Previous Next

Starting with the Atari XE/XL range, and in third place, is a game by Jeff Minter, which was skilfully ported to the Atari by Heaven/TQA. It's Metagalactic Llamas Battle At The Edge Of Time. Using Jeff's original code, this unusual shoot-'em up won plaudits from Atari and Minter fans alike, although I wasn't happy with the way in which it was released. The game was announced as finished and available to download until some Atari 'sceners' complained about the 'final' version, so it was changed to appease them and, in doing so, an accidental part of the game mechanic (which made it a bit more of a challenge) was removed. Nonetheless, Llamas with fire power are always good fun. To download this game, sign up to the Atari Age forums and head over to tinyurl.com/cfxnu2.

In second place is a game that Sinclair ZX Spectrum fans should be familiar with: Knight Lore, by XXL. Using the BBC Micro code, XXL recreated this isometric classic really well, and as I noted at the time, if XXL had been active back in the mid 80s, the Atari 8-bit may have had a better showing here in the UK. This can be downloaded from www.atarig.info/stuff/knightlore.xex.

The winner of 'best game by format' for the Atari XE/XL is, by a whisker, Loops Of Zen. This neat puzzle game is one that can keep you occupied for hours, even though the game can't be completed and the difficulty level hits a ceiling and never goes beyond that. To grab this, point your FTP interface at atari.pl/zen.xex.

Previous Next

Moving onto Commodore, and in third place is the unfortunately overlooked VICToria Gold for the Commodore VIC-20 (it.gescities.com/orion010870/ViCtoria_gold.zip), a turn-based strategy game in which you play the Emperor of Rome tasked with growing the old empire.

In second place is another VIC release, the excellent platform game Blue Star by Kweepa and released by Cronosoft (www.cronosoft.co.uk), for the unexpanded machine. This presents the player with a large play area and the task of destroying the computer core of the enemies' base.

And without a doubt, the best Commodore release of 2008 was... Sub Hunter by Richard Bayliss and released by Psytronik Software (www.psytronik.com), which is inspired by a Vic-20 classic, for the Commodore 64. It includes several interlude levels, with the main task to rescue the trapped free divers by capturing them in your sub, and absolutely sublime musical scores throughout.

Previous Next

And for the Sinclair, in third place, is the very good game by CEZ Games Studio, which came in the form of Jinj (tinyurl.com/cphran) for the 48k machine. This is a pretty damn good Sabre Wulf clone with a large enough play area to keep you entertained. The runner up for the category is Kevin Thacker's Sudoku clone, oddly called Sudoku, available from Cronosoft, being a comprehensive version of the lunchtime brain teaser and including a solve mode as well as a designer.

And the winner, without any doubt, is Bob Smith's psychedelic blasterama known only as splATTR, for the 128k Speccy. This fast-paced shooter gives you no excuses to obliterate the roaming invaders, toilets, spinning tops and such like, and as it's also available from Cronosoft. If you own a 128k machine with a working tape drive, buy it now.

Again there simply wasn't enough activity for the Amstrad CPC, however, Kevin Thacker's Sudoku was a dual release for the old CPC and the Speccy, so with little difference between the two versions, this is the winner. I didn't note a significant amount of releases on this format to register, and on that note, editorial space means that I'll have to leave it there. Next week, I'll announce the winners for the most original game category, as well as the special award category and the best overall game. There'll also be some musings from Byte Back.