Category Archives: Videos

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Pitstop

Leave a comment

Early takes on the racing game genre often seem quite primitive by today’s standards — but some of them still had some ambitious ideas.

Epyx’s Pitstop for Atari 8-bit is a good example. While its game structure is fundamentally flawed if playing solo and its racing action is nothing special, it was the first game to not only incorporate pit stops as part of a race, but also to allow you to take control of your pit crew and actually perform the pit stop yourself.

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Ship

Leave a comment

Before Star Raiders, there was Star Ship. And it’s… umm… not quite as good.

That said, when you consider this came out in 1977 — a time when no-one really knew what a “video game” was, let alone what a “first-person perspective space combat simulator” might look like — then they didn’t do all that bad of a job considering the limitations of the hardware.

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

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: IK+

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Ocean Detox

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Raiders

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

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

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Ninja Commando

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Star Raiders

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

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

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Montezuma’s Revenge

Leave a comment

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!

header-5603011