never played before … and quickly fell in love with them.

My current obsession is with the firefighting real-time strategy game The Ignition Factor.

All of that said, there are things I hope My Arcade gets around to tweaking post-launch. Fortunately, all of them are tied to software, I believe.

I’d love for the system’s controller glow to activate as I scroll through the games. Or for there to be a way to sort by controller. After all, a big part of Go’s experience is playing a spinner or roller ball game. Why not make it easier to find them?

Probably the chief annoyance that’s going to surface, though, is that a lot of the games you’ll play won’t let you fine-tune the ball or spinner sensitivity, and it’s not easy to see, at first blush, which games support tweaking those controls.

I think this is because My Arcade is relying on what was supported in the original ROMs, but if they could find a way to offer system-level sensitivity adjustments for those controls, that would be amazing.

For instance, there is the ability to save your progress in the games, something that wasn’t originally supported in the titles. So I hope more sensitivity adjustments are on the way.

I’d also like to see WAY more games that support the keypad. The current offering is surprisingly enemic. That said, I’m sure we’ll see that tackled down the line when downloadable games arrive.

My Arcade’s Atari Gamestation Go is a pleasant surprise in an industry that seems to increasingly devalue the sort of creativity that strays from the pack of experienced success..

It’s the sort of system that, for a lot of people, is going to feel like it was made just for them, delivering the warm embrace of retro gaming in the ‘70s glow of a handheld that plays like a love letter to Atari.

If you can still find it, the Atari Gamestation Go costs a chunky $180. It’s scheduled to launch in late October, though Amazon is currently saying it arrives in early November.

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