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Mervyn J Estcourt's game Deathchase, released in 1983 for the 16K Sinclair ZX Spectrum, is something of a revered classic. It was fast, ran in convincing three dimensions, was very playable and, for the time, the graphics were excellent. It had a 'wow' factor, especially as it used such a small amount of memory (with the program size being approximately 8K in total). Take into account the obvious influence from some over-rated movies about a galaxy far, far away, and it has been engrained into the souls of many Speccy enthusiasts.

In 2009, James McKay skilfully converted this epic to the Dragon 32 and Tandy CoCo, using the quirks and limitations of available tech to make a rather splendid version, equalling the pace and gameplay of the original. And now, Atari XE/XL owners have this epic to look forward to, in the form of Deathchase XE.

It's been developed thanks to an East European group, which consists of Krzysztof 'xxI' Dudek handling the code, Adam Wachowski working on the game design and upgrades to the original graphics, Jarostaw 'Odyn1ec' Wyszyriski tasked with pixelating all the black and white images and Michat 'stRing' Radecki composing some fabulous Pokey music.

Dealing with a post-apocalyptic situation, your task is to patrol the forests to obliterate any enemy riders or other laser fodder, such as helicopters. Deathchase XE is claimed to have further improvements over removing the colour attribute clash from the Speccy version (although the play area is several shades of grey), claiming to be more pacey and difficult. From the public video released on YouTube, you can see that the trees 'sway' as you move left and right at speed.

You can see the latest video on YouTube by going to Krzysztof's YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/atari8xxl, where more info will be announced.

Sticking with the Atari XE/XL for a while longer, Jos Pereira, 'Xuel', Jason 'TMR' Kelk and the well-known computer games pixel artist from the 1980s Steve 'Ste 86' Day are working on a horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up called X:8, which is influenced by Armalyte and other popular blasters from back in the day.

This, like Deathchase XE mentioned above, is an entry into the ABBUS competition, which is an annual contest for the Atari 8-bit personal computer for the purpose of making new games for the aged platform to see who creates the best.

As is explained in the blog at atariage.com/forums/blog/387/entry-10443-x8, X:8 started out as an idea of how to get a good rendering engine on the Atari hardware, which mixes two graphics mode onto one screen, while running at a full frame-rate of 50fps for European (PAL) or 60fps for American versions.

It's the usual battle of one armoured spacecraft against hoards of malevolent alien scum, most of which will happily attack in formations that can be learnt with enough practise. To help you along the way, your ship can collect one of eight power-ups, which will appear at points within play, but which may distract and be difficult to obtain.

The blog has a video of the action, and it looks a really excellent game, especially as the Atari doesn't have too many in this genre. To get the latest, either see the blog mentioned here, or go to www.abbuc.de.

Commodore Plus/4 fans will be pleased to hear that a short preview of System 3's epic 3D isometric game The Last Ninja, which was released in 1987 and became an instant cult hit with three and a half games released in the trilogy (Last Ninja Remix was simply a rebranded version of the second title) has been posted to YouTube.

There isn't much information about this remake for the budget Commodore machine other than some proof-of-principle videos that show some of the game mechanics working. Many Commodore 64 fans will be familiar with the game, and I'm sure that the C+4 will be able to handle it as well as the original. To see the preview, head over to youtu.be/DcykI35LHzk.