Visions of nostalgic 8-bit asteroids are dancing in my head. The glorious wooden beast of retro gaming is back with a vengeance. Behold, the Atari VCS!

Growing up in the 80’s, chances are the Atari 2600 was the first gaming system to sit alongside your Sony STR-414L AM/FM Program Receiver and massive wooden console TV.  And even more probable was the fact it was a shared toy between you and your siblings, resulting in arguments over who had first play dibs on Haunted House. Which, in turn, may have resulted in you throwing that heavy as a bag-of-kitty-litter-lumpy shit joystick (at least it felt that way anyway) at your little brother’s head after he threw one of his obnoxious tantrums, thus winning the first round of 8-bit gameplay.

Or, maybe that was just me. Eh, I’m sure you guys have similar stories too.

 

In any regard, the Atari console is the epitome of gaming nostalgia and with news coming last year on the half retro console, and half modern platform reboot of the system releasing for public consumption soon (or so we thought), all the sweet smells of that joystick rubber grip came flooding back like a waterfall of E.T. cartridges hitting the city dump. With a delay back in December of this anticipated console for retro gamers, earlier this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, a proper name was given to Atari’s dive back into the gaming market. Behold, the Atari VCS!

Image via cnet.com

While most of the details surrounding the modern-looking childhood relic remain somewhat of a mystery, we did get a look at the two controllers that will be available with the system (seen above). While one resembles the original stick of turmoil with a modern twist, the other mocks an X-BOX feel. Which I would assume would make gameplay just a tad easier. Hey, it’s what we’re used to these days, am I right? In addition, Atari did say that the Atari VCS will be built around a custom Radeon GPU and will be capable of running Linux offering an array of classic Atari games along with a “new  video computer system to change the way you interact with your TV, just as the original Atari 2600 Video Computer System first did more than 40 years ago.” via Forbes.

Whatever that means…

Other than that vague explanation from Atari reps, an announcement will be made sometime in April on pre-order dates, and hopefully, some more details on this mysteriously modernized wooden-top piece of gamer fuzzies.

Stay tuned…