Amongst the games I got with my second hand Commodore 64 was most of Jeff Minter’s back catalogue of games (Batalyx most memorably), and I found out why he was loved and hated so much by the press and games buying public. A lot of his games were sheep and llama populated clones of already existing games. What made Batalyx interesting was that it was six games in one. You could switch between any of them at any time. I honestly don't recall what the purpose of the game was other than to get a high score, and it seemed almost impossible to die. If you did it dropped you back to the game selection screen with your score intact. Also with this Commodore computer came a huge back catalogue of ZZAP64! magazines which filled out the missing issues and I was able to chart the rise and rise of the Commodore 64.
Despite all this “retro-gaming”, discovering games I had missed first time around while growing up in Ipswich, I began to yearn for the next level of computing. I began starting to see adverts for the new 16 bit computers Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga A500 in my 8 bit magazines that I bought just before moving to Spain, and in those rare British imported computer magazines I bought in Spain (always at vastly inflated prices). Both machines were priced at four hundred pounds each, which was the same price as my BBC Model B almost ten years ago. It was always my intention to eventually own both machines as I believed the same situation would occur with the Spectrum and Commodore in that I would need to own both machines to enjoy the full range of games, as each machine would be host to system exclusives. In reality, this wasn't the case, as apart from the MIDI interfaces unique to the Atari ST, it was an inferior machine in the video and sound department. Sinclair dropped out of the home computer market to focus on the business end of machines and to explore other innovations selling its entire computer business to Amstrad. This left Commodore and the newly invigorated Atari to fight the 16 bit home computer market. The most popular outlet was the Silica Shop who sold both machines. Each one came with a small collection of pack-in games. The Atari came with twenty games and the Amiga only came with ten. The Amiga games were the same as the Atari ones, but seeing as The Silica Shop was a dedicated Atari specialist, they pushed the Atari machine over the Amiga for the same price. It just shows you how wrong you can be, that despite twice as many “free” games the Atari still undersold the Amiga many times over. And obviously I was wrong about their being system exclusives as games that were released for both machines, and in almost every instance it was better on the Amiga. The only benefit the Atari had was a inbuilt (well on an included Disk) a version of BASIC and MIDI In and Out connections. Amiga had better dedicated sound and graphics chips. Silica Shop’s eventual undoing was their steadfast focus on the Atari despite the Amiga being a better and more popular machine. Silica Shop also entered the PC market too late and sold PCs that were too expensive. They also championed the stillborn Atari Lynx and Jaguar consoles, both with too many overstocks. I should have stuck with the Amiga and forgotten all about owning an Atari ST, and saved myself four hundred pounds in the process.
The 16 bit market would belong to Commodore and Atari, as Sinclair had withdrawn from the home computer market. Sinclair instead explored the business potential of the Sinclair QL machine (which had a microdrive tape drive and was fairly decent at playing games) and his C5 electric car, both of which flopped because they were too far ahead of their time. Sir Clive Sinclair did not see the future of computers as a games machine. I think he disliked the reputation as a producer of a games machine that was home to piracy being his legacy. He would eventually sell the entire business to Amstrad and focus on his other business interests which at the time would require a lot of funding to succeed.
I decided to choose to buy the the Atari first, which in hindsight was a terrible choice, as although the machine came with twenty games, as opposed to the Amiga which only came with ten, the Atari was an inferior computer. I knew I'd get bored quickly of just ten games. The Atari ST FM would be the second and last time I'd own a piece of Atari hardware. My parents flew to back to the United Kingdom as they needed to update their passports and documents and brought the Atari back. In retrospect it was a bad decision, as the Atari ST was a poorer machine all round. The processor was faster than the Amiga, but it didn't have any of the dedicated chips inside for graphics and sound. I didn't know anyone in the United Kingdom let alone Spain who actually owned one. It was damaged when my brother eventually brought it back from Spain to the United Kingdom and the flight insurance paid out enough so that when we sold it at a later date to a musician who wanted it for its MIDI music interface capability, we got most of our money back, half through the sale, and the rest through insurance.
The twenty games that were bundled with the computers were fairly average, only a few of which were stand out titles. They were designed to get you playing and stop you being bored.
Quadralien was a brilliant puzzle game that had you solving large maze puzzles all the while trying to keep the nuclear reactor cool with water barrels. Most of the puzzles would give you access to more water barrels and so complete the level once the reactor temperature was under control. Although I didn't see beyond the third level, these were big complicated layouts with many traps that would force you to restart. It had some mesmerising music by Andrew Whittaker. This was a game that kept me really interested. You could play it with a joystick, but the best control method I found was the mouse. I think of all the games I played on the Atari this is the one I sunk the most time into and made ironically made the least progress. It was a sliding block Sokuban style game that I thoroughly enjoyed, and mixed in with the sci-fi elements made for an engaging puzzle game. The levels were huge and spread over many flick screens, meaning you had to think puzzles through far in advance, as you could push blocks between screens as well. Added to this the different “robots” you could control as well as keeping your eye on the ever increasing temperature of the nuclear reactors wherein you would have to push cooling barrels into the reactors to buy you more time.
Return to Genesis was a game I remember very little about, despite playing it a lot. I think it was a good shoot em up that reminded me a lot of Uridium mixed with a platform game.
Marble Madness was a straightforward clone of the brilliant Atari arcade game that was done competently well, but was difficult to play with a joystick or mouse, like every version of this kind of game, it was best played with a trackball. In hindsight the mouse on the Atari wasn't great so it was a poor trackball unit, and hence made the game more challenging than it ought to be.
Ikari Warriors was one of our arcade favourites from my time in Ipswich and a difficult game as well, especially without the directional control stick that you had in the arcades. All the 16 bit conversions played like a two-player version of Commando, i.e. you shot in the direction you were moving in. It had great power ups and grenades and it was enjoyable to drive tanks briefly, but you needed to watch out that you didn't kill the second player. The game tried to emulate the “tall” monitors of the arcade, by having black borders left and right but it still gave you a very limited view of the path ahead. The gameplay was similar to another of our favourites, The Jackal, a two-player Konami game in a similar vein.
Arkanoid II was a game I played once or twice. I don't know why but I just have never liked the gameplay of Breakout or any of its clones, and Arkanoid is as poor/good as any other version. Maybe it is because I don't see any depth to the game, but the idea of bouncing a ball to destroy walls just annoys me. Maybe I played some really bad Breakout games with terrible physics making you suffer just to destroy the final brick which took forever. I would be happy to never play Breakout or Arkanoid again.
Thundercats was a platform game based on a cartoon series from the 1980s that I never watched and the game was uninspiring and unenjoyable. I think I played the game once, and only tried it once more a week later to confirm how bad it was. Beyond the Ice Palace was the unofficial sequel to Thundercats and just as tedious, and probably explains why it is included in this pack.
Black Lamp was a side-scrolling platform game that had you wandering around dark castles as a Jester rescuing your friends. It had impressive colourful graphics, lots of variety and its slow paced platform adventure really worked well. I think the exploring the castle and finding treasure and keys to open doors to the next level just seemed to work very well. I actually enjoyed this game a lot, it didn't have any save points so it was a real marathon to play. When you lost all your lives it was back to the start. This was a game I played a lot of and returned to quite often.
Buggy Boy was probably one of the most enjoyable arcade conversions, especially when I got to play it on the Amiga. Whilst it wasn't a faithful rendition of the arcade game (in fact it looked and played nothing like the arcade game), it was brilliantly playable arcade driving game in its own right and very fair in punishing bad driving. You drove around circuits which had a time limit which counted down. Every star or challenge you completed increased your time limit which reset every time you crossed the line, it was a driving game you could stick to.
Test Drive II The Duel was a sequel to a disk only American game on the Commodore 64 which prick-teased you into thinking you were driving a high performance sports car. It was the first of the Test Drive game series on the 16 bit machines, and despite the huge power leap from the Commodore it still had to overcome the speed limitations of poor graphics and draw distance by simulating you were driving up a mountain, meaning the horizon was just sky, and the right hand of the screen was a flat brown rock effect. The intro to the game had a sexy woman’s voice introducing the game and its full title. The steering controls had very little effect which combined to produce a very poor driving model and no amount of talent would take you far in the game. It also suffered from legendary slow loading times. Whoever designed this game deserves to be shot. It would load up the title screen, then load up the game, then load up the options, of which there were several (choice of car, colour, skill level), and each option choice led to more loading. Between each driving level there was even more unending loading, as you repaired your car, and refueled. I think you spent more time loading than playing the dismal game. Test Drive failed in delivering the fantasies of many wannabe car drivers, by offering an experience that was vapid and dull.
Zynaps was a Nemesis clone that got very hard very quickly and was a 16 bit version of an 8 bit game by Hewson Consultants. The first two levels were very difficult, and after that it became virtually impossible.
Wizball on the Atari (and also the Amiga) was a shoddy clone of the Commodore 64 version. I'd be happy to never see this game again. Whereas the 8 bit Commodore 64 original was clever, inventive and was a carefully balanced perfect game, the 16 bit versions were programmed by someone who confessed that he had only played the original game a few times, and didn't understand the mechanics of how the game actually worked. It resembled the original game only visually, but played nothing like the classic version, and was an abomination. All of the gameplay elements were there but the controls, the waves of enemies was all wrong, and you were left with a tedious left to right scrolling shoot em up game.
Thrust was a tough but incredible game that even on the 16 bit computers still managed to look like the 8 bit versions, but to be fair, the game needed no embellishment. It had incredibly basic wireframe graphics, but it had brilliant gameplay that was an early example of physics based puzzlers. Each level was a genuine challenge and this kind of gameplay has been mimicked many times over. It was originally a budget game by Firebird, but many people raved about it as being a game good enough to have been released full price. It was essentially a mission based Lunar Lander game that harder and better. This was a game I played many times and on many different platforms. It existed on the 8 bit computers as well, but the Atari ST version was the first time I had encountered it.
Chopper X was an overhead shooting game with great digitised graphics and sound but dismal and boring gameplay.
Ranarama was a 16 bit version of a classic 8 bit game that was similar to Gauntlet and was essentially an arcade adventure. I had played this game on both the Spectrum and Commodore and was surprised that the graphic jump to 16 bit wasn't that great from the 8 bit versions.
Chopper X was a terrible vertical scrolling shoot em up.
Roadwars was a futurist driving game/shooter that looked and played terribly.
StarQuake was a throwback to the 8bit flick screen arcade adventure games. It looked okay, but played average.
Xenon was The Bitmap Brother’s first masterpiece.
Eddie Edward’s Super Ski was a re-skinned version of a shoddy 3-d skiing simulator.
Seconds Out was a sub-standard boxing game.
Summer Olympiad ‘88 was a poor attempt to cash in on the Summer and Winter Games series that were hugely successful on the Commodore 64 by Epyx Games.
And that was it. I never bought any more games for the Atari St other than a wrestling game.
We did find one game to buy for the Atari, a wrestling game, which had eight wrestlers and lots of fighting. Despite buying the game in Spain, the instructions and game itself was in English. We got it because as at the time me and my brother were watching WWF constantly on Sky Satellite TV and that inspired us to try wrestling computer games.
The Atari ST FM had a BASIC programming language that had to be loaded each time you wanted to program on it. I did try to learn how to program and even began planning on teaching the Atari how to play Games Workshop’s Talisman board game as the Troll. I choose the Troll as it was the simplest of characters to emulate. Atari BASIC adopted a windowed format of program listing, which made programming easier, but it was a concept that I didn't really get my head around, as I was used to listing numbers, rather than essentially a long text file. You typed the program in one window, and the output of the program appeared in another. It came with a very simple instruction manual really designed to just about get you going but didn't allow you to do much more. You would need to buy a specialist programming book to really be able to benefit from the software. The operating system of the Atari seemed fairly unstable and the machine would crash and bomb quite often. I don't remember the Amiga being that fragile, having only seen the infamous Guru Meditation Screens a few times in all the years I was using it, comparing the many times it happened over the six months I had the Atari ST.
