3 Atari Classics Ported to the Amiga

(These ST to Amiga conversions have been available to download for a number of months now, but this is the first time I've actually got around to installing them on my system)

Gauntlet, Super Sprint and Joust were just three of many titles that appeared on the Atari ST, but for one reason or another, the Amiga was never graced with their presence. Until now...

How? Well, thanks to the wonderful coding and conversion talents of English Amiga board member meynaf, he's taken the Atari ST versions, and after much technical wizardry, has got them up and running on the Amiga.

Not only do they work on the Amiga, but they run perfectly, and are hard drive installable.

So, the question you probably want answering is "What are they like?"...

Let's start with Joust, as out of the three titles this was the game to appear in the arcades first.

Visually, it's really nice, and appearance-wise stands up extremely well against the arcade version, but I found the sounds really annoying, and after less than a minute I was reaching for the speaker volume knob.

Also, I'll admit that I'm pretty useless at Joust, and struggle to get more than a few levels in on the arcade version, but on here I found the main character far too "floaty", and I spent more time trying to keep control of him and his ostrich than I did skewering the enemies with my lance.

The other problem I encountered was that the only way to control your character was with the cursor keys. Being a port of an arcade game this is a title that deserves to be played with the joystick (or at the very least, a joypad!). A joystick control option may exist, but I couldn't find it.

After 10 minutes of battling with the controls and wincing at the awful sound it was time to move on to Gauntlet...

I'll admit that I was quite excited at the prospect of playing this on the Amiga as I'd spent many happy hours playing the sequel, Gauntlet 2 on my machine. With a third and fourth player joystick adapter plugged in, and a full party of adventurers it's given me some very happy gaming memories.

Things get off to a great start with a fantastic re-imagining of the arcade machine's title screen, and a great intro tune. Full marks for presentation here.

Pressing enter starts the game, and brings you face-to-face with the first floor of the dungeon. At this point you can not only choose you character, but also control method (keyboard or joystick).

The graphics here are bright, bold and have been converted very well from the arcade machine. If I had to make any complaints I'd say that the reduced colour palette makes things look a little washed out, and I did find the scrolling was a tad jerky and a little uncomfortable on the eyes.

Anyway, these are tiny grumbles for what really is a fantastic arcade conversion. It looks good and sounds great, and I've no hesitation in recommending you get this one downloaded and installed on your Amiga.

Finally, it's over to Super Sprint, and out of these three titles it's the game I've had the most fun with.

Like Gauntlet, this has a lovely looking title screen, and this high level of presentation doesn't let up.

Just like the arcade it spawned from, this supports up to three players, albeit using a combination of joystick and keyboard to support this many inputs instead of three steering wheels.

Also like the arcade, the graphics look basic, but are nicely drawn. The cars themselves are beautifully animated, handle brilliantly, and within a few minutes you'll be racing down the straights, zooming around corners and passing other cars. Then you'll get cocky and plough into the track below as you mis-judge one of the bridge jumps.

With a good selection of wonderfully designed tracks, powerups available to purchase, and a nice difficulty curve, this is without a doubt my pick of the three ST to Amiga conversions. It's such a good game that I'm amazed it was never ported over to Commodore's 16-bit platform.

Now, before you go off and download these games, you need to know what the system requirements are.

On his web site Meynaf suggests an unexpanded Amiga 1200 should be enough to run Joust and Gauntlet, but thinks that the 7mhz CPU found in 68000 based Amigas will be too slow.

System requirements for Super Sprint are a little higher, and a 25mhz or higher CPU is recommended for full-speed play due to the game opening a 64 colour screen to emulate the ST's palette changes. It also needs a system with higher specs to run because the ST screen conversion is carried out each frame.

Anyway, enough of the technical specifications. Hopefully my brief overview of these three titles has spurred you on to get these up and running on your own system. So, without further ado, I'll let you get on and download them.

All three titles can be downloaded from Meynaf's website.

If these games have whet your appetite for future ST to Amiga conversions you're not alone. Already, members of the English Amiga Board are suggesting future titles to port over to our favourite machine, with International Karate being the current favourite.

Whether Meynaf has the time and inclination to port any other games over, only time will tell.

Have fun!

Another World Intro Remade and in Hi Def!

"Another World", while not an Amiga exclusive, was certainly the most advanced version of the game, when it was originally released back in 1991.

Featuring beautiful stylish graphics, stunning presentation, and a wonderful storyline, the game continues to be enjoyed on more modern systems including the iPhone and Android platforms.

Those who recall playing the original back on the Amiga in the early 90s will no doubt have been blown away by the stunning intro sequence, which sees physicist, Lester Knight Chaykin, return to his office in the early hours of the morning, only for a scientific experiment to go horribly wrong and send him off to another world.

This intro sequence recently inspired YouTube user and animator rickonami, to have a go at producing a high definition remake, which he finally uploaded to the video sharing web site a few days back.

Here's what he had to say;

"I apologize for the low quality of the video captures, specially the underwater scene, i used some primitive equipment.

I try to keep as the original intro as possible, with respect of Eric Chahi's vision and art.

This project was in my mind for a year now, and took me 3 months to complete.

Hope you guys like it :)"

The remake really is a stunning piece of work, and has quite clearly been a labour of love for the animator.

You can check out the video below, and once you've finished watching don't forget to leave some feedback on rickonami's YouTube channel.


My thanks go to English Amiga Board user s2325 for the heads-up on this one.

Allister Brimble's "The Amiga Works" Kickstarter

Regular readers of the blog will know that I've given this a mention a couple of times over the past couple of weeks, but late yesterday evening Allister Brimble's "Amiga Works" Kickstarter finally went live.

For those of you who may not be aware, Allister was one of the most prolific of all Amiga game music creators, having produced tracks for titles such as Alien Breed, Superfrog, CJ's Elephant Antics, Project-X, Fantasy World Dizzy, and many, many more.

Allister now plans to release a double CD pack containing modern studio remixes of some of his best known tracks.

Here's Allister;

"I have received many requests to create new versions of my tracks in the past, but I never felt I could improve on them.. until now. The technology exists to inspire me to create new versions of my tunes for these much loved games from the Commodore Amiga".

At present, a final tracklisting has yet to be decided, and Allister is even asking fans to contact him with suggestions relating to what should go on the album.

The album artwork is also having loads of attention lavished on it, and those making donations which cover boxed versions of the album will be pleased to know that an exclusive piece of CD booklet artwork is being commissioned;

The artwork will be created by Rico Holmes, the artist behind the Team 17 graphics.

You can pledge any amount towards "The Amiga Works" Kickstarter project, with £15 being the lowest amount where you'll actually receive something - 2 CD's equivalent of tracks in MP3 or FLAC.

The most popular price range at the moment seems to be the £50 level, which gets you one signed copy of the album, a download code, a signed copy of Allister's excellent "Sounds Digital" CD album, a poster, and finally, a USB stick containing all the CD tracks and all the original Amiga MOD files.

Be aware that out of all the donation levels, this is the only one that's limited (to 40), and at the time of posting this there were only 26 remaining.

As a massive fan of Brimble's work I can't wait for this album to see the light of day. However, with a September 2013 release date I'll have to hold on just that little bit longer. The wait will be worth it, I'm sure.

For more information and to make a pledge, please visit Allister's Kickstart page.

Codetapper Interviews Ocean France's Marc Djan

Codetapper's web site continues to be one of THE places to go for interviews with former Amiga programmers, and his latest coup continues the tradition.

Uploaded only a few days ago, Codetapper has kindly made available his recent interview with Ocean France's Marc Djan.

Marc talks about how and when the company formed, their early titles, the conversions they were most pleased with, unreleased titles, and much more.

It really is essential reading if you were a fan of Ocean France's output back in the day.

You can find the full interview at: http://www.codetapper.com/amiga/interviews/marc-djan/

Once you've read through that, I'd recommend ploughing through the rest of Codetapper's interview archive, which you can find HERE.

Brimble Kickstarter to go Live Friday or Saturday

On Tuesday I reported that legendary Amiga music composer, Allister Brimble, was planning to set up a Kickstarter project, with the goal of releasing a double CD album of some of his best known work.

Allister originally planned to set this live on the 31st of October, but from one of his most recent Facebook posts it now looks like it will be on Friday 2nd or Saturday 3rd of November.

I'll bring you more news on this as I get it.

The Official EAB Top 100 Amiga Games - Voting Closed

This is a quick post to remind you that closing date has now passed for you to get your nominations in for the Official EAB Top 100 Amiga Games 2012.

In the early hours of this morning, EAB Global Moderator and chart compiler, Graham Humphrey, posted the following to The English Amiga Board;

"And that's that!

A bit disappointed to come home and find only one more vote has been posted but never mind - that's 69 in total.

Again thanks to everybody who took part. Now for the small matter of writing up the results It will be a while but I will, of course, let everyone know when it's ready".

As soon as the results start to appear I'll post a heads-up on the blog.

Dangermouse Adventure - Progress Update

Regular readers to this blog may recall that earlier this month I reported on a new Dangermouse game, which was now in development.

Since then, author Christian Clarke, has been hard at work on the the game (titled "Dangermouse Adventure - Greenback's House of Torture"), and on Monday he posted the following project status update to his web site, amigapd.com

"Have now completed 386 out of 400 location descriptions. The remaining descriptions relate to the end sequence.

The attention now will move to the luck / fear and combat routines.

After that images will be added and location titles will be added.

Will also try to add a save routine to make game testing easier.

Overall probably still about 5 months of work to go".

I didn't expect to hear anything more from Christian for at least another week or two, but yesterday he commented on Facebook that;

"Have now got the combat routine working - need to add some more varied descriptions - first task is to enter all stats for enemies encountered and get graphics for them too".

Christian was also kind enough to upload some new footage showing the combat in action.



As soon as I hear anything further about the project I'll post it here in due course. In the meantime, you may like to check out the official project development pages over at AmigaPD.com.