Atari ST games that outshone the Amiga

[Harrison]

LOL! This is turning into the Bloodwych and Harrison Atari ST appreciation thread! On an Amiga board no doubt.

Very true. On certain other Amiga boards we would have been fried to a crispy twiglet by now!

Personally I think all systems have their plus points and gave something to the gaming world. That's why I let everyone chat about anything they like on here, not just the Amiga. The Amiga may have been technically superior, but the ST still saw some nice releases and exclusives.

On the subject of technical ability - that was the ST's problem in the graphics area. The CPU had to do everything! Good job it was 1Mhz faster! Even the C-64 had hardware scrolling and better sound - shame on Atari!

It was a bit of a rush job for Atari after they lost the Amiga to Commodore. They didn't do such a bad job when you consider that. All parts were off the shelf components. And the STE shows what they really wanted to do with the system; finally adding a full blitter, stereo 4 channel sound, proper ram expansion slots, and some other updates. Shame the STE came too late in the STs life that most games were still written for STFM compatibility so didn't take advantage of the improvements.

It seems mad now that so many arguments started because of one small MHz difference in CPU speed between the two systems. Actually it was only 0.8MHz. I always loved the way ST owners failed to include the Amiga custom chips in such arguments.

the first time that robot thing looking like a Klingon emerged from the cave on mission one and attacked was a shock! Had me in a panic as I hadn't fully grasped the controls!

That was a great moment early in the game. Got me panicking too.

What was that multiplayer maze shooter on the ST? It could link up to 16 STs together to play some great multiplayer games. Each character looked like a 3D pacman style character when you saw other players in the mazes. I used to play that a lot in a gaming place in Southampton.

I've mentioned that place before on here. The shop was called CompuServe and had rows of STs down one side and Amigas down the other, and around the walls were tons of games in their original boxes. You could go into the shop and pay to hire the computers for so long (much like an internet cafe today), and you could then just take any of the games from the shelves and play them. That was a really cool place. We used to spend lots of our Saturdays playing the latest games releases in there before buying them. And they used to hold games competitions and tournaments. Was a great place.

[Bloodwych]

That 0.8MHz difference counted for nothing most of the time, but it is one thing for the die hard Atari fans to hold onto. That and the built in midi. It always made me laugh that they decided to put the most used ports, joystick, hidden and in a hard to reach place but gave the midi port prime position on the side.

As you said, each machine had something to offer and made the scene more colourful and interesting. It was the software and users that gave each machine character and a unique feel. I'd always choose the Amiga over an ST, but the ST had a very neat scene. Those crunched game disks are awesome, especially the unique demo menus, and of course today they don't have to deal with copyrights unlike Amiga fans.

I always forget that Atari lost the Amiga to Commodore. I wonder how things might have turned out under Atari? Actually, thinking of the success of the Jaguar, not much different! Their last computer, the Falcon, looked interesting - especially the built in DSP. At least it had an 68030, but was too expensive and late to the party to challenge the A1200.

That game you've mentioned, I remember it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Maze

One of the first ever first person shooters. Networked death matches, well before doom!

Sounds like you were very lucky to have such a gaming cafe. Must have cost a bit to setup; and think of their electricity bill!

[Harrison]

Yeah, that was the game. MIDI Maze was great fun in multiplayer, and as you say a very early networked death match game, far before any iD game existed.

The funny thing is that because the machines were networked in the shop we played it in I never knew how the actual network was setup, until just now when I read that wiki page! The game title now finally makes sense. Quite a unique idea to network machines using the midi ports.

And I agree about those ports too. It was completely stupid sticking the joystick ports under the ST so you had to lift the whole thing up to get to them. Most people ended up with joystick extenders so they didn't need to do that.

The Falcon was definitely a great idea. Basically just an updated ST, much like the A1200 compared to the A500. But as you say, it came too late to save the ST from demise and wasn't marketed or sold properly. Whispers: "I had wanted one too."

[Ghost]

Hello all,

Well I heard that Amiga fans never got to enjoy the Privateer/Elite like game "Sundog: Frozen Legacy" which some of the older Atari ST fans are very fond off.

[Harrison]

I've not heard of that game. I will have to have a rummage through my ST collection and give it a go.

[FOL]

I have to agree on those bloody ports, done my head in, when my uncle borrowed us his ST on most Weekends.

[v85rawdeal]

I must admit, I would have to second Dungeon Master on the ST as being better, if only for the fact that I could never quite understand where the need for the Amiga version to require 1MB of memory came from. (Mind you, the Amiga did get EOTB as a upshot of Dungeon Master's success)

Captain Blood, especially audio-wise is a complete no-brainer. Loved it, had both the ST and the CPC version.

Not too certain about Midwinter, as I never played any version than the ST, but I loved the game, although I never completed it. But I had a lot of fun using STAC, having used the GAC on the CPC. I could never get to grips with STOS or AMOS tho...

[Harrison]

One thing Amiga users do owe the ST is in the development of STOS. Without it AMOS would never have been developed.

I remember buying STOS on release and really getting into it, experimenting with some simple shoot em up and maze style games. Not sure what happened to any of my STOS code though. And then when I got an Amiga I purchased AMOS quite quickly and was excited to find many of the commands were identical so it was quite easy to pick up and work with. Never really created anything worth showing to anyone else. I just used to play around with it for fun.