There’s been a murder! And only you (or perhaps one of the other players) can solve it.
Yes, it’s a digital adaptation of the popular board game Cluedo, with the twist that this version is based on the Master Detective edition. It features a larger map, more characters, more possible weapons and a few tweaks to the mechanics. It also supports up to 10 players — even on Atari ST!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Type-in listings were commonplace for the 8-bit home computers, thanks to the fact that most of them booted into some variant of BASIC. And the Atari 8-bit was no exception.
More ambitious programmers would compose games in machine code or assembly language, then convert their programs into DATA statements that could be read by a BASIC program to generate an executable file on a cassette or floppy disk. Into Deep is probably one of the most ambitious examples I’ve ever seen in this regard, and it shows in the final quality.
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Game developer David Crane is best-known today for his highly influential work Pitfall!, which helped define the concept of the platform game.
That’s not all he worked on back in the early days of video games, however; he also brought us Slot Machine, one of the most pointless wastes of time that the Atari 2600 had to offer — although it does at least have some nice smooth scrolling!
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One of the first games I played on the Atari ST is also one of my all time favourites — it’s Elite’s excellent conversion of Tatsumi’s arcade racing game Buggy Boy, also known as Speed Buggy.
Buggy Boy is interesting in that it’s less about driving at high speed and more about negotiating ridiculous amounts of obstacles as efficiently as possible — and scoring points, of course. It still holds up very well today, and the ST version is one of the best ports.
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Often, simple ideas are all you need to make a fun game work. Such is the case with Hot Lips, a straightforward but enjoyable maze game for Atari 8-bit.
In Hot Lips, all you have to do is make sure the titular giant mouth eats all the enemies and not you. Easy, right? Perhaps initially, but the longer you play, the tougher it gets!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Sky Diver for Atari 2600 is a conversion of the arcade game of the same name, originally developed by Owen Rubin and brought home by Jim Huether.
In typical Atari 2600 arcade conversion tradition, the home version offers a variety of different ways to play — including challenging modes with moving platforms, as well as a “Chicken” mode where only the first player to land gets the points!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.
Arkanoid is such an influential entry in the bat-and-ball genre that many people took to calling brick-breakers “Arkanoid clones” rather than “Breakout clones”.
Like many other arcade games of the period, Arkanoid had numerous ports to various different platforms over the years — but the Atari ST version was one of the finest out there, offering an experience very true to the arcade original, challenge factor and all.
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Gauntlet is an all-time classic arcade game — and it got a whole bunch of ports to various different systems over the years following its original release.
The Atari 8-bit version, developed by Gremlin Graphics, is not the best version of Gauntlet you’ll ever play — but it was my first ever experience with the game, and as such will always carry with it certain fond memories.
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It’s always interesting to explore games that have had a lousy critical reception over the years, because you can look on it as a challenge to “find the good” in what the game is offering.
Such was the case with Sentinel, a light-gun shooter for Atari 2600 that has had a somewhat frosty reception over the years. After a bit of getting used to the twitchy analogue controls in Atari Flashback Classics, however, I actually found this to be a surprisingly enjoyable game.
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Today’s game for Atari ST is a public domain title that was put together with a game-making package — specifically, Palace Software’s Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit.
It’s not the most original or amazing shoot ’em up you’ll ever see, but it’s a good example of what Shoot ‘Em UP Construction Kit (also known as S.E.U.C.K.) is capable of. Some say the Amiga and Commodore 64 versions of the package are better than the ST version, but Zog here is a perfectly competent shoot ’em up that fits in well in the public domain space — and could have probably gotten away with a commercial release with a touch of spit and polish.
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
