"Atari ST" games

[DestinedCruz]

It's really unfortunate that once again, the Atari ST gets absolutely dragged through the mud in one of these releases. It's great to see these titles represented at all, but the Jaguar re-releases are an absolute joke compared to the original games. Llamatron is missing almost all of the sound samples that make it what it is, along with bizarre edits to some of the enemies. It also feels a little disrespectful to Jeff, as the importance of the ST is stressed pretty highly in the timeline.

This is especially frustrating after what the Atari 50 did to ignore the system, barely making it a footnote and stuffing it in the "8-bit- era.

Yeah sure this is a lot of "old man yells at cloud" rambling, but I though I was the old man this collection was made for?

[rsn8887]

Yup this collection is a complete fake. Super Gridrunner ST is a crappy Jaguar port instead without the mouse (or analog) controls that make the game great. Devs failed to include an ST emulator and took the lazy route using their old Jaguar emulator and crappy ports instead. Unbelievable.

[Evanpik64]

Is there any reason why DE didn't use an open source Emulator for the ST games? Emulation wiki says they exist, granted I don't know how well they work or how they would be implemented into a official retail game like this. If a Dev is reading this I'm genuinely curious!

[DestinedCruz]

It really does feel like a lazy cop-out, completely disregarding the actual legacy of the titles.
In the end, we just get yet another nostalgia-bait cash grab. It would be nice to see more developers that actually care about the source.

[Manwith Noname]

Sounds of my childhood.

Pulsing synth noises
I love you
Aaaarghhaaaarrrrggghhhhhaaaaaaarrrhhhhhh

[tssk]

I suspect there were probably issues with licensing the Atari ST/Amiga desktop software that would have been needed for many of the ST and Amiga ports. Also suspect that the muddier sound in the samples is probably down to licencing issues.

[Chris23235]

Originally posted by Evanpik64:

Is there any reason why DE didn't use an open source Emulator for the ST games? Emulation wiki says they exist, granted I don't know how well they work or how they would be implemented into a official retail game like this. If a Dev is reading this I'm genuinely curious!

They could have used Hatari which also emulates the Atari Falcon to get Llamazap, Minter's last game in the homecomputer era in the collection. A wasted chance.

[6000 ANGRY BEES]

Originally posted by Evanpik64:

Is there any reason why DE didn't use an open source Emulator for the ST games? Emulation wiki says they exist, granted I don't know how well they work or how they would be implemented into a official retail game like this. If a Dev is reading this I'm genuinely curious!

Open source stuff usually can't be used on consoles, due to the confidentially clauses on their development SDKs conflicting with many popular open source licenses like the GPL. Which is what Hatari uses.

Originally posted by tssk:

I suspect there were probably issues with licensing the Atari ST/Amiga desktop software that would have been needed for many of the ST and Amiga ports. Also suspect that the muddier sound in the samples is probably down to licencing issues.

Llamatron definitely replaces a lot of the sounds with (actually pretty close) sound-alikes for copyright reasons. Can't just get away with including clips of popular songs in your shareware games anymore, sadly...

[Chris23235]

Originally posted by 6000 ANGRY BEES:

Originally posted by Evanpik64:

Is there any reason why DE didn't use an open source Emulator for the ST games? Emulation wiki says they exist, granted I don't know how well they work or how they would be implemented into a official retail game like this. If a Dev is reading this I'm genuinely curious!

Open source stuff usually can't be used on consoles, due to the confidentially clauses on their development SDKs conflicting with many popular open source licenses like the GPL. Which is what Hatari uses.

Originally posted by tssk:

I suspect there were probably issues with licensing the Atari ST/Amiga desktop software that would have been needed for many of the ST and Amiga ports. Also suspect that the muddier sound in the samples is probably down to licencing issues.

Llamatron definitely replaces a lot of the sounds with (actually pretty close) sound-alikes for copyright reasons. Can't just get away with including clips of popular songs in your shareware games anymore, sadly...

Then they should either license an existing ST emulator or not advertise the games as Atari ST games in the first place. Problem is not the switched sounds. This is annoying but if they think there could be be copyright violations (which I don't think) this would be acceptable. But the sound in general is terrible on the Jaguar ports. Unacceptable bad in any way. This was the case in the original Jaguar port as well, here it was acceptable because it was a homebrew port of an Atari ST game to the Jaguar. No money was charged. But this collection is not a free homebrew port, it comes with a 30 Euro price tag.

[Soupy Doorman]

I guess also maybe they wanted to avoid using the mouse so it's the same when ported to the lesser platforms of Switch/PS/XB.

[Chainsman]

Originally posted by DestinedCruz:

It's really unfortunate that once again, the Atari ST gets absolutely dragged through the mud in one of these releases. It's great to see these titles represented at all, but the Jaguar re-releases are an absolute joke compared to the original games. Llamatron is missing almost all of the sound samples that make it what it is, along with bizarre edits to some of the enemies. It also feels a little disrespectful to Jeff, as the importance of the ST is stressed pretty highly in the timeline.

Yeah, this collection definitely DOES NOT feature the Llamatron masterpiece I remember playing on my Amiga 2500.
The documentary is worth the price of admission, I guess.