Games on ST that impressed you most?

[Retrogamer_ST]

This is not a thread about your favourite games, this is a thread about the games that impressed you most technically.

Vroom by Lankhor

The first time o booted up my ST with this racing game, i was stunned. Is this really on a ST? So incredible smoth and a great sense of speed that put other racing games to shame. Besides that it was a fun game to play.

Damocles by Novagen

I was a big fan of Mercenary on both Atari 800 and ST and when i got hold of Damocles i was hooked for weeks. The sheer size of this game was stunning. It was like having your own solid 3D universe to explore. Everything that Paul Woakes wrote was stunningly good, and to fit an epic big 3D universe, so big that it would certanly take years to explore it to the full, in just 350Kb must be one of the greatest programming achievements ever. Just the moon "Midas" had 16.000.000 invidually numbered pyramids to visit. How the heck do you fit so much in only a few hundreds of KB?

Carrier Command by Rainbird

Speaking of unique games, Carrier Command was totally unique and very well done. No wonder that it got amazing scores in most gaming magazines and The Games Machine called it game of the year. The idea to be able to control several vehicles outside the carrier was highly orginal and worked like a dream in Carrier Command.

[MacFalcon]

No Second Prize - graphically one of the best ST racers... but I don´t like the mouse control (although it is more realistic this way)

Turrican 2 - It´s amazing what they did on a plain ST

Obsession - But this is STE only... best Pinball on Atari

Final Fight - Ridicolous now, but back in the days I really was impressed what a ST could do... I had never seen such type of game on the ST before (I missed Double Dragon, only had the 7800 version)

[Shredder11]

+1 for Vroom

The first time I ever played this was around Xmas 1999 and January 2000. Why so late I hear you ask? Well my STE was only used for studio sequencing to that point, and then one day while I was feeling unwell I decided to plug it into a TV and see what was on my disks. To say I was in total shock and amazement is a real understatement! It was a case of 'where have you been all my life!' I'd craved for a racing game like this ever since I first got my ZX Spectrum back in 1983. I wonder how much better it might have been if programmed for the STE and not just the normal ST models?

[wongck]

how about non-ST games? It counts?
Wing Commander.... on a 286 with sound blaster card on a SVGA.

[CiH]

How the heck do you fit so much in only a few hundreds of KB?

Taking a quick stab at an answer, none of that space is wasted on bitmapped graphics. Some major procedural generation of the flatshaded 3-D polygon world would have taken place instead. Anyone else more intimately acquainted with the code can feel free to add a more detailed account.

For my list, just what comes off the top of my head. It's a bit 3-D biased, sorry;

'Zero-5' (STe) - Managed to use the blitter on both STe and Falcon to get a 30% speed-boost from just pure CPU.

'Obsession' - STe flagship game, all the features of the extra hardware well used.

Stardust - In that vein, the Team 17 game which made the STe perform like a top line Amiga game.

The later DID games, especially Epic and Robocop 3, which did rather nice things with 3-D polys.

'No Second Prize' by Thalion, stupidly fast 3-D.

'Interphase' - Another butter smooth game engine, also the first time I saw gouraud shading but only on the title screen.

Most Bitmap Bros games, everyone got annoyed by the hype, but their games did seem to push the hardware more that most.

'Carrier Command' - Early 'Mega-Game' on ST, which really showed off the difference between the 8-bit and 16-bit generations.

'Virus' - The ST/Amiga version of 'Zarch' on the Archimedes. If anything, Zarch was too perfect to the point of unplayable. Virus was slowed down enough to allow mere humans a chance!

Turrican 1 and 2 - Huge never-ending game worlds!

I'm sure there are more, but not coming off the top of my head right now.

[Dio]

Blood Money. Update the ship at 50fps to make it look smooth but leave the backgrounds and scrolling at a lower framerate. Fabulous work.

[Retrogamer_ST]

Jimmy White Whirlwind Snooker by Virgin

Amazingly smooth 3D movement of everything in this great game.

Super Hang On by Electric Dreams

They managed to get everything just right in this game that even beats the Genesis version quite easy me think.

All games by Bitmap Brothers

What makes these games stand out besides the great gameplay is the well thought out palette. Everything they released looked awesome good.

F16 Falcon by Spectrum Holobyte

Stunning good flight simulator for it's time, superior to everything else on ST for a good while.

Super Wonder Boy in Monsterland by Activision

The Sega feel is there, so is the gameplay in this great action adventure i still play quite often.

[nativ]

Vroom / JWWS

Pang! I had the +3 version but it is still a very nice conversion on the Atari!

Turrican II is a huge game!

No Second Prize -

Apache Flight - ST Arcade shooter with sampled sound! nice game too!

I quite enjoyed Hover Sprint, as It fullfilled some promise of 3D racing, Resolution 101 was nice too!:)

[tresas]

Anarchy -Psygnosis(Psyclases) / WJS Design: Ultra fast routines, super smooth scrolling 50 fps!
Wings of Death - Lethal Xcess/ Thalion eclipse: No comments...
Blood money - Psygnosis : smooth scrolling, big screen area, very fast player sprites.
Ivanhoe- Ocean : Super fast smooth scrolling at 3rd stage (with horse)
Dragon's Lair /Space Ace - Ready soft : Absolute experience!!!! (Graphics and music Like original Arcade). The best demo ever...
Vaxine -Assemble line/US.Gold : Wow....virtual reality!!!!(no differences with Amiga) Fully colourful environment with fast 3D graphics and sampled sound.
Resolution101 - Millennium : The fasted 3D (vectors?)
Xenon 2 Mega blast -Bitmap Brothers- Graphics Beyond this world....
Kick OFF Full screen action(no borders) , ultra speed, the best football ever...

[Ray]

Enchanted Land by Thalion. Coded by the best ST Programmers (The Carbears aka TCB)

The game uses sync scrolling and is afaik the only ST game with fullscreen horizontal smooth scrolling. Although the game is absolutely stunning from a technical point of view, the gameplay itself isn't that much fun...

http://thalion.exotica.org.uk/games/enchanted_land/el.html

[Nyh]

The game uses sync scrolling and is afaik the only ST game with fullscreen horizontal smooth scrolling. Although the game is absolutely stunning from a technical point of view, the gameplay itself isn't that much fun...

Although Enchanted land is very impressive it doesn't have smooth horizontal scrolling during gameplay.

Hans Wessels

[aacheron]

The Killing GameShow by Psygnosis (for ST) a.k.a. Fatal Rewind (for Megadrive)

[Scarlettkitten]

For me it was

Carrier Command Nice 3D world and superb to play
Interphase Again nice 3D
No Second Prize Super smooth 3D racing
Nebulus Colourful fun game
Voyager Great 3D graphics and gameplay

[Ray]

The game uses sync scrolling and is afaik the only ST game with fullscreen horizontal smooth scrolling. Although the game is absolutely stunning from a technical point of view, the gameplay itself isn't that much fun...

Although Enchanted land is very impressive it doesn't have smooth horizontal scrolling during gameplay.

Hans Wessels

hey, i think you are right. its only 25hz in the game ... my memory is bad, but the game is technically cool anyway

[Retrogamer_ST]

I think that both Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars had classy colorful graphics besides great gameplay. Two real good arcade conversions, very playable on the ST.

Microprose F1 and Microprose Golf were high class titles as well. Microprose Golf is still today one of the most entertaining golf games i have ever played. Both games had good graphics, great gameplay and huge manuals to read.

[MacFalcon]

Btw, I was most unimpressed by the ST version of Gianna Sisters... even the C64 version is far ahead

[Retrogamer_ST]

Bonanza Brothers was surprisingly good looking for being a ST game. Almost Bitmap Brother class.

Enduro Racer was a good conversion too.

Almost all the Dizzy games from Codemasters was very well done with high class graphics and good chip music.

[dma]

Vroom : I am a driving/racing games fan. When i first saw this one, it was like dreaming about my biggest wish and fearing the awakening.
No Second Prize : Second after Vroom anyhow, still a very fine game with perfect mouse control and nice demo-style graphics (the horizon rasters are so cool).
F1GP : The tracks complexity and sim realism were quite astonishing.
Obsession : Even a proud PC owner friend mine couldn't believe what was happening on the screen.
Substation : FPS on STe, moving and playing fine, who would have thought it possible before ?
Stardust : Perfect STe port from Amiga (well no, but missing really minor stuff), if only some others... [the usual STe owner rant]

[beastie]

All games listed here impressed me very much. Anyway, I have special memories related to Vroom, but also to F16 Falcon - my best game on ST for the whole period of having ST as my main computer. I also remember, that F16 Falcon faded away, when I received a copy of F29 Retailator. Another nice game for me was also Armour Geddon and from other types Metal Mutant and Another World.

I think there were so much fun with ST back in time (and still it's a nice hobby machine). The only bad thing people are doing is continuous comparison to Amiga - different computer for different type of consumer. I really believed into the whole "Power without price" philosophy and loved my Atari back then, not even thought about buying Amiga. Then, as all of use I jumped into PC bandwagon.

Impossible to tell which games impressed - too many... But I at least gave examples of these, who impressed the most.

Update: I have to add - Chubby Gristle and Winter Games - the first games I have ever played on ST when it arrived to my home as an awaited gift from my parents These impressed me for weeks. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish Chubby Gristle and gave up maybe two screens before the end (how can I know I'm so close?). Then I discovered cheat mode and I... Finished this game in 2001

[maergrey]

I was really impressed with captive

[maergrey]

deleted

[Marcer]

I was really enjoying couple of soccer games.

Sensible Soccer
European Champs (ste only). But in realtime you could switch view, either above or from side.

Builderland is quite nice made. also not to forget shon shu she (something) was quite nice made..
Commando

there is more for sure

[Retrogamer_ST]

I think that Oceans later releases for ST were quite good. Games as Robocop II and Robocop III had surprisingly good graphics and level design even if the gameplay was a bit hard. Batman the Movie and Addams Family were quite classy games too me think.

[Retrogamer_ST]

Don't forget Jeff Minter's games. Most of them was like sitting in front of an arcade machine. Most of Jeff Minters games were good but my two personal favourites is Super Grid Runner and Llamatron. It's like running a game light synthesizer with lots of plyability.

[Amimitl]

Hunter - A quite big 3D world were you can drive with car, boat and fly with helicopter.

Metro-Cross - It had smooth scrolling. And was a good arcade port I think.

Prince of Persia - The body moves very naturally, and good sounds.

And of course Vroom was a very good game both technically and playing wise. I have even uploaded all the levels of the game on YouTube. One very annoying feature of the game though, is the slow, and I mean really slow cars. Where you sooner or later will hit them, where you will either crash in the back of them and slow totally down, but still being on the ground though. Or hitting the tire and fly high up in the air before landing and ruining you wheels, while you will also slide for a while, sometimes getting a bit outside the road. But I guess that's part of the challenge.

I have also started to play F1GP, which I have started to like. I usually run the game in 32 MHz though, to get it to go more smoothly.