Merry Christmas

Mario on the Atari ST?

Super Stario Land was released in 1995 by Top Byte and might remind you of a certain game featuring an Italian plumber? Yep, it's pretty darn similar but this isn't merely a cheap clone but a great game in its own right that offers fantastic amusement. It's a delight to play with controls that are both easy and responsive so feels authentic.

The graphics scroll by at a smooth 50fps with fine attention to visual detail, if small by ST standards. Sound effects are pretty chirpy and suit the console-style but, if you press F9, then music will play by Big Alec. I love this game. It's like having a Nintendo with a keyboard! It's hard but it's also a brilliant platformer which is great fun.

What? Do you want more?

Stario's Christmas was released in 1996 and is basically more of the same - but within a Christmassy winter wonderland appearance. It's equal, in every way, to the first so if you enjoyed that then you're sure to love this.

Yep, two superb platformers to play over the holidays. Merry Christmas everyone †

Download hard disk versions via 8BitChip

and the floppies via Old Games Finder.

3D con kit

I've always been interested in 3D from my early computing years as a kid with a ZX Spectrum and games like Ant Attack, Deathchase and then the mind-boggling Knight Lore/Alien 8. Those games just blew my mind, so when I came across 3D Construction Kit for the Atari ST - I was delighted.

After a little googling, I found a fantastic web resource by Stuart Wilson which I'm hoping will prove to be useful and help me get the best from this program. They also run a FaceBook community page (link below).

3D Construction Kit is an old but excellent application for making your own virtual worlds. This video is the actual VHS recording that was released back in the day which is fascinating and explains many aspects of the program nicely. There are lots of projects already created on the Atari ST and many are excellent :-)

At my request, Peter Putnik has graciously adapted 3D Construction Kit so it can now be installed and ran from hard disk - so download this instead of the floppies! Plus those faster computers can make use of their power and my own 16Mhz Mega STe runs beautifully! :-)

Stu-Wilson’s website for 3D Construction Kit [and their dedicated FaceBook page]

SWIV

Blue Thunder

Sometimes you need a stress release from this strange world and today I did just that thanks to SWIV. Wow, what an exceptional shooter - I blasted the living daylights out of those military bad boys using my massive chopper! Hang on... Nevermind... This game has great graphics, sounds and timeless action. Love it all.

Yup, this is a cracking game so I decided to record a video. Please subscribe to my channel as 95% of visitors aren't. Oddly, the emulator was a little slower compared to my real Atari STe and the sound effects were not quite as loud. Perhaps it's just me but I felt a difference. But, nothing ever beats the real hardware.

Klaz has a fantastic download that can even be installed onto a hard drive!

Just for giggles... Moments ago, my hard drive started to make strange whirring noises, almost like it was trying to spin-up, but couldn't. You know, I think SWIV actually killed it!! I shouldn't complain because it was the original drive and therefore about 24 years old. Now that's value for money!