News¢----¢¢ I have some good news for all you¢Atari 8-bit users out there. Recently¢thanks to the efforts of one Derek Fern¢a number of new games have been¢released for our machines, and the¢really good news is there are more to¢follow. The following article will¢present a brief account of what's to¢come and a review of one of the first¢games to be released, The Last¢Guardian.¢¢ The Last Guardian (TLG from now) was¢originally programmed by Chris Murray¢and intended for release by Tynesoft,¢however they gave up the support for¢our machine and the game never saw the¢light of day (officially!). However¢several years later one enterprising¢chap has acquired the rights to this¢and other games. If anybody knows where¢Chris Murray is now please let me know¢because he apparently has more games¢programmed but nobody ever released¢them! Onto the review.¢ The game is a vertically scrolling¢shoot em up in a similar manner to¢Mirax Force (also by Chris Murray), I¢suppose TLG could really be called¢Mirax Force 2. The main screen is split¢into three sections; a message line at¢the top, a large play area in the¢middle and the score/status area at the¢bottom. The work put into each section¢is incredible, lots of colour and¢animation. Of course your ship has an¢energy shield (what self respecting¢space craft wouldn't?) represented as a¢horizontal fuzzy bar in the status¢area.¢ You travel upwards with the screen¢scrolling smoothly downwards (you know¢the format) as you fly over the hull of¢a large warship. You must shoot its¢emplacements and shoot/avoid any¢oncoming enemy space craft. There are¢rotating turrets on the warship that¢must also be avoided. When you destroy¢a space craft a power up of some sort¢may appear, most provide help but some¢can destroy you. There is so much going¢on at once it gets quite hard to tell¢what is what. You must attack the¢warship five times and traverse a¢asteroid field, once this is complete¢you have a chance to attack the¢mothership. Wow!¢ You may get the feeling I like this¢game and you'd be right, fantastic¢graphics are its hallmark but there is¢also some digitised speech and nice¢spot effects. I feel it is more¢playable than Mirax Force because you¢don't move quite so fast or bounce¢around but there is still plenty going¢on!¢ If you are serious about keeping the¢8-bit alive and like a good blast em¢you must buy this game. If it is¢succesful more will follow.¢ One final note, this game (and¢hopefully most of the others to follow)¢is available on three formats, disk,¢standard tape and Rambit Turbo fast¢tape, a sensible move to make it¢available too as many people as¢possible. Prices 5.95 disk, 4.95 tape.¢¢STOP PRESS: Just announced this game is¢also to be distributed in the USA and¢throughout Europe, so if you have¢friends abroad be sure to tell them¢about it, better still send them a copy¢of this disk mag!¢*¢ In recent weeks I have also heard¢details of some more new games¢arriving, Tagalon, a split screen¢searching type game for one or two¢players is ready now, another game from¢Tynesoft that never made it.¢¢ Operation Blood, a clone of Operation¢Wolf is nearly here. The disks have¢arrived all that is needed now is some¢English instructions. It is said to¢have fantastic graphics, ask the editor¢I know he has seen this game before!¢¢ Hans Kloss, infiltrate the enemy HQ¢and obtain Hitler's plans for the¢invasion of Europe.¢¢ Johnny's Problem, one of those slide¢the tiles to make a picture games, this¢one though has digitised pictures of¢film stars including Woody Allen!¢¢ ADAX, apparently Mission Shark 2 with¢better graphics and bigger sprites.¢¢¢ All the above games are or will be¢available from Derek Fern at Micro¢Discount. Full reviews and more details¢will appear on a future issue of TGR.¢Watch this space as they say.¢*¢ More good news, Dean Garraghty who¢runs a large P.D. library and creates¢News-Disk has acquired the rights to¢bring most of PPP's products into this¢country. They include the excellent¢Quick programming language, the games¢Rubberball, Glaggs It! and Minesweeper¢initially with hopefully more to¢follow. The prices are as yet undecided¢but Quick will sell for about 15 pounds¢and the games for around six! More¢news, he also hopes to bring some of¢the Speedy 1050 drive mods in as well¢giving fast disk copying and double¢capacity for your disks.¢*¢ That's about all from me for this¢issue, keep an eye out for these and¢other new items and don't forget¢subscribe to New Atari User/Page 6 they¢need your support as much as we need¢theirs!¢¢Richard Gore¢
