A lot of people forget that there’s a third Bubble Bobble game — or, as this port puts it, a second Rainbow Islands game.
But Parasol Stars from Taito is very much a thing that exists — and moreover, it got a very competent port to Atari ST thanks to Ocean Software. While the PC Engine original may be a bit smoother and slicker than this one, this is certainly not a bad effort considering how it’s running on general-purpose rather than gaming-specialist hardware.
I’ve never really seen the point of slot machine games. You don’t win anything, you don’t risk anything and the level of interaction between you and the game is minimal at best.
That didn’t stop lots of developers from putting them out in the early days of home computing, though — and in the grand scheme of things, Mastertronic and Sculptured Software’s Vegas Jackpot for Atari 8-bit is probably one of the better ones. There’s still very little reason to spend your time on this today though!
Submarine games seem to have fallen somewhat out of favour in recent years, but there were quite a lot of them throughout the ’80s and early ’90s.
The Atari 2600’s attempt to capture the excitement of this subgenre of naval combat came in the form of Submarine Commander, a Sears-exclusive release that cast players in the role of… well, of a submarine commander. How long can you survive against the relentless assault of ships that don’t seem to be going anywhere?
As we’ve seen a fair few times on this series to date, it was quite fashionable for home computer developers to put together “unofficial” sequels to arcade classics.
Sega’s OutRun certainly wasn’t immune to this, and enjoyed several home-exclusive follow-ups over the years — including OutRun Europa by Probe. In this game, you’re on the run from the police — attempting to outrun them, you might say — and must speed your way across Europe in a variety of vehicles. And it’s not bad!
Type-in listings written in BASIC were a common sight in Atari 8-bit magazines — as were BASIC listings that were used to create executable machine code programs on disk or cassette.
The magazines Antic and ANALOG in the United States also had a strong interest in the programming language Action!, though, and published a number of listings written using this speedy, game-friendly setup. Today’s Atari 8-bit game is one such example, bringing some solid and challenging platforming action home for us to enjoy.
Back in the early days of the Atari 2600 — and indeed throughout gaming history in general — there have been plenty of games that never made it to market for one reason or another.
Stunt Cycle, an Atari 2600 version of Atari’s own home port of its own arcade game, was one such example. Its 2600 version was complete and ready to go, but never made it out the door. It also never quite became a Dukes of Hazzard game, like was considered for a while. But it did eventually see the light of day in 2003.
Arcade conversions could be a bit hit and miss on the Atari ST, largely because the computer’s built-in hardware couldn’t hope to compete with the specialist arcade units of the time.
That didn’t stop developers from trying their best to make a solid conversion, however — and The Sales Curve’s Random Access team actually managed a pretty competent job of bringing Taito’s The Ninja Warriors home for Atari ST owners to enjoy.
“Let’s make a video game about doing our taxes!” thought John Freeman and Anne Westfall of the brand spanking new software company Free Fall Associates. “I’m sure that will resonate with the game-playing community!”
Sadly, it did not — but that doesn’t mean that Tax Dodge for Atari 8-bit isn’t a good game. Quite the opposite, in fact — it’s a really fun, interesting take on the maze chase genre with a non-violent twist. Although it does benefit you to have at least a passing understanding of all things financial, especially if you don’t have a manual to hand…
A lot of people think of the concept of “street racing” as a relatively recent thing, though that’s only really looking at the modern type.
In fact, it’s pretty much been a thing for as long as cars have been around, as the ancient old bangers on the front cover of 1977’s Street Racer for Atari 2600 will attest. So here we have a video game for up to four players about the concept — though this being 1977, the format of “the racing game” hadn’t quite been nailed just yet…
The design’s weady! Ergonomicawwy tewwific! We’ve conquered the sector! We’ve nuuuuked them! We’ve won!
Ah, Mega-Lo-Mania, such an iconic game — and not just for those wonderful speech samples, but also for its excellent gameplay. Many people regard this as one of the first examples of a real-time strategy game — though it does things a little differently from its fellow genre progenitor Dune 2, which came out a year later.
