Tag Archives: gameplay

Atari A to Z, Videos

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

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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!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Montezuma’s Revenge

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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!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Sprint Master

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The term “racing game” these days is usually applied to games that unfold from a three-dimensional (or at least quasi-3D) perspective. But back in the ’80s, there were a bunch of fun top-down racers.

Sprint Master for Atari 2600 was a solid adaptation of the format that may or may not have been a conversion of Atari Games’ Super Sprint. The reason why this isn’t quite clear is because Atari Corporation (who released 2600 games) and Atari Games (who released Super Sprint) were, at this point, two separate entities with loose connections rather than simply two divisions of the same company!

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

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Flight Simulator II

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Flight Simulator II from subLOGIC was an important piece of software for our family. Not only was it a “game” that my father enjoyed (though he continues to insist to this day that it is “not a game”) but it also directly or indirectly kickstarted the writing careers of three Davisons.

Yes, indeed, after my Dad had his enthusiastic praise of both the Atari 8-bit and ST versions of Flight Simulator II published in the UK’s Page 6 magazine, both my brother and, much later, I started contributing articles to the publication. My brother is, at the time of writing, a person of considerable importance over at IGN and I, well, I get paid to write about cute anime girls. And we can trace all that back to Flight Simulator II!

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

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Lode Runner

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Lode Runner is an all-time classic of gaming that is still going strong today, thanks at least in part to its popularity in Japan.

The original game has quite an interesting story behind it — and the Atari 8-bit version was part of that initial story. It’s a stark reminder of how far we’ve come in gaming when you consider that “the ability to move a pixel at a time” was considered to be a selling point for a programmer trying to pitch their game to a publisher!

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

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Atelier, Atelier Dusk

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea – Once, Twice, Two Times a Shallie

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
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Over the course of the Atelier series as a whole, we’ve seen Gust take on the challenge of making a meaningful New Game Plus experience several times.

In a lot of role-playing games, a New Game Plus is primarily a means of enjoying the game’s story again without having to worry too much about mechanics; in some cases there are powerful enemies or additional challenges not seen on a first playthrough, but more often than not New Game Plus is a fun extra that not everyone feels the need to take advantage of in order to feel like they’ve “beaten” the game.

In Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea, however, much like Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky and Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy before it, there’s great value in taking the time to play through the game with both its main protagonists — and this time around we have one of the most solidly implemented New Game Plus systems the series has seen to date.

Continue reading Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea – Once, Twice, Two Times a Shallie →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Space War

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Continuing a proud tradition of Atari 2600 games with the word “Space” in the title, here’s Space War from Atari Flashback Classics.

This is actually kind of noteworthy for an important reason: it’s a conversion of one of the first ever video games, albeit many years after said video game made its first appearance in the ’60s. There’s fun to be had for two players; you may want to give the single-player offering a miss, though!

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

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Elf

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Ocean Software were a funny old bunch. One minute they’d be putting out absolute tosh with the name of a big-name movie on the box, the next they’d be putting out some truly excellent original titles.

Elf for Atari ST falls firmly into the latter category, as the Will Ferrell movie of the same name was several years off at the time of its original release. Instead, what we have here is a great example of the “arcade adventure” genre that doesn’t really exist any more — a type of game that blends fast action with the kind of interactions typically associated with pure adventures. And just a touch of casual racism for good measure. Different times and all that.

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

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Karmic Caverns

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The 8-bit home computing era played host to some great single-screen platform games: Donkey Kong, Miner 2049’er and Jumpman, to name but a few.

I hadn’t come across Karmic Caverns before. There might be a good reason that people haven’t talked about this much over the years — but it does have a few interesting ideas, most notably with how it’s more of a mobility puzzle than an action platformer.

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

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Atelier, Atelier Dusk

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea – The Kindness of Strangers

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cropped-atelier-megafeature-header-1-8868334This post is one chapter of a MegaFeature!
< Prev. | Contents | Next >

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea is the final chapter in the Dusk trilogy. Whether or not we’ll see a later fourth installment a la Atelier Lulua remains to be seen, but for now, this is where it all ends.

As such, Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea is a game that brings together a series of interesting narrative threads from over the course of the trilogy as a whole — including some that began way back in Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk. So while the story stands by itself and many of its mechanics are a lot more accessible to series newcomers, the game is best experienced in context as the conclusion of the Dusk storyline.

Like Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky before it, though, you’ll need to play through as both protagonists to get the full story. So let’s start with a look at the main narrative you’ll experience first time around in the game if you pick Shallistera as your protagonist, then.

Continue reading Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea – The Kindness of Strangers →