Category Archives: Atari A to Z

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Dark Chambers

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It’s a Dandy dungeon out there, for sure it is — and Dark Chambers marks the conclusion to one of the earliest and most notorious legal disputes in gaming.

John Palevich’s Dandy begat Ed Logg’s Gauntlet, though the former wasn’t too thrilled with the fact that the latter didn’t credit him. Then Gauntlet begat Dark Chambers, which did credit Palevich — who had also settled out of court with Atari by this point, too. And we were left with several versions of a rather entertaining Gauntlet-alike that ditched some of the annoyances of the arcade game!

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: Surround

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The “snake” game, known over the years as “Blockade”, “Light Cycles” and doubtless various other forms of address, is one with enduring popularity. And indeed, as we’ll see with this launch title for the Atari 2600, it’s been around pretty much since the dawn of video gaming.

Surround is an unofficial home port of the game that started the whole genre: Gremlin’s Blockade for arcades. Surround has one big benefit over Blockade, however: its Video Graffiti mode, which allows you to draw gigantic hairy peni– I mean, tall men riding broken bicycles. Yes. That.

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: Vroom

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It may have a ridiculous name, but if you ask any ST enthusiast what the best racing games on the platform are — hell, if you ask them what the best games on the platform are — you will almost certainly hear Vroom mentioned.

Developed by Lankhor, this is a high-speed first-person racer that effortlessly blends smooth scaling sprites with polygonal scenery to produce one of the most thrilling games on Atari ST. It was so good, in fact, that publisher Domark went and sorted out a Formula 1 license and then released an updated version called F1 a little while later!

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: Crystal Raider

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Crystal Raider from Mastertronic is not a game I’d come across prior to recording this video, but it seems it was rather fondly regarded back in the day — and likewise a lot of people today seem to like it, too.

It’s an interesting puzzle-platformer with a peculiar jumping system similar to that found in Atari’s arcade title Major Havoc: so long as you hold the fire button down, you continue the upwards arc of your jump. Mastering the crazy moves you can do with this is essential to success — and Crystal Raider certainly demands some inhuman agility at times!

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: Super Football

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What happens when you give the guy who made Star Raiders the task of making an American football game for Atari 2600? You get the best damn American football game on the Atari 2600, that’s what.

Here’s Super Football, a game that I was dreading playing until I discovered that it was the work of Doug Neubauer, a guy who really knows his stuff when it comes to both technical mastery of the Atari 2600 and designing great games. And he only went and did it — he made an American football game for the Atari 2600 that I actually enjoy playing. Wonders will never cease!

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: The Upper Reaches of Apshai

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We return once again to The Temple of Apshai Trilogy for Atari ST, this time to explore the first “expansion” section: The Upper Reaches of Apshai.

The Upper Reaches of Apshai is noteworthy in that it takes a rather more light-hearted and experimental approach to the game’s core dungeon crawling; it has you picking berries and cleaning up rampant tomato patches rather than battling your way through vanilla-scented ant-men. And the Atari ST version is a great way to experience it!

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: Beach Head II

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What does any self-respecting dictator do when he gets the smackdown from the allied forces? He strikes back in a sequel, of course — and that’s exactly what happens in Access Software’s Beach Head II: The Dictator Strikes Back.

Offering a series of competitive minigames that can either be played against the computer or a friend, Beach Head II is an enjoyable game that feels like a noticeable improvement over its predecessor in many ways. Just a pity that the Atari 8-bit version missed out on the Commodore 64 version’s digitised speech!

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: Super Challenge Football

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Sports games, sports games, will I never be free of sports games? Apparently not, as we’ve got another one today. This time it’s not actually all that offensive, however — though it’s still a two player-only affair.

Super Challenge Football is, like its Baseball counterpart, an adaptation of an Intellivision game for the Atari 2600. Unlike most American Football games, this game allows you to program all your linesmen individually, making for a somewhat more understandable game for American Football newbies like myself.

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: The Temple of Apshai

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The Temple of Apshai and its later Temple of Apshai Trilogy “remaster” are best known as 8-bit titles, but the latter actually got a port to Atari ST in 1986 — by Westwood, no less.

The ST version is, as it turns out, pretty good. It not only incorporates all the classic gameplay into a friendly GEM interface, it also includes all the room descriptions from the Book of Apshai into the game itself, making for a much more convenient way to play.

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: Action Biker

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Sponsored video games are nothing new! One of the earliest I ever came across was Action Biker by Mastertronic, supposedly developed in collaboration with KP Skips, the melt-in-your-mouth prawn cocktail flavoured corn snack.

KP Skips had a mascot named Clumsy Colin, who was the main star of Action Biker, and the game challenged you to control Colin as he attempted to find all the bits for his bike and then compete in a drag race. It’s an early “open world” game of sorts, and is a bit of a “love it or hate it” affair — particularly when it comes to the music. Oh, the music.

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

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