Gremlin Graphics was a developer who lasted a long time — from the early 8-bit days right up until the early 2000s, when the company was swallowed by Infogrames, and then folded. Today the Gremlin spirit lives on in the developer Sumo Digital.
Zone X is a classic Atari game from Gremlin Graphics I remember playing back in the day and never being able to get very far with. Turns out I still can’t get very far with it, but it’s an interesting game nonetheless!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
We’re nearly there! We’re nearly there! We’re so nearly through the RealSports gauntlet! Just a bit of friendly Tennis action to get through, followed by some beach volleyball, and then we’re done!
RealSports Tennis for Atari 5200 is a decent tennis game that suffers a bit from an awkward control scheme — an awkward control scheme which hasn’t been emulated particularly well in Atari Flashback Classics, as it happens. Consequently, it’s best treated as more of a curiosity than something you can really spend a lot of time with — but it’s worth acknowledging, at least!
Pac-Attack is an unusual and highly memorable puzzler from Namco with a bit of an interesting history!
Those of you who listened to our end-of-2020 podcast episode will also recall that Chris declared it his Game of the Year 2020, despite the fact it released in 1993. Our recent discovery of it is all thanks to the little wonder-machine that is the Evercade — and you can enjoy it too as part of the Namco Museum Collection 2cartridge for the system.
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
Thou art dead! Again. Yes, it’s time for Shadowgate, a fairly notorious point-and-click adventure from the “Macventures” series — rebranded, of course, to “Atariventures” for its ST release.
Like its stablemates Deja Vu and Uninvited, Shadowgate is a challenging adventure that is rather fond of killing off the player in a variety of cruel and unusual ways. The game is always fair, though; you just need to learn the rules it’s playing by in order to make a little more progress with each save you reload!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!
It’s often a good idea to revisit games that were dismissed for one reason or another back when they were originally released; they’re often great experiences in their own right.
Raven Software’s Heretic is a great example; while it didn’t exactly receive a negative reception per se, it was considered to be little more than a Doom clone by many people, despite the innovations it added to the mix. Revisit it today, divorced of that original context, and you’ll find there’s lots to enjoy — and there are many more games like this out there!
Classic Atari 2600 game Yars’ Revenge never got an official conversion to Atari 8-bit, sadly.
That doesn’t mean people haven’t done their best to make their own, however! Today we have one such example, where a brave AtariAge denizen decided to take on the challenge of programming their own original take on Yars’ Revenge, entirely from scratch and, in true 2600 tradition, squeezed into just 4K.
We’re closing in on the home straight of the RealSports collection in Atari Flashback Classics! Only two more to go after this one!
RealSports Tennis for Atari 2600 is a fun game for one or two players that… doesn’t really offer much of a realistic game of tennis, but does provide a rather prettier take on the Pong format, with a couple of interesting twists. It’s simple and straightforward, but it’s also speedy and fun — particularly with a friend.
Today’s Evercade game is a cross-platform Atari title — it’s Desert Falcon, which was primarily designed for the Atari 7800, but which also got a 2600 version.
Desert Falcon is an isometric perspective shoot ’em up in which you take control of a majestic bird who has a real grudge against Sphinxes. By collecting combinations of hieroglyphs, you’ll be able to equip yourself with a variety of special powers — or, sometimes, hindrances — to make your task a little more interesting and unpredictable.
It’s time for a biggie! A truly genre-defining game, at that — although its real influence perhaps wouldn’t become truly known on the mainstream side of gaming until quite some time after its original release.
I’m talking about the legendary Rogue, of course, which has an interesting story behind its original creation — and whose Atari ST version is one of the best ways to play out there. This edition, published by Epyx and put together by one of the game’s original creators, is an accessible and friendly way to enjoy some dungeon crawling — and a great way to kick off a roguelike addiction if you don’t already have one!
Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more.
The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.
