Motor Massacre

Mad Max with choppy graphics?

Motor Massacre was released by Gremlin Graphics and feels like a wicked blend of a number of my favourite games. The action takes place in a grim post-apocalyptic future where each city is suffering from the devastation of war and resembles a Mad Max movie! All food stores were destroyed in the holocaust so people were starving until Doctor A. Noid came up with a substitute called "SLU" to help the waning populous. This all sounds great, right?

Why are these masterminds almost always qualified doctors? Anyhow, it was all a trick because SLU tastes like poo and turns people into zombies! So it's up to you to rescue the city from its psychotic drivers, explore buildings, and then battle in a demolition derby event to ultimately find the doctor and end this misery. See, it's basically Mad Max in game form :)

Pandy's Pork Palace sounds a lot better than it actually is!

It's Carmageddon out there!

Yes, this is more than one single game: the cities are explored from the comfort of an ATV - top/down similar to Chicago 90 but when inside buildings, it changes to something like Time Bandit or Gauntlet.

Driving around the city is tremendous fun because you are completely free to roam the streets and that also means blasting at anyone who might get in your way. All other drivers are out for blood and want you dead by any means and their road rage antics are vicious - so defend yourself using the cannon fitted to your vehicle.

Use this to blast the suckers into oblivion but also watch out for hazards such as oil spills and explosives carelessly left lying in the road. Do note the gun turrets which line many streets and are annoyingly highly accurate.

It's demolition derby time when we can shove other cars into dark oblivion.

Explore and have fun!

An interesting "mechanic" is how your vehicle's appearance alters the more damage it endures, so I'm grateful the holocaust didn't destroy the repair shops which also offer a wide range of other services like fuel, weapons, and ammo. The mechanic working here scares me, but I like his T-shirt! There are some more places and these offer a good opportunity to collect goods like weapons and health, so look out for their location using the road markings (Pandy's Pork Palace is available right from the start and contains a handy ATV upgrade).

You soon discover that these various places are thriving with ghouls and other creatures lurking in the shadows. Nowhere is safe, but you're armed with a pistol so shoot first and ask questions later! Keep searching these areas and you should find an arena pass to the demolition derby. This event is pure Carmageddon and nothing beats pushing your opponents into a chasm! Success grants you access to the next city.

The mechanic is freaky. It's almost on a Chucky level here... (shudder)

Aesthetics?

Visually, this is a basic affair with crudely drawn graphics and jerky scrolling to boot. However, I must admit being mightily impressed with the animation of the running men which reminded me of Impossible Mission.

Sadly, the sound effects are probably worse than the visuals. Truly terrible.

However, we need him because the roads in the future are just terrible.

The CryptO'pinion?

Motor Massacre has been a nice surprise. Sure, it's about as glam as a dog turd but I enjoyed the mix of arcade-style action with levels of adventure lurking below the surface. Also, being able to enter buildings adds that extra dynamic which I loved - and there's always something stupid waiting for you! So don't take it seriously and have fun.

I have enjoyed zipping around the city looking for my next victim. It's crude but fantastic and really enjoyable!!

Mel Gibson wannabes can download the floppies
Tear up the roads like Mad Max!

Outrun New Year Demo

Goodbye in STyle

I'm going to end 2016 with a brand new release by a good friend of mine - Bionic Nerd - aka Peter Jørgensen. It is the Outrun New Year Music Demo which has just been released so I've recorded a little sample from each track as a teaser for you all. Clickety click to grab this cool music disk right now and enjoy it. :-) Here is a little background by Peter:

"Hi all, I made this little new year music demo because I always loved the music from outrun and I always felt that we Atari ST guys were cheated on. Firstly, there was a track missing. Secondly, it kept shifting between the two other tune every time one would die. Lastly, I do not think that David Whittaker did his best. The music files are YMT format running at 300hz and the reason the program file is so big. In the new year I will make a new sound format, still as fast, but be taking less space but you will need a 2mb Atari to run this. Thanks to everyone for listening and I hope you like this? Thanks, Peter."

SantaFly

Merry Christmas

It's got to that time of year when I post something Christmassy! Here we have SantaFly by the awesome Reservoir Gods and regular readers will remember its sister game. Yes, SantaFly is every bit as frustratingly addictive but with a peculiar Christmassy theme. It's great fun and I advise you clickety click and download it.

Thank you to everyone who visited AtariCrypt throughout the year. I wish you all a Merry Christmas †

Luke 2:11
The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!

Jetpac

Ugh, not the Speccy again?

I love it when I find something new - new to me. After decades of using an Atari ST, I stumbled upon a program that I'd never heard of - an emulator called Artemis. This is a Z80/ZX Spectrum emulator by Jörg Tochtenhagen and Ralf Hemsing and features numerous options for the technically minded - not me then lol. Thankfully, it seems to perform very well indeed on my own Atari (the video above is via emulation).

Feel free to tinker with the configuration but the performance -as is- is more than acceptable on the stock ST. That's a relief because Artemis doesn't work properly on faster computers! Plus there is no support for colour, meaning your game is in black and white. Even more peculiar is that we only have one game - Jetpac.

The game uses a format I've not heard of before --> .PRO

Can anyone help with more information or other games in .PRO format?

Playing Jetpac is never a bad thing and even though it's not as good as the real machine (or indeed the Speccy emulator) it is great to find something new. Note: Artemis comes with no documentation, lacks colour support, and doesn't work properly with computers other than the stock 8MHz Atari ST/e.

Needs other games but I have enjoyed finding this gem deep within the ST archives.

Download: Floppyshop disk "UTL-3025"

Unheart

A fun puzzler?

Unheart is something I've been meaning to feature for far too long. It's pretty new and was only released in 2014 at Silly Venture by Masters of Electric City. It's based on the original PC game, Heartlight which happily mixes Sokoban with a dollop of Boulder Dash to produce a riveting and refreshing brain-teasing challenge.

Boulder Dash fans should look elsewhere because this is a Sokoban game and a brilliant take on that idea. We are a dwarf who enjoys digging his way through caves looking for love hearts. Watch out for falling rocks that might block your path or worse, a head-crushing blow. You might even come upon a bomb as you crawl through the soft soil but be careful, because these will detonate when impacting something hard, like a wall or rock. Heck, there are even balloons that will float upwards potentially pushing whatever gets in their way...

Don't worry if you get stuck, hit ESC will humorously explode our dwarf so we can restart. Also, a level-skip function is used to bypass those brain-destroying levels with the option of coming back later. The difficulty remains a constant throughout with cunning map designs causing the most intense problems!

The graphics are simple yet superbly detailed using a gorgeous C64-like palette. The status bar is displayed using overscan, which is always going to be a great thing for obvious reasons. The chip music is on another level. It is breathtaking and perfectly suits the gameplay - I just wish there was more.

Unheart is good fun and pushes you to think differently. Its difficulty remains a constant throughout with shrewd map designs causing the most intense problems to overcome. Thankfully, with unlimited retries - and the ability to skip troublesome levels - you aren't distracted and will keep coming back.

Unheart is challenging, distinctively brilliant and one of the beST puzzlers on the Atari ST.

- SCREENSHOTS & DOWNLOAD -

Some levels look so simple yet they are not. Perhaps well-placed explosions will help here?

I spent ages on this level and yet it is so easy to complete!! Sometimes physics helps a bunch.

Another level that appears so simple - and is - but that didn't stop me from pulling out my hair!!

I can imagine Boulder Dash fans loving the first level, but not so much the others!

Grab the download at Demozoo & Silly Venture!

Anduril

Wilf is back

Anduril is a PD game by Markus Dheus that features a flying hero. Like the ZX Spectrum game, Kokotoni Wilf, this is a flick-screener with cunning rooms to explore. Unfortunately, unlike Kokotoni Wilf, our guy cannot walk or even touch the landscape scenery. If he does, it results in an instant loss of life. Thankfully, he can fly like a Flappy Bird using simple controls: use the SHIFT key to fly with H + J turning left/right.

I imagine Anduril is beginning to sound rather easy? You couldn't be more wrong, as anyone who loves a challenge will get just that - the first screens are easy, but it isn't too long before the game's true sadistic nature is exposed. Most of the map is made up of tight spaces in which to guide our man. If that wasn't tough enough, once gravity is factored in, Anduril becomes distressing for all but the patient gamer.

The graphics are crisp and detailed, but I sometimes had collision detection, which often worked in my favour, so I shouldn't complain. Sounds are almost void, with only a low-volume spot effect for item pickup.

Very difficult, so not for everyone, but I found it an enjoyable change.

Download Anduril from AtariMania, and this program will help those without a high-res monitor.

Pung

Pong?

Pung is an old Atari STe game which has been released after years of lurking in software purgatory. It's obviously based upon the 1972 classic and currently stands at v0.30 which means it suffers a few bugs that might lead to those infamous bombs across your screen. Just reset and keep on playing! I'm glad this got a release as we have enjoyed playing it over the weekend - it's different with a few neat ideas and I recommend you take a look. Let me know what you think...

* Demozoo website has a download with all the credits and more.

* I nabbed the MOD music file off Demozoo and made a recording. Love it!