Category Archives: Atari A to Z

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: IK+

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Despite it being one of the most legendarily enjoyable games on the Atari ST, I must admit that I never played International Karate+, better known simply as IK+, back in the day.

Well, it’s time to correct that longstanding oversight, because it’s time for “I” on Atari ST A to Z once again — and IK+ has been staring me down for several goes around the alphabet to date. Let’s fight! And don’t forget to press “T” for Trousers.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Ocean Detox

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As we’ve seen a few previous times on this series, the development scene for the Atari 8-bit is, like with many other ’80s home computers, alive and well.

Ocean Detox, the game we’re looking at today, was the winner of an annual software competition run by the Atari Bit Byter User Club, or ABBUC. This competition attracts some of the most talented Atari 8-bit developers from across the world every year, and everything produced for it is always both high quality and well worth your time.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Raiders

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After the relative disappointment of the Atari 2600 version of Star Raiders, it’s time to take on the proper version.

More accurately, it’s time to take on the Atari 5200 version, which tweaks a few things about the original Atari 8-bit version and adds proper analogue control, which is nice. It’s still an all-time classic, though, and if you can get your head around the controls in the Atari Flashback Classics port, there’s hours of fun ahead.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Hard Drivin’ II: Drive Harder…

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Back in the ’80s and ’90s, it wasn’t unusual to see developers for home computers take it upon themselves to make “sequels” to arcade games.

Hard Drivin’ II: Drive Harder… for Atari ST is a good example. It takes the basic format of Atari Games’ polygonal classic Hard Drivin’ and polishes it up with a better handling model, more tracks and a rather clunky track designer, allowing you to create your own challenges.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Ninja Commando

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Video games have always had a budget sector — and much like low-cost digital download games are often highly creative today, the same was true for the straight-to-cassette budget sector for the Atari 8-bit.

Zeppelin Games was one of the more noteworthy budget specialists, in that they consistently produced high-quality games and then released them for pocket money prices. Sure, you had to wait more than 15 minutes for them to load on the Atari 8-bit’s excruciatingly slow tape drives, but it was usually worth it!

Here’s Ninja Commando, just one example of Zeppelin’s excellent output for the platform. Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Raiders

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Star Raiders is one of my favourite games of all time, and with good reason — it is one of the greatest games of all time. At least it is in its Atari 8-bit incarnation, where it was quickly regarded as the platform’s “killer app”, despite its early release.

Star Raiders for the Atari 2600, meanwhile… hmm. Well, they tried — though, judging by the masterpiece that is Solaris, developed by the creator of the original Star Raiders on home computers, they could have perhaps tried a bit harder. Stick to that original and best version, I’d say!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Garfield – Winter’s Tail

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My family and I were big Garfield fans back in the day, so naturally the prospect of some Garfield-related video games was an appealing one — even knowing how dodgy licensed video games tended to be!

Garfield: Winter’s Tail isn’t an amazing game by any means, but it does feature some excellent presentation and some creative gameplay. With a bit of polishing it could have been really good; as it stands, it’s a good example of what to expect from a licensed title in the 16-bit home computer era!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Montezuma’s Revenge

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A longstanding favourite of Atari 8-bit fans is platformer Montezuma’s Revenge, a game with an interesting story behind it.

I actually grew up with a copy of what turned out to be the unfinished 48K “preliminary version” of the game rather than the 16K version that eventually made it to commercial release, but both incarnations of the game are well worth checking out; truly classic platforming action, and an early example of open-structure 2D exploration gameplay.

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Sprint Master

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The term “racing game” these days is usually applied to games that unfold from a three-dimensional (or at least quasi-3D) perspective. But back in the ’80s, there were a bunch of fun top-down racers.

Sprint Master for Atari 2600 was a solid adaptation of the format that may or may not have been a conversion of Atari Games’ Super Sprint. The reason why this isn’t quite clear is because Atari Corporation (who released 2600 games) and Atari Games (who released Super Sprint) were, at this point, two separate entities with loose connections rather than simply two divisions of the same company!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Flight Simulator II

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Flight Simulator II from subLOGIC was an important piece of software for our family. Not only was it a “game” that my father enjoyed (though he continues to insist to this day that it is “not a game”) but it also directly or indirectly kickstarted the writing careers of three Davisons.

Yes, indeed, after my Dad had his enthusiastic praise of both the Atari 8-bit and ST versions of Flight Simulator II published in the UK’s Page 6 magazine, both my brother and, much later, I started contributing articles to the publication. My brother is, at the time of writing, a person of considerable importance over at IGN and I, well, I get paid to write about cute anime girls. And we can trace all that back to Flight Simulator II!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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