Atari ST for Gaming

[hizzy]

Hi!

 

I have an XEGS, but are there good games for the ST? Was it popular as a gaming computer? Thanks!

[Justin Payne]

Two that come to mind. Magic Pockets and Wings of Fury.

[Goochman]

The ST had a ton of great games across genres released for it. A 1040ST w/color monitor is usually the best footprint to start from cost wise.

[ataricrypt]

Umm yeah some would say the Atari ST was a pretty cool games machine and a decent all-rounder too!

[Lost Dragon]

Try the various Bitmap Bros games:

Speedball 1+2,Gods,Xenon 1+2 as they made great use of the ST hardware.

 

Jeff Minter's Llammatron comes highly recommended.

[+DarkLord]

If money is not at all out game breaker, get a 1040 STe with it's enhanced capabilities.

[+Bikerbob]

I really am going to use mine for gaming.. what I do need though is a memory upgrade for my 520stfm.. I have eproms for my 1.04 tos upgrade.

 

is 1 meg fine for 99% of games? what is the easiest way to get that extra 512mb? soldering in the other bank of chips does not strike me as easy.

 

James

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Talking about Atari ST for gaming: many people have troubles with floppies now - drives are in bad shape, disks in even worse condition. Some proposed cartridge as storage media.

That was barely used for gaming because small capacity and higher price than floppies, but it can be good for shorter games.

I prepare simple solution with 2 4 Mbit Flash EPROMs, total capacity 1MB, so 8x 128KB, what means that can place 8 games on 1 cartridge, and user can select active one with DIP switch.

Prepared games like Xenon, Star Wars, Great Giana Sisters ....

Please let me know if you are interested. It helps in ordering proper quantity of boards, what affects final price, of course.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I really am going to use mine for gaming.. what I do need though is a memory upgrade for my 520stfm.. I have eproms for my 1.04 tos upgrade.

 

is 1 meg fine for 99% of games? what is the easiest way to get that extra 512mb? soldering in the other bank of chips does not strike me as easy.

 

James

I have 2MB board (16 1Mbit chips), what you can place easily somewhere (it's not big). Need to solder about 30 lines - wires are with board. so need to solder only to proper pins on ST.

PM me if interested.

[ataricrypt]

Count me in if the price won't send the wife into a frenzy! You have my email address Peter, just let me know please.

Steve

[Amimitl2]

Two that come to mind. Magic Pockets and Wings of Fury.

 

Wings of Fury was never released for the Atari ST. It's a good game though, I've played the Amiga version.

[fille1976]

i own atari ste with tos 2.06 and 4mb ram,ultrasatan and use the games from here http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php#DL

its great,they all work fine,i dont play much on my ste because of the many systems i own,but when i game on it,i enjoy it really.

[Amimitl2]

As for the question "are there good games for the ST", I would certainly say yes. I think a good starting point may be this list:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/top-atari-game-atari-st-_G_S_H.html

[hizzy]

If money is not at all out game breaker, get a 1040 STe with it's enhanced capabilities.

 

I can get a 1040 ste for 150 with a monochrome monitor. Is that worth it?

[Fletch]

An NTSC STe is a hard find. $150 is a fair price for that.

[Tickled_Pink]

It was my reason for getting an ST back in '88. There are a bucketload of great games for it. Some that springs to mind include:

 

Super Sprint

Rainbow Islands

Midwinter

Speedball I & II

Xenon & Xenon II

Magic Pockets

Gods

The Chaos Engine

Ranarama

Eliminator

Nebulus

Carrier Command

Gauntlet II

Dynablasters (best played with friends)

 

And the list goes on ...

[Ayreon]

 

I can get a 1040 ste for 150 with a monochrome monitor. Is that worth it?

 

Keep in Mind that very few games run on a monochrome monitor. So you'll have to look for a colour monitor or at least proper cables to connect it to a TV as well.

[hizzy]

So, the monitor is worthless?

 

Stupidly, this is one of the games I would like to play:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Caped_Crusader

Edited July 13, 2016 by hizzy

[+DamonicFury]

A ST is fine for gaming, but it helps if you really enjoy that late 80's style of computer games... particularly adventure games and platformers.

 

Personally, while I enjoy some games of that style, it was never my favorite.... I was more into the fast arcade games of the early 80's (which the 800/XL/XE machines are fantastic at playing), then later, the complex, but intense PC games of the early 90's (X-Wing, Doom, Dune 2, etc.) For whatever reason, that in-between period just left me a bit cold (on all platforms, not just the ST.)

[hizzy]

Is this something that I should get for an ST so that I can play games?

 

https://www.ubbcentral.com/store/item/Amiga-Atari-ST-Amstrad-USB-Floppy-Disk-Emulator-GOTEK-HxC-includes-4GB-USB-key_181858904374.html

[+DamonicFury]

Talking about Atari ST for gaming: many people have troubles with floppies now - drives are in bad shape, disks in even worse condition. Some proposed cartridge as storage media.

That was barely used for gaming because small capacity and higher price than floppies, but it can be good for shorter games.

I prepare simple solution with 2 4 Mbit Flash EPROMs, total capacity 1MB, so 8x 128KB, what means that can place 8 games on 1 cartridge, and user can select active one with DIP switch.

Prepared games like Xenon, Star Wars, Great Giana Sisters ....

Please let me know if you are interested. It helps in ordering proper quantity of boards, what affects final price, of course.

 

 

Glad to hear you are still working on this! I wonder if a cart of the arcade games that were ported by Atari Corp. would be possible (Missile Command, Asteroids Deluxe, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Moon Patrol, Joust, Robotron, etc.) That would make for a pretty sweet themed multicart.

[eeun]

 

Wings of Fury was never released for the Atari ST. It's a good game though, I've played the Amiga version.

Maybe they were thinking of Thalion's Wings of Death? That's certainly in my top 10 for ST games.

[Amimitl2]

That's always a possibility.

[Ayreon]

So, the monitor is worthless?

 

Stupidly, this is one of the games I would like to play:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Caped_Crusader

The game you mentioned and 99% of all games will need a colour monitor or TV.

For gaming The monochrome monitor is "worthless". A colour monitor of that time (doesn't have to be Atari, there were monitors of philips, commodore, and others ) that work very well with the ST when connected through RGB. Since the whole American (as a continent not just the USA) system is rather confusing for me as an European who's used to SCART, you better browse this forum for the best options available. As for connecting to a TV. The old tubes shouldn't be a problem. Modern HD tv's etc. don't always like the signals of the ST. The same goes for modern monitors. There's a thread here about modern monitors that work with the ST.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Ayreon

[vexorg]

 

Wings of Fury was never released for the Atari ST. It's a good game though, I've played the Amiga version.

 

 

"Wings of death" maybe, it was a cool little game