Never Ported respectively released for ST

[DarkLord]

For those of us who were there at the time (I mean, being an ST owner/user/etc), it
is indeed, heartbreaking at times to see how close some of these great games came
to being released.

With that said though, I truly appreciate all the information that you and others have
been able to acquire. If nothing else, I get a sense of closure, an "Ah, so that's what
happened!" moment.

[dlfrsilver]

Much appreciate the info.At least that's 1 UK Mag claim that rang true and we have a genuine lost ST Game.

Greyfox spotted an 8 Bit game by Gremlin Graphics advertised as ST:

http://forums.atari.io/index.php/topic/ ... ter/page-2

But as i explained in my posts, i personally think the mauling it recieved by the press put paid to any plans for an ST version, unless someone on here knows more?.

Thanks to you, i know now who are the silly gits whom committed such a crap game, Hercules slayer of the damned. I got the CPC version, and never found how to play it correctly. Many things are missing, and the game is dog slow, thanks to a 5 stars programming

This game must have been slashed off when released, you can understand why the ST version has been canned.

Beating 10 skeletons and then a minotaur, i want to be paid to get through such a pain in the ass game !

[alexh]

Airbus A320 (1991) was a 3rd party game published by Thalion. It was not an in house title. It was written for the Amiga by Rainer Bopf and ported to the ST by Thalion employees. The same goes for it's sequel Airbus A320 USA (1992) which is pretty much the same game but different maps.

Airbus A320 Volume 2(1995) was written for the Amiga again by Rainer Bopf but look at the date. It is at least a year after Thalion closed. And probably after everyone had abandoned the platform. Hence why no ST port.

[lotek_style]

This one was announced for ST too:

http://hol.abime.net/919

Never saw it.

[lostdragon]

So, Nebulus II then?.Incorrectly claimed by UK Press to be given to Thallion to convert to the ST or so it seems, but does anyone know if any development team were at least signed to convert the game to the ST?.

As for Rising Sun, damnit, wish i'd known of that back when RVG interviewed Bob Jacob, i did put a Q about game to him:

Rogue Trooper

I seem to recall someone from the company (think it might have been the programmer of said game) writing into ACE Magazine in response to their poor scoring review of Lords Of The Rising Sun (Amiga I'd guess). Was this a common practice for your company, if/when you felt a game had been unfairly treated? and how much impact did reviews have on game sales?

Bob

Actually, this is totally news to me. Was totally unaware of someone writing in to a magazine complaining about a review. Cinemaware titles were generally well reviewed.

[lostdragon]

Just looking into what became of the following annouced for ST in UK Press, yet never arrived, Digital Magic Software Games:

Trained Assassin.

Scorpion.

Shockwave.

Fingers Crossed i hear something back.

[lostdragon]

You'll have to wait till FULL interview goes live, but my source has answered what became of ST versions of above, plus 1 C64 game and 1 MD game.

[lotek_style]

I'm going through a lot of the german ASM (Aktueller Software Markt) recently and there is really a LOT that was announced for ST and was never seen.

[lostdragon]

'We really wanted to maximize our efforts so had started to attempt to produce Atari conversions of our games - but that machine couldn’t quite do what we needed
(for games like Shockwave and Drivin’ Force)......'

'As I’d mentioned the Atari ST version of Drivin’ Force never came close and
without the 50fps lost the arcade like visual quality.
Our inability to generate Atari versions of all our games was merely due to
human bandwidth. We felt it better to generate new products rather than
spend time converting - particularly to a machine that had way lesser graphic prowess.'

http://www.grumpyoldgamers.co.uk/index. ... ment-35349

[lostdragon]

'Yes, I saw some of the reviews making claims about ST versions of Scorpion etc.
Maybe my memory fails me - but I really don’t believe we had stated we intended to
move all our titles to the ST.'


'Sadly the ST couldn’t compete....'

http://www.grumpyoldgamers.co.uk/index. ... ment-35349

[dlfrsilver]

shockwave is a very impressive game indeed. it's a game basically running at 50 fps with 3D like bending of the backgrounds, to the left or the right.

[lotek_style]

ST couldn't compete is to me always like an excuse for a Coder who isn't good enough.

[DarkLord]

Considering some of the remakes we've seen in the last few years, on all models,
it's obvious that much more could have been done.

[Marakatti]

And probably many conversions were not so good because of the deadlines set by the publishers.

[penguin]

Star Trek V is a strange title, which was announced, but not released for the ST. One of the early VGA/MCGA games for the PC. The ST version was even reviewed although the screenshot is obviously from the PC version:

http://stcarchiv.de/stm1990/04/spiele-kurztests

[dlfrsilver]

And probably many conversions were not so good because of the deadlines set by the publishers.

I'm quite with you here. this happened very often.

[lostdragon]

Not that it was missed, but there were plans for Amiga and ST versions of 'The Living Daylights' (Domark).

Last ever full priced 800XL game i ever bought.

[lostdragon]

And probably many conversions were not so good because of the deadlines set by the publishers.

Very true.You've only to look at how Chris Butler improved C64 Space Harrier for the NTSC version, compared to the 'done in mere weeks' Pal version, or improvements made to his C64 Commando, to see how much of an effect deadlines can have on the finished quality of a release.

ST was no different, nor was the A8....lot of A8 conversions could of been done a lot better if coded for 64K models, to hardware strength, plus given time needed to be done properly.

Nature of the industry and here we find ourselves with massive Day 1 patches on PS4/XB1 games.....

[lostdragon]

Looked a bit deeper into claims of ST The Living Daylights.Whilst Domark's Press Advert never mentioned the ST version at all, just CPC/C64/ZX Spectrum/A8/MSX etc....

C+VG claimed Richard Naylor had visited the USA to see the coding team behind the ST version, Sculptured Software and there was also to be a coin-op version, using the Amiga board, for the Arcadia coin-op system.

The magazine also claimed there were to be conversions of the game to the C16 and Acorn Electron.

[lostdragon]

The Games Machine had attempted to contact Systems Architect, back in the day to find out what was happenig with 'Ancient Mariner' but never had a rply, developer also said to be working on another ST game, Dimension 45......


Walker was said to of been started on being converted by Brian Watson....

Frank Gasking over at GTW, tells me ST Last Ninja (previewed as 1040ST only and on a lot of disks), was finished, but converted to Last Ninja:Remix instead.

Cascade had annouced Ace 2 headed for the ST.

[lostdragon]

And still the Lost Games for the ST keep on coming... C+VG proclaimed the ST version of Firebird's Druid II:Enlightenment, would be shown alongside the A8 version of Druid at a PCW show, only the Amiga had a version as far as i'm aware, so yet again UK Press built up (false) hopes for Atari owning Druid fans

[lostdragon]

And on the list goes:

Looking at UK Press around time of the 1987 PCW show as an ST owner, you were told to expect the likes of:

Firetrap (Electric Dreams)

Rimrunner (work started, demo exists etc) and Starship from Palace Software.

Bravestarr US Gold/Go!

Morpheous and Magnatron (Firebird who annouced they'd be avaiable on ST at 'some point in the future')...

Mean Streets and Zig Zag from Mirrorsoft.

Then few weeks after:

Warlock (The Edge) advertised.

Charlie Chaplin (US Gold/GO!) ST Screens used in advert, but these might just of been mock-ups...

[lostdragon]

C+VG's early coverage of Gremlin Graphics Blood Valley featured ST screens, so unless they were mock up's, work must have started...

Bit more info from Jules Burt:

"For reference - out the gate Trained Assassin and to a lesser degree Scorpion did fairly well. Drivin’ Force did terrifically well - hence the Atari ST move (which sold nothing - but wasn’t that great either!). Subsequent games just did less and less sales than even the first two…and of course costs for something like Colditz (with a full book included) meant our margins were very poor along with the fact it didn’t sell well at all. Even today I can’t find anyone who actually knows what Colditz is…perhaps we should’ve done some market research!"

[lostdragon]

Was aware it was at least annouced for the Jaguar CD, but never saw any proof it was ever started, but seems way before that an ST version of Gremlin's Litil Divil was at least proposed on paper for the ST, according to ACE Magazine.

Here's the CD32 version:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=https://w ... Aew3eWWtWg

[lostdragon]

Think Ocean Software's The Vindicator, AKA Green Beret II, was announced for the ST as well.

Had it on C64, maze sections were soon tedious.