Monday, April 02, 2018

Enhanced Games



New game updates!

Everyone knows that Peter Putnik has adapted hundreds of games for hard disk installation. These often include extras like bug fixes, TOS compatibility, 4MB patching, and so on. However, some are also super-charged with cool coding that utilises the Blitter coprocessor and other hidden chips lurking inside the Atari STe.

I thought it would be nice to offer a brief round-up of these enhanced games as a compilation here on AtariCrypt. Oids and Uridium are particularly impressive as both updates improve tremendously upon their original counterparts. I also enjoyed playing my own music during a game of Xenon 2 (read the docs and convert music from your library). There's something here for everyone and I hope you find this useful. Let me know what you think!




Let's play...

Okay, let's take a look at some of these enhanced games that you can download and play right now...

 Xenon II - updated for the Atari STe and features DMA streamed music. Turn up the volume!
 Cannon Fodder - enhance this lame port with your chosen DMA streamed music.
 Prince Of Persia - allow the DMA hardware lurking inside the Atari STe to replay the game's sounds.

  


Did you enjoy that? Well, here are three enhanced FTL games that are nicely improved...

 Dungeon Master - far cleaner samples are heard thanks to the DMA hardware within the Atari STe.
 Chaos Strikes Back - Again, the DMA hardware allows cleaner sample playback for this awesome sequel.
 Oids - the potential for double framerates deliver a smoother experience when rescuing the stickmen.

  


Right, let's take a peek at three more which aren't exactly favoured well by the average ST gamer...

 Jinks - this jerky game is weird but at least it now uses the smoother STe scrolling [original disks still required]
 Menace - I cannot thank Peter enough for replacing that horrendous yellow ship with a white one!
 Uridium - Blitter-boost that sluggish ship and add DMA-streamed background music while you're at it!

  


Now let's take a little run-around with these three you might never have expected to boot up...

 Giana Sisters - this Zamuel_a enhanced game now also comes with optional DMA streamed music!!
 Hard 'n' Heavy - gone is that embarrassing flip-screen gameplay, all thanks to cool Blitter programming.
 Road Runner - Improved and also Blitterized for faster scrolling - but it's still a rubbish game (sorry!)

  


Okay, let's end in style! Here are two ST classics and (wait for it) a PC classic too! Ooh, nice...

 Goldrunner - Some might not like this, but I love hitting the F3 key to disable that fuzzy speech!
 Gauntlet - this sluggish hack 'n slash arcade game gets big improvements but still needs extra CPU grunt.
 Wolfenstein 3D - Ray's jaw-dropping FPS now has bugs removed with decent save game support.

  

12 comments:

  1. Dont EVER delete this post.. I've bookmarked it ;-)

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    1. Ha! Thank you for the feedback!!!
      Glad you liked this compilation of what's currently out there...

      Cheers :D

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  2. Very, very, very nice! Thank you! Hope you will find more games.. ;-)

    Giana Sisters - this Zamuel_a enhanced game now also comes with optional DMA streamed music!!

    It is not only optional DMA streamed musik. I´ve heard you need an STe with 2MB. Beside the sound you will get smooth scrolling (no scrolling in the original), and evem the clouds that were missing in the original are now paralax scrolled..

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    1. RAM is no issue today and esp so with emulators like Hatari ;) Glad you liked this brief compilation of PP's **AWESOME** dedication to the scene. He's a genius and I wish we could clone him. lol

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  3. Peter is a great developer and has done a lot for ST owners! (Into The Vertical Blank)

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  4. Cool... I look forward to trying these out in STeEm at least... (as I don't have a sufficiently enhanced real machine)

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    1. That's a shame. The best model to aim for is the STe with the full 4mb and then the other luxuries like an Ultrasatan come second. Hope you get a decent computer soon. Emulation is great but nothing beats the real thing imho...

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  5. Peter Putnik is a nice guy, he is also always try to help out when some have coding problems...

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  6. Excellent! There's been more releases--at least Lotus that I can recall right now.

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  7. If Wolf3D counts, then Metal Slug should be added now.

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