StarRay

The Atari ST cannot scroll

Logotron's StarRay is a Defender wannabe developed by a trio of incredible talent. It's something I boot up whenever I'm bored and need to kill a few mins after a dreadful day at work! Of course, this was programmed by none other than Steve Bak. A legend who always knew how to get the best from the Atari ST without ever resorting to lame excuses.

Aesthetically speaking, it's fantastic and compliments the gameplay perfectly. Pete Lyon designed what you see and it's glorious. From the moment you see the futuristic Monument Valley, you're in love with his pixels. David Whittaker created all of the jaw-dropping funk (anyone with extra Ram has sampled music on the title screen - but I prefer chip tunes).

StarRay is a blummin' awesome shooter and tons of fun. It boosts the original Defender format with its own brand of great gameplay style - plus beautiful sounds and multilayer parallax visuals. This is how all retro gaming should be! The perfect shooter if you are bored and fancy some frantic mayhem in your life - grab it now and play StarRay!

Take to the skies then download either the floppy disk or use your hard drive.

Overdrive

NFS

Feeling the need for speed, I booted up something different - Overdrive by Ross McNaughton which he developed in 1996 using STOS. It's an overhead racer similar to Super Cars or Power Up and features 25 GEM-green tracks. Yes, green. Okay, I know that grass is green and so is our desktop but, ugh, green. Too much!

Anyhow, after listening to the horrendous title music [nails on a blackboard] you're asked for your initials before viewing a diagram of the first track (I'm being mean there because it's FAR better if you have an Atari STe with clear stereo playback). Okay, the physics are pretty dodgy but controls are easy to learn so it's not long before you're tearing up the asphalt. However, that's about as deep as it gets because your opponents are like Sunday drivers! Plus there are no differing road surfaces, weather conditions, car repairs, etc...

I'm probably being harsh because Overdrive isn't commercial and there is a level of fun to be had. Sadly, it's too easy so gets repetitive and that green colour hurts the eyes. It's not long before things feel monotonous. Hence why I abruptly ended my recording. It's good, umm, enjoyable for a few minutes but nothing more.

Go on!! I dare ya to download Overdrive and play it. Let me know what you think!

Crash Time Plumber (longplay recording)

> Update: Read our review featurette about this beautiful game!!

Crash Time Plumber is an astounding platformer but I struggled to beat level 6 with my joystick skills. So that meant there was only one thing left to do - cheat! The later levels are killers!! Even with a cheat, all I would do is die-die-die!! But, eventually, I did it, as you can see in the recording. I dare anyone to complete it without extra lives...

This is most definitely one of my favourite platformers. It's nothing less than infuriatingly awesome!!