Category Archives: Videos

Atari ST A to Z: S.T.U.N. Runner

The futuristic racer subgenre tends to mostly be attributed to Nintendo’s F-Zero series these days, but there were a number of other companies experimenting with the formula too.

One such company was Atari Games, who put out the arcade version of S.T.U.N. Runner in 1989, a good year before F-Zero hit the Super NES. Running on a variation of the Hard Drivin’ hardware, its polygonal graphics and blistering speed impressed anyone who was lucky to come across a machine.

Its home ports… well, they did their best, and despite the ST version being what can politely be called “barely passable” I had a surprising amount of fun with it…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Warriors Wednesday: Mystical Ninja – Warriors Orochi #50

Cao Pi and friends have a tough battle ahead of them today: they’re up against Nene and her ninjutsu!

It seems our “hero” is still biding his time before unleashing his inevitable betrayal of Da Ji and Orochi, however, but we get closer and closer with every mission. It’s not a case of if, it’s a case of when.

Oh, and if you ever were wondering what I thought of Japanese denpa group PASSPO, you can find out, exclusively in this, the forty-ninth episode of Warriors Wednesday. Don’t say I never give you anything.

Atari A to Z: Yahtman

Yahtman is a game that hails from simpler times; a time when a video game about rolling a few dice a few times was enough to keep people occupied for… ooh, a good few minutes, at least.

It was also a time where there were plenty of people making software based around popular board and tabletop games — some licensed adaptations, others… less so.

Yahtman skirts the usual copyright-infringing tendencies of the era by providing us a game of “dice poker” or “yacht”, and absolutely, positively not Yahtzee, you hear me?

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Atari A to Z Flashback: Tempest

Dave Theurer, creator of the beloved Missile Command, is back once again with another all-time classic: “tube shooter” Tempest.

Tempest featured Atari’s then-new multi-coloured Quadrascan vector graphics display, plus an interesting feature whereby you could start later in the game based on how far you (or the previous player) had managed to progress on the previous credit. This later became a standard fixture in many Atari Games releases.

I’ll level with you, Tempest is one of those games I’ve always respected greatly but never really liked all that much… can spending a bit of time with it this weekend change my mind?

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Final Fantasy Marathon: The Mystic Key – Final Fantasy I #5

After last week’s little… mishap, the fifth episode of our Final Fantasy playthrough sees the Warriors of Light taking full advantage of the mysterious Time Magic known as “Load”.

From thereon, we proceed to track down the wrongful owner of the Crown we found in the Marsh Cave, kick his head in, then set off in search of the mysterious, magical Matoya, who has been feeling a bit left in the dark recently.

We then proceed to spend considerably longer than I intended finding all the locks that the Mystic Key fits. Because treasure.

Atari ST A to Z: Revenge II

When is a Jeff Minter game not a Jeff Minter game? When it’s ported to Atari ST by a different team.

Such is the case with Revenge II, also known as Revenge of the Mutant Camels II or Return of the Mutant Camels. While Minter was responsible for the original versions of this game, the ST port was handled by a separate team and the game was published via Mastertronic.

Just because Minter wasn’t directly involved doesn’t mean that this isn’t a ridiculous, psychedelic trip of a game, however…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Warriors Wednesday: Chasing the Sun – Warriors Orochi #49

Cao Pi is definitely up to something… and he’s starting to get bolder.

In today’s mission, the Wei leader and his friends are tasked with putting down a rebellion by Sun Ce — the same rebellion, you may recall, that we helped instigate back in the Wu campaign.

We’re getting closer to the time that Cao Pi inevitably betrays Da Ji and Orochi… but for the moment he’s just biding his time.

Atari A to Z: X:8

It’s really cool that enthusiasts are still developing new games for old platforms such as the Atari 8-bit.

Today’s game is one such example; it won a competition hosted by German user group ABBUC back in 2013, and is quite well-regarded as a result.

While its blasting action does get a little repetitive after a while, there’s little denying that X:8 is a technically impressive release that pushes the humble Atari 8-bit hard to pull off some smooth, slick arcade action.

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official website.

Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Bug

While a bit different from what we know today as the “arcade racer”, Atari’s early attempts in this regard were all rather enjoyable.

Of the three included in the Atari Flashback Classics collection, Super Bug was the earliest and, consequently, the simplest. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time, however — if anything it makes it a great place to start!

Drive until you can’t drive any more: that’s all you need to do. But as we’ve seen countless times on this series already, sometimes it’s the simplest concepts that make for the most addictive games…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Final Fantasy Marathon: TPKO #1 – Final Fantasy I #4

Oh dear. It had to happen sooner or later, didn’t it? And Final Fantasy veterans will be unsurprised to hear that it happened in the Marsh Cave.

The Marsh Cave is probably the first “real” dungeon that you encounter in Final Fantasy I, and its main challenge is one of endurance: it’s quite long and branches off in two different directions, so getting everything in a single expedition is challenging. Not impossible, but still challenging.

Sometimes bad things happen. But we can learn from them and try again…