WANTED

I am John Wayne!

Wanted was released by Infogrames in 1988 and is a Gunsmoke rip-off with hints of Commando or Ikari Warriors. Ignoring the start, and its dreadful music, we begin as a budding John Wayne wannabe, strolling through the dusty Wild West. The town is inhabited by outlaws and we have a gun. Every guy's dream!

Unlike Ikari Warriors, the screen will automatically scroll as the action comes thick and fast. Whack on the fire button and shoot your way through Dodge City but watch for the enemy and their bullets! These are the slowest bullets on the planet but are extremely precise - I somehow always managed to walk into them. Arghh!! Thankfully, power-ups are available after shooting barrels where you'll find weapons, shields, etc.

Wanted is a good vertically scrolling shoot 'em up and fans of Gunsmoke will love it. Be warned, it's difficult (and there are better games on the Atari ST) but there is something curiously likeable about it. I enjoyed it, so download the hard disk version from 8BitChip with floppies available via Old Games Finder. 

Fwiw, I've been to places like Tombstone and Dodge so I'm all ..... Yeehaw!!!!

Cannon Fodder [Atari STe update]

Ugh, another lame Amiga port...

Cannon Fodder should have been far better for the Atari ST. Alas, it was a rushed, lame-ass port. However, cry no more tears for Peter Putnik has upgraded the game to support audio playback of 25KHz digital music - yes, during gameplay. This is making use of the DMA audio hardware lurking inside the Atari STe, and (because it's a coprocessor) there is no CPU usage. Thus, zero impact on the game's performance whatsoever.

Storage requirements are too much for a floppy! So an Ultrasatan or other hard drive device is needed to store the music - this can be anything - instructions are included on how to use convert something from your library. It's dead easy to do using Audacity. Click on my teaser video, above...

What an incredible upgrade! It's something else to experience the game with real music blasting out from your speakers. However, I'm gutted that our lame-ass Cannon Fodder is a pile of rubbish with flick-screen scrolling. Sensible Software should be ashamed of themselves for releasing such a terrible port.

I hope Peter uses this technology again for other Atari ST games. The possibilities are endless!!