After months of development, the time has come. Yes, a public release of the upgraded Atari STe Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge will be available to download from tomorrow, April 10th. The only caveat is that your computer requires 1MB of RAM and a working floppy disk drive. Surely nothing too drastic to ask?
If you didn't know, the plan was to update Lotus with the original's missing features: sky rasters, revamped roadside details, car sprites, and Blitter-boosting the framerate. Jamie Hamshere worked on the DMA audio to replace the original's horrendous effects. The end result of all this effort is staggering.
I’d like to thank Jon for his hard work and for sharing everything over the months. Following it has been a fascinating experience and loads of fun. I would like to thank Jamie & Masteries for their incredible DMA skills; I'll never forget the first time I played Lotus with samples alongside the chip music.
Downloads will be available from tomorrow morning via AtariMania. That's my weekend sorted...
One day, I'll get myself a sports car, and I'll live the game for real. One day...
Did you know?
Lotus Esprit also works on the Atari ST and features sky rasters, faster gameplay, and more. The only caveat is the requirement of 1MB RAM and a Blitter Chip (check the Options menu in GEM if you're unsure!). Mega STs meet the requirements, and late-model STFMs have an empty socket. Feeling tempted to upgrade?
Worried that you don't have a working floppy disk? Well, the download is compatible with floppy disk replacements and can also run off a hard drive/ultrasatan using programs like Floppy Image Runner (check that out). Also, the 16MHz Mega STe is supported - hold down the SHIFT key at bootup. Also, if you're missing the peculiar YM sound effects, then press the ALT key at bootup to disable the DMA samples.
When you need a screenshot of your success, but you don't quite make it...
Check it out, I made the high score table!!
Preview Release Timeline Updates (for reference)
I've made a few video recordings to flaunt the features of each beta release. All credit to Jonathan Thomas, Jamie Hamshere & Masteries for all their work with each version. Great work, lads, keep it up!!
For reference, here are the links from each development build I have received:
Apr 10th - It's finally here to download from AtariMania!!
Mar 31st - video #6 Player two has sky gradient, Blitter scrolls the landscape per pixel, more audio refinements, and a higher framerate!
Mar 28th - video #5 Portugal track (audio sample for the intro and many improvements made to the volume balance of YM/DMA.
Mar 21st - video #4 Practice track with a massive change to the audio. Lotus can DMA sound effect samples alongside the glorious Ben Daglish chip music!!! Volume refinements to come thanks to Jamie...
Sophelie was once a goddess of heaven, but has since been vanquished and left to roam the lands searching for her body. What? Why? Well, some kind soul has turned her into an albatross, so she now spends time flying through worlds looking to find her original appearance. As storylines go, this is silly, to say the least!
This is a horizontally scrolling shooter, not too dissimilar to Menace. This time, we're not killing monsters or aliens, but some of the weirdest things you might never have expected: planets, snowmen, wolf heads, eyeballs, and even trees. The landscapes are lush with colour, and even angels will regularly appear to help.
Sounds great, right? Well, let's take a look at some screenshots from the first level...
Yep, giant eyeballs are coming for you and are actually tough to kill, too!
Now, this is getting silly! What have the trees ever done to you?
Let's kill the planet? No, literally by shooting down the rotating planet Earth!!
Spit, don't shoot!
We begin with the hand of God safely delivering us, ready for battle. The levels are split into segments, with each having its own brand of baddies all too eager to see you dead. The controls are fast and responsive, and a joy to control without any lag. The gameplay is fast and exciting as each enemy will swarm onto the screen using its unique attack pattern. Some shoot at you, like the Earth enemies firing mini-planets. Cool.
Some of the nasties are easy to kill, whereas others are impossible, thanks to the slow rate at which we can shoot. This makes killing certain enemies tough because they move too quickly in comparison to our fire rate. Dying can be a bit troublesome, especially when you materialise close to an enemy and therefore instantly die once again. A simple invulnerability effect could have been utilised for a second or two!!
Angels visit after each segment with power-ups, which are essential from the start. Miss them, and the following swarm of enemies is quite impossible to defeat. Also, dying baddies might sometimes throw out an extra power-up, but these fall off the screen before you've had a chance to even think about collecting them. Finally, there is a time limit ticking down to kill each wave of baddies. Very peculiar, to say the least.
Let's end the whining and take a look at some screenshots from the second world...
Some of the sprites are freaky... freaky-cool!
I can't make out whether these are balloons or floating severed heads!
Damn snowmen, they all deserve to die!! O_o
Aesthetics?
Visually, I like the colourful palettes, funky sprites racing across the screen, and smooth parallax scrolling running at a brisk pace. I love the level of detail that's gone into the sprite's artwork. Sophelie's animation is superb, and never have I played a game with such a wacky variety of different enemies. They're quite insane!!
Sadly, the audio is disappointing with a fuzzy tune and near-silent gameplay. Well, apart from the death-killing sound effect and a strange background whistle. It's shocking because the YM is far more capable.
Well, that was a mixed bag, alright, so let's take a peep at the third world...
These are insanely difficult to kill, if not impossible, without losing all your lives!
He's big. He's bad. He's about to be brown bread!!
Hey, a power-up appears from a dying beast, yet you have no chance of collecting it!
The CryptO'pinion?
This isn’t a terrible shoot 'em up. The colourful levels and impressive baddies zipping across the screen create a constant action-packed experience. Plus, the occasional appearance of angels with gifts to boost your chances of victory adds a nice touch. Sadly, it’s also one of the most boring shooters I’ve played. While the graphics might change, the gameplay constantly remains the same. And then there's the audio... Ugh, terrible!
Technically superb, but it’s an understatement to say there are better Atari ST shooters. Sophelie looks nice, but sounds awful and is very repetitive. While there are boobies, I’m not convinced it’s worth playing.
If you're curious, then grab the floppy disk at Atari Legend. Enjoy...
Oh no, another grisly death beautifully laid out. Interesting artwork!
Let's go back to the days of Starsky & Hutch and Asteroids!
Most people might think it's stupid to emulate a retro computer using a retro computer. Thankfully, not me, as I've found something rather incredible called 2nd Life. It's a TRS-80 Model III emulator by Sander Berents and is something I stumbled on purely by chance. So, I figured I should give it a good playtest.
I've never used a TRS-80, and I imagine few made it outside the US. Anyhow, Tandy and RadioShack released the first model in 1977; it was a hit for those wealthy enough to have lots of spare cash burning a hole in their pockets. Back then, I would have been six and too young to care about something like this :-)
Let's begin with a screenshot of the credits. Oh yeah, it's screenshot time...
It's sad that something this good wasn't released earlier in the ST's life.
What's a RadioShack?
Like you, I love my Atari ST, even when it pretends to be something else - a Sinclair, Commodore, or even a peculiar clunk of hardware by RadioShack (I used to love the Tandy stores). Anyhow, a TRS-80 emulator sounded too tempting not to try! I read the docs and hit the web to learn how to operate this ancient beast.
First things first, read the docs and look at the FAQ text file to understand which options to enable/disable for the best performance and compatibility settings. You will also find two more disk images with compiled and BASIC games, but you'll be best with a 16MHz computer to enjoy something close to native speeds.
2nd Life requires ST High resolution and is very easy to use. Along the bottom of the screen are four floppy disk drive icons - click to highlight Drive 0 and use that as the TRS operating system boot drive. The second drive icon can be used for anything, like games or other images that you may have downloaded.
Lots of features and is versatile. Plus, it can play many different games too, which matters more...
One of the first things I booted up was Donkey Kong. It looks terrible, but it plays well.
Old but not that much different
Using the TRS-80's DOS commands feels a little quirky, but is fairly easy to learn. For example, DIR will display the directory of a disk, and it can be expanded with extra options and filters, as you'll see in the video:
DIR 0 - will produce the contents of Drive 0
DIR 1 - will produce the contents of Drive 1. Easy, right?
DIR 1,/BAS - this displays the same list but filters for BAS files. CAT 1 - this provides an alternative way to load programs!
We're gonna get a little more complex now, but it's worth it to watch the dancing alien:
BASIC RUN "DANCING/BAS,1"
The command looks worse than it actually is. Breaking it down, it simply instructs the computer to load up the BASIC program. Then that will load/run the file "DANCING/BAS" which is stored on Drive 1. Easy!
This is starting to be fun, so I went searching for a game like Menace or R-Type. Ahem, screenshot time...
Sea Dragon is a terrible mess of ZX81 blockiness, but it is a brilliant shoot 'em up!
Get to the games already!
Ultimately, we're here to play some TRS-80 games, and I gotta tip my hat to this old piece of 70s kit. There are some great games in its library, and there's a good reason I chose Sea Dragon as the video thumbnail. Like any old computer, there's a wealth of vintage games from the era: Pac-Man, Invaders, Frogger, etc. I'm a geek, so I enjoyed the thrill of playing with something that's almost as old as me. No rude comments, please!
Performance-wise, the humble 8MHZ Atari ST will successfully emulate and run everything you throw at it. It will struggle with the games as it's simply not fast enough. Personally, my Mega STe is the essential, minimum requirement and produces near-perfect speeds, generally speaking. So, 8MHz will be fine, but 16MHz will get you gaming. Hardly a shock and just the same as with other emulators we have within our library...
Don't forget to read the docs as README.TXT is there for a reason... Okay, I'll nag no more!
Yes, this really is Frogger. Hopper has awful collision detection, but it's a good game.
Games! Give me games!
One of the best games is Sea Dragon, which is a fantastic scramble through watery canyons. Sadly, I wasn't impressed with Penetrator. I struggled with jerky graphics and twitchy controls. It was a shock to see a chunky version of Donkey Kong with huge black and white blocks, but the gameplay is superb, and that's what matters. However, the blocks worked great for Armoured Patrol and the wealth of Pac-Man games!
There are a few games bundled with 2nd Life, and sooner or later, you will want more. Thankfully, there are some great websites with disk images stuffed full of games, and I managed to find racers, lots of different Space Invaders, Zork, and even Temple of Apshai - which is nothing at all like the Atari ST version. Its "turn-based" element caught me off guard, in a nice way. But boy, is it slow - even on a real TRS-80. Yikes!
Most (all?) disk images found on the internet won't be compatible with the Atari ST. Thankfully, Sander has a utility to convert these for 2nd Life and it works a treat from what I've seen so far. Hence, how I got to play Hamburger Sam, Berserk, erm Robot Attack and the sluggish Temple of Apshai.
He might not be yellow, but he's on the TRS-80 as Gobbler!
The CryptO'pinion?
I initially expected the TRS-80 to be nothing more than a cumbersome piece of ancient hardware that I wouldn't particularly enjoy. I couldn't be more wrong. This machine appears to have more power and versatility than I would ever imagine. It's a great computer, and it's no wonder those plucky Americans snapped it up!
2nd Life is an equally fantastic piece of software! I'm impressed with how well it runs in terms of speed, ease of use, and compatibility. The inclusion of a utility to convert disk images into a format that 2nd Life can recognise is wonderful. That opens up the possibility of playing everything there is. Techies can go further: font editor, keyboard alteration, linking computers, and even tinkering with a disassembler debugger...
The TRS-80 is great, and it's impressive to see the Atari ST flip back in time so easily and reliably. I have really enjoyed using 2nd Life, and I'd love to hear what hardware you guys are using to run this software.
GitHub has the download, which includes the source code for those uber-geeks amongst us :-)
- MORE SCREENSHOTS -
Look what I found!! It's different to the Atari ST game. Quick, kill the Ant Man!!
This is Astro, and it's a BASIC game. No, I mean it's written in BASIC, and it's good.
Hamburger Sam, based on BurgerTime, but felt more like Mr Wimpy to me. Love it.
This is Speedway, and it's kinda like an early Spy Hunter or Major Motion. Hmm...
Runner demands quick control action - you'll regret not reading the FAQ text file!
I only ever played Penetrator on the ZX Spectrum... and this isn't as good!
Hang on, is that Berserk? No, it's Robot Attack and completely different. Honest.
Limit Zero is absolutely superb and something you should play!!
ScarfMan? Okay, it's getting silly now...
Lunar Lander is a cracking conversion, but too slow for an 8MHz ST to handle.
Those with a good memory may remember seeing Frenetic here on AtariCrypt about five years ago. My review was, ahem, less than favourable. If I remember correctly, the graphics were nice, and I thought the gameplay was well-balanced. Yet, I oddly rated it as nothing more than a cheap Amiga port. That was a long time ago, so I figured I needed to revisit Core's vertically-scrolling shooter. Let's see if I was wrong back then.
Frenetic transports us slap-bang into the 23rd Century with soulless scientists still debating over the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Well, as often happens in the world of sci-fi, life on Earth is under attack from such creatures. The aliens from the planet "Mozone". Hmm, we have to head into the unknown to pave the way for the safe travel of Earth's vessels and help prevent the extinction of humanity. Sounds like fun, right?
Before we begin, how about a screenshot? Let's do just that, so here you go...
Giant trees and rocks throughout level one, and it's pretty much green throughout!
Big levels, Big Guns, Big Monsters
There are eight ginormous levels stuffed with hundreds of aliens. Some will stroll into your line of fire, whereas others swirl majestically onto the screen. So, it's obvious what to do - bang on the fire button and kill them. Power-ups are available to upgrade your ship's firepower. They are essential and blessed with different types of upgrades: forward firepower, speed, side armaments, shields, etc. Sadly, these pickup areas are few, so I was often left vulnerable and underpowered after losing a life. Yes, power-ups are gone after dying.
Hang on a moment, do you have a friend sitting idle? Well, there is a cool option for two players, which is brilliant and certainly comes in handy on those harder levels later on. It's the best part of the game!! Sadly, I have no friends... Sniff... boohoo...
Each stage has an end-of-level boss, and these are huge beasts. When I say huge, I really do mean it. They will take lots of time and firepower to defeat, but most aren't that tough (beyond the time required). Unless you have just lost your power-ups, then you can expect that battle to last a long time... a very long time!
Let's take a break from reading and view a screenshot that looks creepy and very alien...
Later levels might look funky, but the gameplay remains exactly the same!
Aesthetics
The backgrounds are excellent on most levels, especially the first, with tons of colour. The enemies move spritely with different attack patterns, and the bosses are ginormous creatures. The vertical scrolling isn't great, which is disappointing because the Atari ST has similar games with far smoother framerates.
The music is by Martin Walker and is brilliant!! Not only that, but it works well alongside the sound effects, I thought. Sadly, that same tune plays throughout, which is disappointing and a massive shame to hear just one of Martin's tunes. We needed more, as I know I would have enjoyed listening to more of his work.
It looks pretty and sounds great, so let's celebrate with one final screenshot of a funky boss...
Some of the bosses are great, and some are... rather rubbish!
The CryptO'pinion?
Well, it looks like I wasn't wrong after all. At best, this is an average shoot 'em up, but if you can find a friend, then it will be more bearable. Well, for a few games anyhow. Frenetic needed more progression, more power-ups, and more pizzazz. So boot up something like Plutos, Wings Of Death, SWIV, or Flying Shark.
What I liked: the first couple of levels have well-balanced gameplay, and I even reached the third stage - without cheating! However, the best feature is the two-player mode, which is fantastic and certainly helps to (partially) compensate for the things I am now about to moan about.
What I didn't like: the power-ups are needed to defeat the bosses, but these are lost after losing a life, and new pick-ups are scarce. Each level is a long slog without variety, excitement or progression, and the repetitive tune becomes irritating. I'm getting a whiff of a rushed Amiga port.
Reading this back, I feel that I'm being harsh. Or perhaps I'm in a bad mood? Am I wrong? Is this a great shoot 'em up, and I'm talking nonsense? Feel free to let me know what you guys think in the comments.
Atari Legend has loads of floppy menu disks. Wow, so many!!
D-Bug has the best version for a hard drive with far quicker loading times.
Rob & Lee, coder and artist for Frenetic. Gee whiz, thanks, guys. It's a lame ending screen, too!
It's been yonks since I posted in our Software sections, so here is a utility that is the bee's knees. Yet Another Atari RAM Test, by Christian Zietz, rolls through a number of intense tests that execute algorithms to help diagnose potential problems with our beloved Atari computers. Let's hope it finds nothing!
I won't pretend to understand its wizardry, but I love utilities like this. I want my ST healthy, so I've had it running for what feels like a lifetime, and it's not (yet) found any errors. This is excellent news, but I'm thinking that this program could be helpful to anyone experiencing weird anomalies or peculiar crashes.
I enjoy finding programs like this lurking in the ST archives, and I hope YAART proves helpful if you're suffering from any hardware problems. The download comes ready to support the ST/STe/TT/Falcon, but take a moment to read the text file and boot cleanly with as much spare RAM as possible (read YAART.TXT)
I hope you have healthy Atari computers? Let me know in the comments below. Good luck!!
