It is a ballsy developer who tries to recreate the After Burner experience on a machine as humble as the Atari 2600. But Doug Neubauer was nothing if not ballsy.
Radar Lock made use of the same engine he had developed for Star Raiders follow-up Solaris, but transplanted the action from the black void of space to the blue skies of Earth. Radar Lock also ditched the strategic adventure aspect of Solaris in favour of something a little more arcadey, and is a well-regarded game from the latter years of the 2600.
Check it out in the video below — including my repeated failed attempts to understand what the manual is quite clearly telling me — and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Remember the movie Hudson Hawk? Probably not. It was a Bruce Willis passion project that the people who actually watched found rather enjoyable, but it ultimately ended up forgotten by most.
Like many movies in the ’80s and ’90s, Hudson Hawk got a video game adaptation by Ocean. The remarkable thing this time around is that said video game adaptation didn’t suck; it was actually a rather good platformer that combined dexterity challenges, puzzling and light combat. It also didn’t feel the need to be super-true to the movie, which probably helped it in the long run.
You think we have problems now? Back in the ’80s, video game distributors would refuse to stock games if they felt they would be “harmful to children”. And Red Rat’s Nightmares for Atari 8-bit was a victim of this moral panic.
It stung doubly hard for UK-based Atari 8-bit enthusiasts, becuase the stockist in question was Silica Shop, a longstanding supporter of Atari platforms and a popular choice for mail order. Unusually, it was actually the press that stepped in to help — Page 6 Magazine took on the task of distributing the game in place of retailers who refused to stock it, and perchance made themselves a few quid in the process.
Was the game actually any good though? Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.
Of all the genres that have been with us since the earliest days of the medium, racing games have probably been through the most significant changes.
There’s still an undeniable appeal to classic single-screen top-down affairs, though, particularly when they control as elegantly as Race (aka Indy 500) for Atari 2600 does. Originally making use of a custom “Driving Controller” and today mapping excellently to the analogue sticks on our standard joypads, Race remains a fine way to while away a few minutes, whether you’re by yourself or in the company of a friend.
When is a colourful Japanese puzzle game not a colourful Japanese puzzle game? When it’s made by Germans!
Gem’X, despite appearances, is indeed a German-born game designed to resemble Japanese arcade titles, thanks to one of its designers’ love of Japanese anime and manga. While there are certain areas where they didn’t quite nail the presentation, it certainly has a distinctive look and feel among the rest of the Atari ST’s library.
And it’s an interesting, surprisingly cerebral puzzle game, too! Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.
Type-in listings were a key part of 8-bit home computer culture, both in Europe and across the pond in the States.
The quality of games varied wildly, but it was always an interesting and satisfying experience to type something in to the computer’s BASIC interpreter, save it to a disk or cassette and have something you could enjoy at any time — just like something you’d bought from a shop.
Here’s an example from the latter days of Atari User magazine; a machine code type-in known as Maniac Mover. Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.
It’s fun times four with Quadrun, which is one of the rarer Atari 2600 games thanks to its original status as a mail order-only game for Atari Club members.
It’s a shame this didn’t get a wider release, because it’s an intriguing, unusual, experimental and rather fun game once you get your head around its core mechanics, which see you moving around four distinct quadrants of a playfield to dispatch enemies and rescue “Runts” from the dreaded electric toaster grids.
While the Dizzy games are primarily associated with the 8-bit microcomputer platforms for many people, a lot of them came out on the 16-bit computers, too.
Third title Fast Food deviated from the traditional “arcade adventure” format of the series, instead providing a maze-based munch ’em up in which the things you are tasked with munching are all moving around as much as you are. K.C. Munchkin would be proud.
Pardon me, boy, is that Sega’s Super Locomotive? Why no, good sir, it’s Alligata Software’s Loco, a gratuitous “homage” to Super Locomotive which creator Antony Crowther got away with thanks to Super Locomotive’s relatively unknown status!
Loco is an interesting concept for a game; you’re driving a steam locomotive down never-ending tracks, fending off attacks from small aeroplanes and inconveniently placed handcars that have been carelessly discarded around the railway network. You’ll never get where you’re supposedly going — this is an arcade-style game through and through — but in games like this it’s all about the journey, not the destination.
Are you ready for the Video Olympics? Because that’s what we’re playing today!
Yes, today’s game from Atari Flashback Classics, known as both Pong Sports and Video Olympics depending on where you bought it and from whom, offers an array of rough approximations of sports based on Pong mechanics. It’s a simple set of games and there’s almost nothing here if you’re a solo player, but if you’ve got a friend or three to play with there’s a lot of fun to be had here.
