Review : LEGO Icons 10306 Atari 2600

Today we take a quick tour of the content of the LEGO Icons set 10306 Atari 2600, a large box of 2532 pieces which will be available on the official online store and in LEGO Stores at the retail price of €239.99 from August 1, 2022.

For those who did not know this game console, it is a product launched in 1977 in the USA and which was not marketed in France until 1981. It was then a console which brought into the children's lounge the most cult games available on arcade terminals. LEGO offers us here to assemble the "S" version of this console dating from 1980 with its wood finish and its four switches while the previous version had six of these switches and the next one lost the somewhat kitsch facade .

We're not going to lie to each other, this new console in LEGO version is in my opinion a bit to the NES what the Chevrolet Camaro Z28 is to the Ford Mustang: a little less sexy stooge that will highlight the another construction on the same shelf by playing on the range and collection effect. Although it was the first console for many children, the Atari VCS is not at the level of the NES when it comes to evoking the cross-generational aspect of the product.

I am one of those who had an Atari VCS in their hands in their childhood and yet the three games provided in this box are far from being those that I remember. In my memories, I mainly played Pong, Space Invaders or Pac-Man, but I also remember having quickly abandoned this console whose catalog of games contained hundreds of sloppy and uninteresting titles sold too expensive for my money. poached.

It is moreover the joystick that will have marked me the most in this product, the design of the console itself being simply consistent with the furniture and equipment such as the television or the record player available at the time in my living room and like many of us, I then turned to the Nintendo NES marketed in the 80s.

As for the console of the set 71374 Nintendo Entertainment System, LEGO feels here obliged to add something to brighten up a somewhat boring construction process. We are assembling the reproduction of a console whose design is not very exciting and we had to offer something to alternate between the phases of stacking black pieces, setting up Tiles wisely aligned and some more entertaining sequences.

The public price of the product is obviously affected by this "filling" which imposes on us a small storage unit for the three cartridges supplied and three mini-constructions which are intended to offer a 3D representation of the games concerned. I think that many slightly nostalgic fans would have gladly contented themselves with the console, its controller and one or two cartridges to stay under the 200 € mark.

The aesthetics of the product speaks for itself, the assembly of this model is not the ultimate creative challenge and it is only the subassembly which includes the switches, the joystick and the kid's room that bring a bit of fun. It is also the subject that imposes this relative monotony, hard to blame the designer on this point.

With the exception of the frame surrounding the switches and the facade with a very correct wood effect, the console is completely black and there is no escape from the usual technical problem: many parts are scratched, marked or damaged upon unpacking and finish of the object frankly suffers from this lack of care from the manufacturer. The NES escaped the carnage with its gray surface, the Atari VCS will have more difficulty passing for a pretty high-end model depending on the lighting used.

The entrails of the console conceal a small staging of the bedroom of a kid living in the 80s with his boombox, his video cassette, his wall telephone, his CRT television and a few posters on the walls. It's totally cliche but nicely done with a simple mechanism that unfolds the scene when the console cover is pulled forward. Why not even if this subset also contributes to soaring the public price of the product.

The controller is on the other hand very well designed, it is really illusion and the designer has even thought of integrating something to manage the return of the stick to the central position after each manipulation. This level of attention is appreciable, it only depends on a few judiciously chosen and used parts and the result here is worthy of a top-of-the-range product which wants to pay homage to the reference controller. All those who have had an Atari 2600 controller in their hands remember the difficulty in taming the accessory and everyone then had their own technique and way of handling this rustic but terribly effective controller for the time. Too bad for the absence of a reproduction of the paddle which allowed to feast on Pong.

The three cartridges are dressed in huge stickers with a few references to different LEGO universes, they really look like the cartridges that those who have played on this console have manipulated to their heart's content and you would almost believe it without looking too closely . We regret the use of matte plates with their large injection points for the back of the cartridges, it's ugly.

I would have preferred Pitfall, Pac-Man or even Space Invaders to the Centipede, Adventure and Asteroids games, but it will be up to everyone to have an opinion on the selection offered based on their childhood memories. The small cabinet, greedy in parts, becomes obvious because it is there and that we can store the three cartridges there but it is once again a dispensable element which inflates the bill.

The three mini-scenes don't add much to the concept, we won't really know where to put them and I'm not sure that the three games selected deserved this brick-based adaptation. These three constructions have at least the merit of bringing a little fun to the construction process, the idea being to pretend that the game materializes in "real" form out of the cartridge. The assembly of these three modules offers a bit of diversity over the pages, the instruction booklet is intelligently balanced so you never have to get too bored.

I'm not making you a drawing, everything that is not on the three sheets of stickers that I scanned for you (see above) is therefore pad-printed. The console and its controller are fully dressed in pad-printed parts and it's very successful, with the possible exception of a slight, slightly fuzzy border around the text surmounting each of the switches. Note that the two switches on the right return to their initial position thanks to the use of two rubber bands.

Once is not custom, LEGO provides a minifig with this console and the young man is dressed in a nice t-shirt flanked by the Atari brand logo. It's then up to you to customize the figurine so that it looks like you if you intend to stage yourself in the rocking room with green carpet and brown walls.

This set is obviously a niche product for nostalgic forty or fifty-somethings, it's a console that has had a little trouble going through the ages except for a few diligent retrogamers. We can't deny that the Atari 2600 played a major role in the transition between arcade machines and home consoles with the porting of titles that have become cults, but at 240 € the box, it will be necessary to accumulate real memories to want to pay for this step back to build without then being able to play with it.

I am one of those who are in principle the target of this product, but I will still ignore it: there are too many interesting sets to come this year, and choices will have to be made. The Atari 2600 in the LEGO version could have seduced me as it is, but unfortunately it comes out at the same time as other products which leave it no chance and its price positioning does not, in my view, make it a product that could complete a large summer order.

Note: The set presented here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at July 31, 2022 next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.