Tomtar

Tom...what?

Tomtar is a shooter released in 1993 for the Atari STe by UTEN (NewCore, XiA, Toxic Twins & Unit 17). A "tomtar" is a gnome, and they breed like bacteria, so they will eventually take over the world unless something is done! We asked the Grim Reaper for help, but there are too many for him to handle, so we needed divine intervention - in the form of a machine gun!! Yep, we all know where this is going, so let's lock and load to help the mythical Reaper destroy the Tomtars in what I can only describe as the craziest 5 minutes of your life.

In the right corner of the screen is an Orch - kill it to advance to the next level. Use the mouse to shoot, but beware, this isn't going to be easy, because these little critters can walk, run, bounce, and fly across the screen. Controls work well with the mouse, but I would have preferred the right button to perform another function like throwing a grenade; this would have been superb... The gameplay becomes frantic and chaotic the further you progress, but I must admit that it's a shame the spooky backdrop doesn't change.

A stupid game that offers nothing more than a maddening few minutes blasting Tomtars. It's brilliant (esp using real hardware) for a few plays. Grab it from Demozoo (which also has a cut-down FM version).

My high scores are:

78,250 (under emulation)

94,740 (using my Atari STe).

What are yours? Can you beat me?? Didn't think so...