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There's a new game for 64K Atari eight-bits called Joe's Adventure, available through the Atari SK web portal (at www.atari.sk/download/joe.zip). It's a similar idea to the great Rick Dangerous, and it sees our hero Joe exploring ancient caverns in order to collect the valuable treasures held within.

This game is well presented, has an intelligent learning curve and, most importantly, it's an easier game than Rick Dangerous, and will work with all good Atari 8-bit emulators out there.

Sticking with Atari for a moment, the aforementioned web portal also reports on a modern-day flash cartridge that has 128K of static RAM that is kept in a non-volatile state by a 3v battery (or by the computer when it is plugged in). This should mean that, in theory, you could transfer the emulator cartridge images directly to it to play on the real machines. It should also work with the ill-fated XE-GS (a version of the Atari XE range in a game system, like the C64GS and Amstrad GX-4000), providing that you don't transfer game images that require keyboard interactions, unless of course that you have the detachable XE-GS keyboard on your system.

One of the developers of this cartridge has also been working on a 14MHz CPU replacement for the Atari eight-bit. In fact, it's more like a SuperXL with many improvements and bug fixes over the original system. For further details about it, head over to drac030.krap.pl - there's an English section there too for those of us who don't speak Polish...

If you're fed up of the dull world of the Internet, why not make it more colourful using your Commodore 64, and connect to the infamous (and reborn) Quantum Link? Thanks to the website www.petscii.com/qlink, you'll only need a super-fast 1200 baud (remember 1200 baud?) modem, a C64 and a PC connected to the Internet. All the software can be downloaded from the website already mentioned, with a quick tutorial on how to do it. For those 'non-purists' out there, you may also configure the WinVICE emulator to connect to this quantum leap in online goodness. Again, there's a how-to guide on the site for emulation.

I haven't given this a go yet, but I plan to do so soon. I just wonder if there will be any online games that will result in this sort of activity. If so, the future is quite a bright one for the C64 as I can think of many games that will benefit from being played via a network connection.

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There is a new preview of Sub Hunter for the C64 available to download. This has several improvements on the old version, including a slower pace, which makes the game much easier to play, and a punishment routine if you shoot the divers that you're out to rescue. Richard Bayliss, one of the programmers working on this project, has said that he now wants to finish this game as soon as possible. There's also the prospect of this being available to buy from Cronosoft at the bargain price of £1.99, which is how much new games should be in my humble opinion.

To get hold of this latest preview, head over to the TND64 website www.redesign.sk/tnd64/s.html. You'll also find a navigation bar at the top of the page that will alphabetically take you to other games by Bayliss.