Menace

UPDATE: https://ataricrypt.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/menace.html

This isn't a review. I simply needed to vent about this awesome shoot 'em up which many Atari ST gamers appear to hate. I admit, Psygnosis isn't my favourite company and released more than a few lazy Amiga ports. Many include Menace which is something I strongly disagree with albeit with an odd yellow ship!!

Menace scrolls along perfectly with large sprites and colourful scenery accompanied by nice effects and gorgeous David Whittaker chiptunes. Controls are responsive and precise with gameplay that is fast, smooth and bucket loads of fun. This is an extremely addictive shooter with that "just one more go" appeal. Fantastic game!! /rant

Both floppy and hard drive versions are available at Klaz's Hideaway :-)

Menace [upgraded]

When something isn't quite right...

Menace is one of the few Psygnosis games that I actually enjoy. Yep, I think it's a good shooter. Okay, it should have been much better with a little effort but, that's an Amiga company for you. Anyhow, it's still a decent shooter and I enjoy it a lot. But what's with the YELLOW ship compared to the other version? For years, I've hated that bland colour and wondered what they were thinking and if it was possible to change it to something better?

So, I contacted Atari ST wizard Peter Putnik about this and he came back with a neat solution that actually works very well. As you can see in both the video and screenshots, our spaceship now has a brand new paint job!! The caveat is a change to the (oddly placed) status panel which is due to the 16-colour palette design. Of course, the game itself remains exactly the same - but we can now enjoy a spanky-new WHITE ship. Which is brilliant.

You know folks, this is what makes the Atari ST scene a marvellous place. Think about it, I wasn't happy with a commercial game from 30+ years ago so I asked a guy, who I've never met in another country, for his thoughts. What does he do? He fixes it without hesitation for me. Incredible. What an amazing community we have.

My sincere thanks to Peter for being gracious with my request - this version of Menace is the only one I will now play for the Atari ST. I love it. Here's the download to the newly designed AtariCrypt White Star release of Menace (geddit?).

Please watch the video trailer above and also take a gander at these lovely screenshots...

Alien World

STs cannot scroll

Alien World is a shoot 'em up written by Gary Antcliffe (Blazing Thunder/Yogi's Great Escape) and was released in 1992 by Hi-Tec Premier Software. Ignoring the dreadful title tune, the game itself is a cross between the likes of Menace and R-Type, with a dollop of Venus Flytrap thrown in for good measure. Which is always gonna be ace!

The action is relentless and immediately hits you with a ton of pitfalls like red-hot streams of molten lava that shoot up from pools of glowing red death. It isn't long before you feel a little Blood Money creeping in as the scrolling alternates between horizontal & vertical. However, I liked the parts that don't automatically scroll - allowing you to move at your own leisure. Gravity always plays a part to affect your movement, think Flappy Bird or SantaFly!

Graphically, Alien World is truly outstanding with ultra-smooth scrolling - best experienced using a real Atari ST. Everything is exquisite - rich colours, detailed sprites and fluent movement. Sadly, audio is a different story with no in-game tune and weak sound effects. A few decent chiptunes would have been perfect for a game like this.

Gameplay is what matters the most and I'm impressed with this tough shooter. Sure, it has a learning curve that is nothing short of immense but Blood Money fans are going to love it. Then again, like so many 16-bit games of the era, it's really really tough and demands a cheat. However, a challenging game that drags you back for that "just one more go".

Yup, Alien World is freakishly fun and should entertain for hours. Very hard but I loved it. Play it!!

Download the Floppy or HDD version now.

Right from the off you'll need to get used to gravity which is instantly annoying.

The aliens are badass and relentless. This makes Blood Money look so easy!!

The second level is superb with lots of power-ups and different baddies.

I love the Menace-like futuristic feel and it proves the ST can scroll - when in the hands of talent.

What you thought this was only horizontally scrolling? It's now things get insanely harder!!!

Z-Out

Enjoying a quickie

I had a free hour today so decided to entertain myself with Rainbow Arts' Z-Out. Essentially this is a bog-standard horizontally-scrolling shooter with nice graphics and (familiar) sound effects. The controls work well but it feels like a poor clone of Menace or R-Type but there is a nifty two-player feature which we really enjoyed.

However, I found it extremely difficult at times, plus it didn't really bring anything new to the table compared to shooters already out. Don't get me wrong, this is a good game, and I am really enjoying it, but the Atari ST has a wealth of better shoot 'em ups. Am I right? Well, I think so but let me know what you think in the comments below.

8BitChip has adapted this for hard drive installation w/ a level skip feature.
Floppy disks can be downloaded using Old Games Finder.
Here are some nifty cheats :
          > pressing J + K together gives infinite energy.
          > pressing J and a number between 1 - 6 (on the main keyboard) to skip levels.
          > pressing K and a number between 1 - 3 (on the keypad) to jump stages.

MOD Players

Tricky Trackers!

I remember when I first heard tracker music, it was around 1989 and it was a pretty cool experience albeit not on the ST. To be honest, it was something that I never expected to hear from such a small file - after all, I am comparing it to a sound sample of course would eat up the entire space on any floppy disk (and then the Ram).

So, when I upgraded to an Atari STe in 1990, finding a MOD player was one of the first things I attempted. I think that I wanted to ditch chipmusic for this tantalising new style of computer music. It's weird but, back then, I felt disappointed in my Atari ST and its chip music but I don't feel that way now. In fact, I find many of those MODs I find poor and often quite irritating, excluding classics like R-Type, Menace, and a few others.

Today, I'm a chip guy, but that doesn't mean I'm completely against MODs. I just prefer chip. I see videos on YouTube and read people's comments of how they wished a particular ST game sounded more like the Amiga. I get that but, imagine IF our computer did sound the same. Would that be a good thing? I don't think so. The ST is its own entity with the ability to sound its own way using gorgeous chip music. If the ST had the same music capabilities as the Amiga (in games) then why not just buy the Amiga and have done with it?

No other computer out there has to justify itself like the Atari ST and that ... annoys me! Think about it. In fact, this is why I started AtariCrypt because I was tired of the way we were ignored. I want the ST to be an ST and not pretend to be something else. The YM is part of what makes the ST an ST, and that's a good thing and shouldn't be thought of in a negative way. With that off my chest, here is a selection of excellent MOD players for the Atari STe...

Atari STe MOD / Tracker Players

BackTrack - I wasn't too sure about this at first but I cannot deny its playback quality and the selectable frequencies is a brilliant idea that will be useful on every model of Atari. The audio playback sounds great, especially at 50KHz - but you might need a Mega STe for that!! (v4.04 - released 1993 - by Wizzcat)

CD Player STE - This is like a CD player from the 90s. Just copy the MOD files into the same folder as the program and boot it up. Obviously not a GEM program but something that works really well and is very effective and with a fantastic interface. Cracking program - leave it running while you work! (released 1990 - by Light)

DBE Player - Another GEM program to punch out your favourite MODS. The quality is excellent and has a decent playlist feature but it's pretty demanding of the basic model STe (v2.0 - released 1999 - by Sector One)

The MusicPlayer - Ignoring its quirky GEM interface (which is odd) I thought this program produced good sound quality and even supports 50KHz / 8 channels! (v1.0 - released 1994 - by Christian Dahl)

Sirius Player - This is another that refuses to use GEM and replaces that with its own beautiful UI and what a gorgeous player it is!! The sound quality is Grade A with support for 50KHz thus proving a normal 8MHz STe can handle outside of GEM. Also, 8-channel MODS can be played using features like presets /etc/etc. Don't forget to press the HELP key for all of the options. This is my favourite program of the lot because its playback quality is literally mind-boggling!! (v2.0 - released 2001 - by TSCC 2001)

Paula - A great program that makes you wish you'd have bought a Mega STe for that extra grunt! This is yet another example of the sound quality an Atari STe can produce - and in GEM too. My thanks to Pavel Puchala for alerting me to the freeware release! (v2.6 - released 1999 - by Pascal Fellerich)

JAM - A true jack of all trades that works either in GEM or using its own frontend GUI. It features a neat plugin architecture so lots of different file types are supported - not just MODs but various chiptunes. This is absolutely fascinating and JAM always produces excellent sounds! (v1.0 - released 2000 - by Cream)

The CryptO'pinion?

This page proves nothing. Well, except that the Atari STe can easily handle those Amiga MODs with quality playback, no matter what program you decide to use. They're all great. It just depends on your own needs: if you need a GEM player then any of the above is a good choice to install onto your hard drive/ultrasatan.

Yes, they are all great in their own way but I really loved how CD Player can be stacked up and left to play while you're doing something else. Also, JAM is great and can handle a wide variety of different formats too. Ultimately, I think Sirius is best (for me) with its astounding 50Khz playback, so I tend to prefer this above all others.

Enhanced Games

New game updates!

Everyone knows that Peter Putnik has adapted hundreds of games for hard disk installation. These often include extras like bug fixes, TOS compatibility, 4MB patching, and so on. However, some are also super-charged with cool coding that utilises the Blitter coprocessor and other hidden chips lurking inside the Atari STe.

I thought it would be nice to offer a brief round-up of these enhanced games as a compilation here on AtariCrypt. Oids and Uridium are particularly impressive as both updates improve tremendously upon their original counterparts. I also enjoyed playing my own music during a game of Xenon 2 (read the docs and convert music from your library). There's something here for everyone and I hope you find this useful. Let me know what you think!

Let's play...

Okay, let's take a look at some of these enhanced games that you can download and play right now...

 + Xenon II - updated for the Atari STe and features DMA streamed music. Turn up the volume!
 + Cannon Fodder - enhance this lame port with your chosen DMA streamed music.
 + Prince Of Persia - allow the DMA hardware lurking inside the Atari STe to replay the game's sounds.

  

Did you enjoy that? Well, here are three enhanced FTL games that are nicely improved...

 + Dungeon Master - far cleaner samples are heard thanks to the DMA hardware within the Atari STe.
 + Chaos Strikes Back - Again, the DMA hardware allows cleaner sample playback for this awesome sequel.
 + Oids - the potential for double framerates deliver a smoother experience when rescuing the stickmen.

  

Right, let's take a peek at three more which aren't exactly favoured well by the average ST gamer...

 + Jinks - this jerky game is weird but at least it now uses the smoother STe scrolling [original disks still required]
 + Menace - I cannot thank Peter enough for replacing that horrendous yellow ship with a white one!
 + Uridium - Blitter-boost that sluggish ship and add DMA-streamed background music while you're at it!

  

Now let's take a little run-around with these three you might never have expected to boot up...

 + Giana Sisters - this Zamuel_a enhanced game now also comes with optional DMA streamed music!!
 + Hard 'n' Heavy - gone is that embarrassing flip-screen gameplay, all thanks to cool Blitter programming.
 + Road Runner - Improved and also Blitterized for faster scrolling - but it's still a rubbish game (sorry!)

  

Okay, let's end in style! Here are two ST classics and (wait for it) a PC classic too! Ooh, nice...

 + Goldrunner - Some might not like this, but I love hitting the F3 key to disable that fuzzy speech!
 + Gauntlet - this sluggish hack 'n slash arcade game gets big improvements but still needs extra CPU grunt.
 + Wolfenstein 3D - Ray's jaw-dropping FPS now has bugs removed with decent save game support.

  

shooter.prg

When nerds play...

I'm not big on social media, as you know, but one of the reasons I remain on the cesspool that is Twitter is to follow people like Jonathan Thomas. Yep, that same dodgy fella who developed Pole Position for the Atari STe and then dared to update Lotus Turbo II in ways I never thought possible. Okay, I guess he's not a bad lad...

Anyhow, his tweets are often fascinating because he pokes within the depths of ST games. It's here that weird techniques are discovered or he experiments with probable improvements. He also playtests enhancing performance by utilising the Atari STe hardware. All this coding talk is way over my head but intriguing nonetheless.

So, onto his latest 'project', a horizontally-scrolling shooter for the Atari STe not too dissimilar to Menace, R-Type, etc. Although it's early days, Jon is using the hardware scrolling with the sprites/particle effects handled by the Blitter. There's no DMA sound but I cannot complain as he was generous in sending me an early beta lol

I asked Jon for his thoughts and ideas for what might eventually be a new Atari STe game. Although he replied having no concrete plans for a full game, he did hint toward several extremely promising goals:

A title screen (we will need a name for this!)
16x16 sprites for a selection of individual enemies
Each sprite will use 10-15 predefined attack moves
A couple of (2-3 minute) stages with increasing difficulty
A "game completion" screen
Multiple DMA sound effects
Chipmusic hopefully by (fingers crossed) Dma_Sc

Having "played" this beta, I must say it's impressive along with the prospect of what's already been achieved in a short time. I really liked the feel of the joystick controls and collision detection is spot-on. Border rasters indicate the remaining CPU time for future development opportunities so demonstrate great potential. Yes, I'm excited!

If like me, you love hearing what other people are doing with their Atari STs then take a look at Jon's Twitter stream. It's amock with weird programming gizmos (that I shall never understand) as he enjoys dismantling many Atari ST games. I can only imagine the dorky fun Jon has with his Atari STe and I hope that continues.

Update: Jon has started a source repository for those interested in helping out.

Sophélie

Bums and Boobs!

Sophelie was once a goddess of heaven but has since been vanquished and left to roam the lands searching for her body. Why do I hear you cry? Well, some kind soul has turned her into an albatross so she now spends her 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. However, this time we're not killing monsters or aliens but instead some of the weirdest things that you might never have expected; planets, snowmen, wolf heads, giant eyeballs and even trees. The landscapes are lush with colourful and angels will appear to help at regular intervals.

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 (ugly?) hand of God safely delivering us to each world ready for battle. These worlds are split into several segments with each having its own brand of baddies all too eager to see you dead. Each will swarm onto the screen using its own style of attack pattern and might even shoot at you - the Earth enemies fire mini-planets!

Some of the nasties are far too easy to kill whereas others are quite impossible thanks to the rate at which we can shoot - it's too low. So this makes killing certain enemies quite impossible because they move too quickly in comparison to our fire rate. Dying can be a bit troublesome especially when you materialise too close to an enemy and therefore instantly die once again. A simple invulnerability effect could easily have been utilised for a second or two. Quite unfair!

Angels visit after each of the segments to offer a power-up and these are pretty much 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. Which is very peculiar, to say the least.

Let's now take a peep 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, this isn't too bad with colourful palettes, funky sprites racing across the screen and smooth parallax scrolling running at a brisk pace. In fact, I love the level of detail that's gone into the sprite's artwork the most: Sophelie's animation is superb and never have I played a game with such a large whacky variety of different enemies.

Sadly, the audio is disappointing with a fuzzy theme tune and near-silent gameplay. Well, apart from the death kill sound effect and a strange background whistle. Overall, 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?

On a basic level, this isn't a terrible shoot 'em up. The levels are colourful, the baddies look great zipping across the screen and the action is constant. Also, I like how angels regularly appear with a gift to improve your chances of winning. However, this is also one of the most boring games I've ever booted up. The graphics might change but the gameplay is bland and very repetitive so becomes tiresome. And then there's the audio... Or lack of... Ugh, terrible!

It's an understatement to say that there are better Atari ST shooters. Sophélie looks nice, sounds awful and doesn't bring anything new to the table but there are boobies so perhaps it's worth playing? Nah, I'll leave it thanks.

If you're curious then grab the floppy disk via Stonish or Old Games Finder. Enjoy...

Oh no, another grisly death beautifully laid out. Interesting artwork!

TRS-80 emulator

Let's go back to the days of Starsky & Hutch and Asteroids!

Most people might think it's pretty stupid to emulate a retro computer - using a retro computer? Thankfully, not me because I have 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. What luck! So, I figured I should give it a good playtesting.

I've never actually owned/used a TRS-80 and I imagine few made it outside of the US? Anyhow, Tandy and RadioShack released the first model in 1977 and it was a huge hit for those wealthy enough to have lots of spare cash burning a hole in their pockets. Back then, I would have been six years old and too young to care about something like this :-)

Okay, let's begin with a screenshot of the credits. Oh yeah, it's screenshot time...

It's sadly impressive 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, be that 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 far too tempting not to boot up so I read the docs and hit the web to learn how to operate this ancient beast.

First things first do read the docs and take a 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 from the net.

Lots of features and is very versatile. Plus it can play many different games too which matters more...

One of the first things I booted up was Donkey Kong. Okay, it looks terrible but 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: Pacman, Invaders, Frogger, and so on. 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. However, it's going to struggle with the games as it's simply not fast enough. Personally, my Mega STe is the basic and 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 is a pretty good game.

Games! Give me games!

One of the best games I played was 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 Armored Patrol and the wealth of PacMan games!

There are a few games bundled with 2nd Life and many are great but 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 and 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 is a machine that 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 and I'm impressed with how well it runs in terms of its speed and compatibility. The inclusion of a utility to convert disk images into a format that 2nd Life can recognise is a wonderful addition and opens up the possibility of playing everything there is. Techies can go further: font editor, altering the keyboard layout, linking computers via parallel ports and even tinkering with a disassembler debugger...

The TRS-80 is a great machine and it is so impressive to see the Atari ST flip back in time so easily and reliably. This is a fantastic emulator - however - you will need a >16Mhz computer to start gaming like it's 1977 and my Mega STe felt close to the speed of a real TRS-80 (from what I've seen online). I have really enjoyed using 2nd Life and I'd love to hear what hardware and performance you guys are getting, so let me know in the comments below.

GitHub has the download which includes the source code for those uber-geeks amongst us :-)

- MORE SCREENSHOTS -

Look what I found and it's quite 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.