The Atari ST hits 40: we remember Atari's 16-bit micro and six of its best games
Wait, the Atari ST? Isn't that what people had when they couldn't afford an Amiga?
Oh, that's what Amiga owners wanted you to think. But while Commodore's machine beat Atari's on specs, the ST was no slouch. The GEM interface set it up for work as well as play, there were loads of top games that blazed far beyond anything anyone had seen before on a home micro, and built-in MIDI ports made the ST a synth player's dream machine. If you spent the late '80s dancing in warehouses, a lot of those songs were made on the Atari ST.
Hang on… you're telling me Atari's beige box invented techno?
Well, not the machine itself – the artists did have to do some of the work themselves. But this is where Cubase and Creator (which later evolved into Logic) were born. Because of these apps and the ST's rock-solid MIDI implementation, everyone from Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys to Fatboy Slim used it to smash out hits – and all without sacrificing their bank accounts to the Apple gods. Those MIDI ports took things even further too, being responsible for the rise of deathmatch gaming.
Huh? Is there some oddball musical version of Quake I don't know about?
Not quite. The pioneering MIDI Maze used those ports for its 16-player mode, so you could play with all your ST-owning friends. It wasn't Quake, just a simple maze game where you blasted 3D smileys that looked like Pac-Man rejects – fitting for the acid house era. Sadly, it couldn't last: the ST was soon eclipsed by PCs. But it's nice to imagine that, every now and then, Fatboy Slim gets his Atari down from the loft and murmurs into its MIDI input: 'I have to celebrate you, baby. I have to praise you like I should.'
Six of the best: Atari ST games
The ST arrived before the Amiga hit the mainstream. Its games initially bridged 8- and 16-bit fare, before quickly becoming far more ambitious. Although the ST lacked the Amiga's muscle, it kept pace until piracy kicked Atari's ambitions in the MIDI port. But for those initial glorious years, the ST pumped out hit after hit. Our six slots are geared towards what really gave the ST its swagger. That means exclusives and firsts rather than cloning our Amiga list. (But all those games were great on the ST too.)
Play
Oids (1987) mashed up Thrust, Choplifter and Asteroids, and had you juggle gravity, inertia and laser fire while rescuing hapless slave droids. This tense, twitchy arcade game was also an ST exclusive until some scallywag reversed engineered it for the Amiga decades later. Tsk.
Play
Starglider 2 (1988) was sold on a disk designed to work on the ST and Amiga. Sometimes it even did. Fortunately, the game itself was reliably amazing, providing hours of gobsmacking shooty space action that held up pretty well when compared to the Amiga version.
Play
Llamatron 2112 (1991) was an early shareware title that found seminal games creator Jeff Minter revelling in the power of a 16-bit machine, reimagining Robotron in his own inimitable style. Cue: noisy levels packed full of very silly foes and numerous furry beasties to rescue.
Play
Dungeon Master (1987) was a flagship title that became the ST's best-selling game, along with laying the groundwork for all manner of 3D dungeon crawlers. It lacks the Amiga port's sampled sound, but, hey, you can always make those noises yourself.
Play
Vroom (1991) started life on the Sinclair QL but roared on to the ST in fine form. Blisteringly fast and fun to play, it wrenched Pole Position into the modern day, leaving other ST racers in its dust. (Well, apart from Stunt Car Racer. We still love you, SCR!)
Play
Speedball II (1990) didn't start out on the ST, but its futuristic punchy take on handball held its own on the Atari. It even managed to smoothly scroll that massive metal pitch in a way that made ST footie games seethe with envy – until they got a metal ball to the face.
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Stuff.tv
25-07-2025
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The Atari ST hits 40: we remember Atari's 16-bit micro and six of its best games
Break out the birthday cake and your MIDI cables, because the Atari ST turned 40 this summer. Launched in 1985 as Atari's answer to what was next in home computing, the 16-bit micro was part games machine, part serious workhorse, and part accidental rave enabler. Wait, the Atari ST? Isn't that what people had when they couldn't afford an Amiga? Oh, that's what Amiga owners wanted you to think. But while Commodore's machine beat Atari's on specs, the ST was no slouch. The GEM interface set it up for work as well as play, there were loads of top games that blazed far beyond anything anyone had seen before on a home micro, and built-in MIDI ports made the ST a synth player's dream machine. If you spent the late '80s dancing in warehouses, a lot of those songs were made on the Atari ST. Hang on… you're telling me Atari's beige box invented techno? Well, not the machine itself – the artists did have to do some of the work themselves. But this is where Cubase and Creator (which later evolved into Logic) were born. Because of these apps and the ST's rock-solid MIDI implementation, everyone from Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys to Fatboy Slim used it to smash out hits – and all without sacrificing their bank accounts to the Apple gods. Those MIDI ports took things even further too, being responsible for the rise of deathmatch gaming. Huh? Is there some oddball musical version of Quake I don't know about? Not quite. The pioneering MIDI Maze used those ports for its 16-player mode, so you could play with all your ST-owning friends. It wasn't Quake, just a simple maze game where you blasted 3D smileys that looked like Pac-Man rejects – fitting for the acid house era. Sadly, it couldn't last: the ST was soon eclipsed by PCs. But it's nice to imagine that, every now and then, Fatboy Slim gets his Atari down from the loft and murmurs into its MIDI input: 'I have to celebrate you, baby. I have to praise you like I should.' Six of the best: Atari ST games The ST arrived before the Amiga hit the mainstream. Its games initially bridged 8- and 16-bit fare, before quickly becoming far more ambitious. Although the ST lacked the Amiga's muscle, it kept pace until piracy kicked Atari's ambitions in the MIDI port. But for those initial glorious years, the ST pumped out hit after hit. Our six slots are geared towards what really gave the ST its swagger. That means exclusives and firsts rather than cloning our Amiga list. (But all those games were great on the ST too.) Play Oids (1987) mashed up Thrust, Choplifter and Asteroids, and had you juggle gravity, inertia and laser fire while rescuing hapless slave droids. This tense, twitchy arcade game was also an ST exclusive until some scallywag reversed engineered it for the Amiga decades later. Tsk. Play Starglider 2 (1988) was sold on a disk designed to work on the ST and Amiga. Sometimes it even did. Fortunately, the game itself was reliably amazing, providing hours of gobsmacking shooty space action that held up pretty well when compared to the Amiga version. Play Llamatron 2112 (1991) was an early shareware title that found seminal games creator Jeff Minter revelling in the power of a 16-bit machine, reimagining Robotron in his own inimitable style. Cue: noisy levels packed full of very silly foes and numerous furry beasties to rescue. Play Dungeon Master (1987) was a flagship title that became the ST's best-selling game, along with laying the groundwork for all manner of 3D dungeon crawlers. It lacks the Amiga port's sampled sound, but, hey, you can always make those noises yourself. Play Vroom (1991) started life on the Sinclair QL but roared on to the ST in fine form. Blisteringly fast and fun to play, it wrenched Pole Position into the modern day, leaving other ST racers in its dust. (Well, apart from Stunt Car Racer. We still love you, SCR!) Play Speedball II (1990) didn't start out on the ST, but its futuristic punchy take on handball held its own on the Atari. It even managed to smoothly scroll that massive metal pitch in a way that made ST footie games seethe with envy – until they got a metal ball to the face.
Stuff.tv
24-07-2025
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The Commodore Amiga turns 40 – here are its 10 best games ever
If you ever used an Amiga back in the day, prepare to feel old, because Commodore's masterpiece just turned 40. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s it was a beast of a computer, with its 16-bit processor, custom chips for graphics and audio, colour mouse-based UI (take that, Mac Plus!), and enough RAM to make all the 8-bit micros green with envy. Advertising at the time suggested the Amiga was the ideal business machine, or perfect for creative endeavours. But of course everyone just wanted it as a gaming computer. Here's Stuff's definitive guide to the ten best Commodore Amiga games ever made that are still worth playing today. (If you disagree, yell at us on socials. But the first person to mention the risible Shadow of the Beast will be forced to play Rise of the Robots for a solid week as punishment. You have been warned.) 1. The Secret of Monkey Island Play While Lucasfilm's point-and-click SCUMM engine appealed to audiences upon Maniac Mansion's release, it was the near-perfect Secret of Monkey Island that consigned the traditional text-based adventure to oblivion. Ron Gilbert's superb writing infuses this cartoonish pirate adventure with energy and life. It also eradicated the typical dead-ends seen before in so many adventures, by making it impossible for protagonist Guybrush Threepwood to die. Fall off a cliff and you're hurled back into the air by bouncing on a rubber tree! It's not surprising the adventure keeps getting remade and reimagined on modern kit, but the original Amiga outing remains especially joyful to play. 2. Cannon Fodder Play Command & Conquer usually gets kudos for kickstarting the modern RTS, but Cannon Fodder got there first, adding an injection of dark satire that sailed over the heads of every do-gooder censorship-happy miseryguts and tabloid hack of the day. The premise was to lead your little squad around battlefields, stealthily taking out enemies and completing missions. Controversy came through the juxtaposition of humour and war, and the roll calls at the end of each level, which listed the names of the fallen against a poppy backdrop; your squad was then refreshed from an endless queue of oblivious recruits awaiting their turn, next to a hill that amassed an increasing number of graves. Brilliant, poignant and playable, it's a title ripe for remake. 3. SWOS Play Forget FIFA and PES – in the 1990s, SWOS was where footie games were at. Sensible Software (quite sensibly) decided 'realism' was a waste of time if you only had 16 bits to play with, and instead presented football as you imagined it to be in your head as a kid, winning the World Cup on a barren patch of grass behind your gran's house. The result ended up more like pinball, with fast and furious overhead matches that were endlessly frenetic and exciting. Its spirit somewhat lives on in Sociable Soccer, which is spearheaded by a SWOS co-creator. But, much like Manchester United, it can't quite capture those glory days. 4. Stunt Car Racer Play If you're into thoroughly modern racers, you might balk at Stunt Car Racer's jerky framerate and simple graphics. To do so would be to sniffily avoid a fantastic racer that asked the question: how cool would it be to mash-up drag racing and roller-coasters? The answer: very. With perfect, solid-feeling physics, it's one of very few racers from the Commodore Amiga era to properly leave your stomach in your mouth as you zoom about on vertigo-inducing tracks, slam into banked corners, and try very hard not to nitro your eyebrows off in a mad dash for the chequered flag. 5. Lemmings Play With all the sequels, remakes and clones, Lemmings for a while almost became part of gaming's wallpaper, and so it's hard to remember how fresh the concept was back in 1991. The aim was simple: guide a bunch of tiny bipedal lemmings home, helping them navigate hazards along the way. The lemmings automatically doddled along, and you could assign individuals special powers, such as digging, blocking, or building a ramp. Initially an enjoyable and sweet-natured game, later levels could have you tearing your hair out as you screamed DON'T GO THAT WAY, YOU STUPID IDIOT at the screen, watching forlornly as the lemming you needed to make up your quota nose-dived to oblivion. Fortunately, catharsis came via the 'Nuke' command, which blew up all the remaining little buggers at once. Oh no! 6. Syndicate Play The first in Bullfrog's long-running real-time tactics series has you order a bunch of cyborg goons about an isometric landscape of corporate dystopia, intent on killing off executives from rival firms. Hostile takeover doesn't really cover it. And there's more than a hint of satire in the manner you can 'persuade' civilians and scientists to join your company's cause (their other choice being 'death'). At the time, the scope and living world in this Commodore Amiga game made it compelling, unique and ahead of its time; the rest of the gaming world's long caught up, but Syndicate still manages to hold its own, especially if you're looking for 'alternate' means to get ahead in the boardroom. 7. Speedball 2 Play We don't know about you, but the future of sport looks pretty exciting, as armoured lunks dash about arenas, smashing metal balls into rivals' faces, while refreshments are hawked in the distance by someone yelling ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM! over and over. At least, that's how Speedball 2 has it, borrowing heavily from Rollerball and early 2000 AD future-sports strips. For such an old game, there's surprising depth, too, as you attempt to somehow transform the Luton FC of this future world (the appallingly named Brutal Deluxe) into champions. 8. Populous Play Considered the earliest 'god game', Populous has you scroll about hilltops populated by uncivilised rabble. Your powers initially make you wonder whether the game should have been by Codemasters and entitled Advanced Landscaping Simulator, since you can only raise and lower land. The larger the flat areas, the bigger structures your little folks can construct, until they're all living in houses and castles. Your followers breed like rabbits, gain you 'mana', train up knights, and want to keep spreading. You can then send knights on to duff up the opposition and take over their land, providing a helping god-like hand by using mana to fling firestorms, earthquakes and volcanos at anyone you want rid of. 9. Turrican 2 Play There's a smattering of Metroid in the DNA of Turrican 2, with you bounding about huge side-on platform-filled worlds, blowing up anything that goes for you. But Turrican 2 is very much an Amiga game, from its urgent Chris Huelsbeck soundtrack through to the rich and diverse level design that keeps hurling new challenges at you. Perhaps the best bit is never really knowing what's coming next. More traditional level design gradually ramps up the difficulty level over the course of a game. But in Turrican 2, you can be ambling down a corridor and suddenly find yourself desperately fending off a screens-high adversary, or discover the entire game's suddenly transformed into a breakneck horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up. Top stuff. 10. Datastorm Play Every era of videogames is transformative and in some way leaves the past behind. With the 16-bit computers, there was a desire to provide deeper and more complex experiences, but Datastorm had no truck with that. Instead, it harked back to classic arcade blasters, merging Defender and Dropzone into a lightning-fast feat of horizontal blasting action. Making use of the host hardware, it also had you face bloody great big foes like the terrifying screen-high space squid and intergalactic space skull, the latter of which still makes us think its pilots had a pretty major insecurity problem. Now read: The next ZX Spectrum will also be a Commodore 64
Stuff.tv
21-07-2025
- Stuff.tv
The Atari 2600+ goes full Pac-Man – with a joystick for each ghost
If you're an Atari 2600 aficionado, hearing Pac-Man may make you wince. Such was the pain inflicted on the platform by a port so bad it's cited as a major reason for the US 1983 video game crash. Presumably in an effort to distract you from such memories in this Pac-Man-themed reissue of the Atari 2600+, Atari has painted the console bright yellow and bundled it with an Atari Pac-Man game that isn't terrible. And, do you know what? It might just work. For the uninitiated, the Atari 2600+ mimics the original console, right down to the DB9 ports and cart slot. That means you can plug in controllers from the 1980s and run vintage carts (assuming you can blow all the dust off). Or you can grab one of Atari's newly released titles. In either case, the experience all feels suitably authentic, but now – and I don't think I can emphasise this enough – the console happens to be bright yellow. Ghosts in the machine Play Even the joystick – a wireless take on the classic, cramp-inducing CX-40 – is banana-hued, and has a little Pac-Man atop the shaft. And because no Pac-Man experience is complete without ghosts, you can buy joysticks featuring every one of them too. Really. Each of the blue (Inky), red (Blinky), pink (Pinky) and orange (Clyde) joysticks will set you back $39.99/£29.99. And, no, they don't all turn dark blue if your Pac-Man joystick wolfs down a power pellet. Although you might when spending that much money on retro joysticks. So what of the games? As noted, Atari 2600 Pac-Man is included for maximum trauma. But Atari has also bundled a brand-new Atari 7800 version, which in the trailer looks impressively close to the arcade original. If that doesn't make you want to get your waka-waka on, nothing will. You can place a pre-order with Atari from 23 July. The pack with console, game and Pac-Man joystick will set you back $169.99/£129.99, and will land on 31 October. Which feels appropriate, given all the ghosts.
