I asked the forumites of four separate forums (atari-forum, AtariAge, Retro Gamer and Eurogamer) to name their top 5 games and collated the scores as follows: First place = five points, second place = four points and so on.

Then I brought all the scores together to create a list of the Top 50 Atari ST games of all time according to contempory Atari ST gamers. It basically amounts to a 15,000 word essay on why the Atari ST is completely brilliant.

In order to help you navigate this rather lengthy page, you can skip ahead to the following numbers:

50 – 45 – 40 – 35 – 30 – 25 – 20 – 15 – 10 – 5

#50 – Rainbow Islands

Released: 1989
Developer: Graftgold
Publisher: Ocean
Genre: Platformer

This sequel to the excellent Bubble Bobble ramps up the cute factor and continues the trend for arcade perfect conversion.

No longer trapped in dinosaur form, and with their girlfriends safely at home, Bub and Bob must take the fight to the enemy to rid their home – the once blissful seven rainbow islands – from the threat of the evil Shadow organisation. But how? Now that the boys are no longer bubble blowing dinos, how will they accomplish such a task? With the power of rainbows, that’s how!

A push of the fire button and a dinky rainbow sprouts forth from your diminutive avatar. Hit an enemy with it and they’re history. Trap them inside it and watch them get all steamed up – but don’t worry! – jump on the rainbow and it will crush all in its path as it falls. Each enemy destroyed will leave behind something to pick up, either for points or power-ups. Power-ups include faster or multiple rainbows, trainers for extra speed, or stars that instantly shoot out in all directions, killing all enemies in the vicinity – very handy as you make your ascent to the zenith of each level.

Each of the 7 islands is split into 4 stages, the last of which is the home of a boss that must be defeated to reach the next island. Each island is themed and features colourful backgrounds an sprites, all moving about at a nice pace. Sound is nice too, a rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow tinkles away as you attempt to climb to the top of each stage.

Almost indistinguishable from its arcade parent, Bub and Bob’s second adventure is one of the best platformers available on the ST and I’m surprised and appalled to see it poll so low. Shame on you!

#49 – Ultima V: Warriors Of Destiny

Released: 1989
Developer: Lord British
Publisher: Origin Systems
Genre: RPG

Lord British is off galavanting again (probably on a quest for the Holy Buttered Crumpet Of Kukundu or The Sacred Cream Tea Of Nesbetaria, or something) and in his absence, an evil bod named Blackthorn has siezed the throne! So after a quick visit to the gypsy to determine your morality, you and your newly created party must endeavour to return the hapless British to the throne. You can also import old characters used in earlier Ultima games, so Griff Hornbonce, your beloved Minotaur warrior can crush orc skulls once again.

Those familiar with the prolific Ultima series will find no surprises here. Functional graphics and sound hide a deep, involving experience. You move your party around the map with the cursor keys, fighting monsters and finding towns and villages to explore, discovering helpful items and levelling up your stats.

Combat is a strategic affair, with each of your party taking it in turns to move and attack, cast spells or grab items dropped by fallen enemies.

Boasting a playing area twice the size of Ultima IV and the last game before the Ultima series adopted a truly bizarre and head spinning perspective, Ultima V’s Britannia is well worth a visit.

#48 – Super Hang-On

Released: 1988
Developer: Software Studios
Publisher: Electric Dreams
Genre: Racing

I’m a big fan of Sega’s arcade racers; Outrun, Daytona, Virtua Racer, Sega Rally and Super Hang-On: they’re big, brash and very, very loud, taking advantage of arcade hardware technology to deliver an audio/visual assault on the senses.

As a result, the home conversions – in the 8 and 16 bit eras, at least – pale in comparison. Without steering wheels, hydraulic cabinets, booming speakers, something is lost.

That said, there is no reason (with a bit of ingenuity and hard work) for the gameplay not to make it over intact, and Super Hang-On has a really good go. In the absence of a hydraulic bike to steer, the analogue control is delivered via the mouse with the left button to accelerate and right button to brake.

The frame-rate isn’t exactly super smooth, but does not spoil the gameplay. However, longevity is an issue: there is little in the way of variety. I’m not sure how long you will be gripped by this, these days arcade racers are fleshed out with extra challenges, cars/bikes, tracks etc. but this really is just the arcade mode.

As it is, I will be playing this game, but it will only serve to punctuate my slog through the challenge mode of Outrun 2 on the XBox. Great fun in short bursts.

#47 – M1 Tank Platoon

Released: 1990
Developer: Microprose
Publisher: Microprose
Genre: Tank Simulator

In 1989, if you wanted to get your hands on an Abrams M1 tank, it would set you back around $2.5 million. In 1990, however all it would take was £24.99 and an ST. If only Saddam knew… I bet he’s kicking himself.

Gameplay is split between a real-time battle map, where tactics are formulated and tanks are despatched, and interior tank views, where you can control the driver, commander and gunner. You control one man and the AI sorts out the others. Initially, your comrades have all the accuracy of an A-Team villian, but when missions are completed, commendations are awarded which can be used to upgrade your troops’ skills.

All the M1′s toys are at your disposal: infra-red, smoke screens, laser detectors, laser sights, distance indicators and all the shells you’ll need to teach those pesky reds who’s boss.

As is to be expected from a Microprose simulation, attention to detail is excellent, resulting in an atmospheric experience. Visuals leave a little to be desired, the tanks themselves look fine, but the landscapes are strangely dithered, and other objects can be indescernable. As all important objects can be identified on the map, this isn’t too damaging to gameplay.

Other reputable tank sims such as Team Yankee and Pacific Islands didn’t even get within a sniff of the top 50, so M1 Tank Platoon obviously offered something special to you tank sim fans.

#46 – Auto Duel

Released: 1985
Developer: Lord British
Publisher: Origin Systems
Genre: Strategy/RPG

Based on the classic Car Wars board game, Auto Duel is based in a dystopian U.S. future where cars determine your status and driving ability is the difference between life and death.

You start the game without a vehicle and must take part in the amateur night in order to secure the funds necessary to buy one. As soon as you have a set of wheels, you can start making some serious money. Further arena events and courier missions provide the player with the opportunity to make some cash.

The game has two play areas: the city, where the player can move around, purchasing weaponry, vehicles etc., visit the pub, or visit the arena to see if there are any events to take part in; and the driving sections, which are top-down, scrolling affairs where you will either be driving between cities, or taking part in arena battles.

How you upgrade your car will influence how you play: heavily armoured tank, or a light speedy number? Place your big guns at the front for a head on assault, or at the rear for those running like a chicken moments.

Another game – like Phantasie and Ultima V – That wears its age on its sleeve, the graphics look pretty much like an Apple II game (no offence, Apple fans!) and the difficulty is sky high. Plot missions are few and far between, so there is little story driving the action along.

For all its down points, Auto Duel does offer an open-ended player led experience that was way ahead of its time, pushing the RPG into realms not seen before. An early prototype for Grand Theft Auto? Maybe…

#45 – Pirates!

Released: 1989
Developer: Microprose
Publisher: Microprose
Genre: Strategy/RPG

Before Sid Meier became civilized, he was a pirate. No, not the hacking, software-stealing, cracktro-scroller-writing kind, but the “Har-har me hearties,” peg-leg, beard, parrot and eye-patch variety.

A wholesale conversion of the C64 original, it was a truly groundbreaking game featuring a sand-box style open-ended gameplay that snared many for hour upon hour at a time. Would you stay loyal to your country, or turn to piracy? Would you make your fortune by trading legitimately, or by hunting for buried treasure?

Set in the Caribbean during the Sixteenth century, tensions between the four colonizing countries: the Netherlands, England, France and Spain can be exploited for profit and power. Alliances will be formed and broken, and as a result, you must shift with the times, ever looking for the next opportunity to step up the next rung on the ladder.

A nice touch is the lack of definite end to a game of Pirates. Instead, your character’s fighting ability will slowly fall, and it will become harder to recruit new crewmen, forcing you to consider retirement. Upon retiring, Your performance in the game – indicated by your accumulated wealth and power – will dictate your future career: Anything from Beggar to King’s Advisor.

Mr Meier really was (is?) the master of this style of game and this, along with Civilization and Railroad Tycoon is part of a canon of superb sand-box strategy games.

#44 – Phantasie

Released: 1985
Developer: Logical Design Works Inc.
Publisher: Strategic Simulations Inc.
Genre: RPG

“When sorcery ruled, and trolls and minotaurs still walked this Earth, a party of six intrepid adventurers set out to find the Nine Rings and use them to destroy the Dark Lord.”

Nine Rings, eh? Sounds familiar…

Your quest begins in the town of Pelinor. A quick visit to the local guild to recruit a merry band of fighters, thieves, wizards and the like, pop into the bank to use the cashpoint, spend your cash in the armoury and away you go.

After leaving Pelinor you are presented with an overhead map where you can use the cursor keys to explore the surrounding area. This is where the similarities to the Ultima series really start to show up. This isn’t just a carbon copy though, many new features can be found in this early ST RPG: Multiple attack styles, overhead dungeon views, and Town screens where you can click on the doors of the buildings to access the services on offer. Banks hold your money for you (duh…), guilds give you access to new party members, mystics can give you prophesy and armouries will sell you sharp things to poke kobolds with.

Random encounters in the game’s many dungeons trigger the game’s turn-based combat sequence, where you must choose an action for each of your characters to perform. Thankfully, your party remembers their actions and you only need to reassign if you want them to do something different or your wizard runs low on magic points.

A nice RPG with some unique qualities, deep and involving without being too complex.

#43 – Cannon Fodder

Released: 1993
Developer: Sensible Software
Publisher: Virgin Games
Genre: Real-time strategy

War! Good God y’all, what is it good for?.. Well, for having fun, apparently.

Jon Hare’s seminal war-em-up sees you take control of a squad of soldiers armed with machine guns, grenades and rockets. Control is via the mouse, one button to issue a movement command, and the other to fire. Briefings are simple; mission goals rarely stretch beyond “Kill all enemies” or “Destroy stuff” though occasionally there are hostages to rescue. Missions provide challenges through more devious means, often requiring the player to split his squad into separate teams.

Complete a stage and the surviving troups will receive a promotion, improving their range of fire – invaluable in later, more challenging fire fights. So although there are plenty more troops available to replace casualties (literally queuing up alongside the graves of your dead men), it really hurts to see General Jops bite the bullet, leaving you with a grunt that couldn’t hit a barn door at twenty paces.

Courting controversy at the time of release amongst those mentally challenged by the concept of irony, and villified by the British Legion for using the corn poppy on the title screen (Virgin removed it from the box shortly before release), this game is worth playing just to see how touchy the press were concerning video games in the early 1990s.

Unfortunately, the ST version suffers from horrific jarring screen-flip whenever moving horizontally spoiling what would have been a great conversion. There is a nice sampled tune to listen to at the beginning, but in-game sound is minimal – tinny gunfire and strange boings when an enemy soldier is hit.

Having said all that, the simple gameplay mechanics of move and shoot, intuitively delivered by the mouse allow for incredibly fast paced action as you move and shoot in all directions independently. In later levels, you will find yourself in scrapes that have your heart pounding and your mouse ball on fire as you battle to save your veterans.

#42 – Stardust

Released: 1995
Developer: Bloodhouse
Publisher: Daze Marketing Inc.
Genre: 1995

Stardust looks bloody amazing. For any of you who lament at how Atari dropped the ball with the ST ‘Enhanced’, this shows just how incredible the machine could be in the right hands. The game is a visual treat from the off.

Screaming demo-crew, Stardust begins with a Star Wars style intro screen that puts many official Star Wars games from the same era to shame. The use of palette shifting and the STE’s extended palette is exemplary in title screens and backdrops, and the raytraced (not real-time obviously) sprites give this game a real sheen.

Behind the gloss is a nice little Asteroids clone, that reminds me more of Blasteroids in its overall feel. Shoot asteroids and they split into smaller ones – we’ve all done it a million times, but Bloodhouse have added power-ups, a variety of new enemies and a nifty bonus level that sees your ship flying into the screen, with gameplay more akin to Tempest.

An old-school blaster ironically released towards the end of the Atari STs lifespan offers up classic and fun gameplay wrapped in copious amounts of glitter and tinsel.

#41 – Bloodwych

Released: 1989
Developer: n/a
Publisher: Image Works
Genre: RPG

The fact that you can play Bloodwych in split-screen two-player mode lifts this dungeon crawling RPG above the glut of Dungeon Master clones that appeared after FTL’s classic.

After beginning the game, each player must choose their avatar: Warrior, Mage, Adventurer or Thief, and their colour: red, yellow, green or blue (which determines the character’s proficiency at certain spells). Once you have picked your hero, you are then free to mingle amongst the other characters, have a chat, and ask them to join your party.

You can even talk to enemies as you are exchanging blows and – with the data disk expansion – try to persuade them to join your party. Also, traders can buttered up with flattery and persuaded to lower the price of their wares.

The graphics are fine, although your viewpoint is limited to a small window even when playing alone, and the animation of NPCs is laughable, bobbing about like cardboard cut-outs on lollipop sticks. A large chunk of the challenge comes from the labyrinthine nature of the levels; identicle wall textures used throughout mean disorientation is your constant (and irritating) travelling companion. Mapping is essential (if you’re a complete geek) or find a ready made map online (if you’re not).

It may not be easy to find a friend who will indulge you in a day-long romp through Treihadwyl castle (I asked my wife but she told me to get bent) but if you have an equally RPG-obsessed friend, then you are both in for a treat.

#40 – Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge

Released: 1990
Developer: Magnetic Fields
Publisher: Gremlin Graphics
Genre: Racing

Lotus: A name synonymous with style, elegance, and speed. And the game is no exception.

There is an impressive opening sequence with a very realistically rendered Lotus flashing at you (oo-er) and a run down of the Esprit’s specifications, all the while, Ben Dalglish pours some of his aural nectar into your ear. Very nice.

Top marks for presentation then, but what’s the game like? It’s a split-screen racer in every sense of the word, as you are confined to half of the screen even in one-player mode. However, this enables the games pseudo-3D engine to belt along at break-neck speeds, and you never feel cramped when opting to play with a friend.

With you starting 20th of the 20 cars on the track, each race features plenty of overtaking. Each time you collide with a computer controlled car or track-side obstacle you slow to snail’s pace, so precision manoeuvring amongst the crowd is a must. A small gripe: even if an opponent runs into your arse, you will slow down and he will speed off, totally unaffected by the encounter.

As you race you will need to watch out for rocks and puddles, road works and tight corners on rolling hills. Also keep an eye on the fuel gauge; during longer tracks a pit-stop may be necessary.

The pit-stops, lap-based tracks and lack of time limit make this my favourite of the Lotus Turbo Challenge Series.

#39 – Speedball

Released: 1988
Developer: Bitmap Brothers
Publisher: Image Works
Genre: Future sports sim

Kind of like a double-hard futuristic version of hand-ball, Speedball impressed many with it’s metallic sheen when released in 1988.

Whether you choose to participate in a league or knockout competition, your goal is the same: grab the ball, lob it down the pitch to your forward and chuck it into the net, nobbling as many of the opposition players as possible while doing so. The tokens strewn about the floor of the arena serve to spice things up a little. They have a variety of effects, from automatically giving you the ball to reversing your opponents controls (a personal favourite). The presentaion of the game is superb considering its age. The menu systems are adorned with tough looking blokes clad in armour accompanied by a decent Whittaker tune. The in game graphics are also superb, with some nice animation effects on the ball dispenser and pickups.

The game’s automatic player selection can be a little annoying at times, especially near your own goalmouth when it can be a little confusing as to which player/goalkeeper you are controlling. Unlike its sequel, Speedball’s playing field was only the width of a single screen and just a few screens high, resulting in a very claustrophobic pitch with nowhere to hide. This makes each match more frantic and tense than the last as your opponent’s abilities improve.

Speedball introduced the 16-bit market to the cyberpunk dystopia: a design concept which proved to have quite some mileage in the world of video games…

#38 – Nebulus

Released: 1988
Developer: John M Phillips
Publisher: Hewson
Genre: Platform/Puzzle

Some games are easy, some are difficult. Then there are those that are so ball-crushingly double-bastard hard that it seems they were invented to punish you for daring to put it into the disk drive and having the gall to switch on your ST.

For instance, take the opening seconds of this game: upon taking your first few steps, a platform disappears below your feet; you plunge into the water and lose the first of your precious three lives. No warning; no little cracks on the platform to suggest it may disappear; no time to react and jump off. Just instant unavoidable death. JMP, you git.

And this pretty much sets you up for all that follows. You control a cute little green pug-nosed alien who must reach the top of a cylindrical tower in order to destroy it. You can climb up steps, jump over gaps, use lifts and doors to facilitate your ascent, but all kinds of nasties will attempt to obstruct your progress. Their touch is not fatal, but will send you toppling down the tower, and should you fall into the water at the bottom, or run out of time before you reach the top, you can kiss one of your lives goodbye.

As hard as Nebulus is, it’s also an absolute gem, and very, very addictive. The pleasing intro music, sound effects and pleasant cylindrical rotating tower effects central to the gameplay all add to the charm of yet another JMP classic.

#37 – Player Manager

Released: 1989
Developer: Dino Dini
Publisher: Anco
Genre: Football Sim

Anco’s Kick Off was a revelation when it was released; up until its release, football games were a ponderous affair. The injected speed of Kick Off is also present in Player Manager. This game is to Kick Off what Sensible World Of Soccer is to Sensible Soccer.

You are an ageing ex-division 1 midfield general who has taken the plunge into the high-stress world of football management. At the beginning of the game you can choose to control yourself or the whole team and change the names of your club or your rivals.

The only thing missing from this game is the ‘after-touch’ introduced in Kick Off: Extra Time. I find it really hard to make those killer through balls and clinical finishes without this touch of extra control. So while the extra depth added to a standard game of Kick Off is welcome, I would rarely choose this over a game of Kick Off 2.

#36 – Gods

Released: 1991
Developer: Bitmap Brothers
Publisher: Renegade
Genre: Platformer

This certainly has the mark of a Bitmap Brothers game (swish intro with tracker tune, steely blue palette, well realised sprites and backgrounds) and this will certainly divide gamers. Usual Bitmap style over substance, or the mark of maverick developers at the top of their game? I’ll let you decide.

From the off it’s clear that this isn’t a classic action platformer. The hero moves slowly, almost clumsily in his quest to earn immortality from the gods, and the time he takes to turn around is initially infuriating (not to mention his inability to fire while crouching). Your avatar’s cumbersome nature is there to be overcome, and with practice, and perseverance, navigating the sprawling levels with their switches, locked doors, booby traps and ladder after ladder will become second nature.

As you traverse through the dungeons, you will come across many power-ups that will aid you on your journey: more daggers to throw, speed-ups, extra health, or divine powers to obliterate your enemies. Keys and other items must also be obtained to enable your progress.

The graphics really are excellent, pushing the STs 16 colour palette to its limit, and the in-game sound effects are very atmospheric. Initially, play this game for eye-candy and after a while its irksome annoyances become its idiosyncratic quirks then its unique charm. Give it some time and it grows on you. Like some sort of ancient greek fungus.

#35 – Colonial Conquest

Released: 1987
Developer: Andromeda Software
Publisher: Strategic Simulations Inc.
Genre: Strategy

This sort of game is far from my usual field of expertise. Indeed, I had not even heard of it before receiving its nominations. Oh well, join me on this little sortie out of my comfort zone…

When the game begins, you can choose your scenario (Standard game, 1880: The race for the colonies, and 1914: The brink of war) which dictates the status of each of the major powers and how many colonies they possess at the beginning of the game. Six different powers can be controlled by humans or by the ST: England, Germany, France, USA, Japan, or Russia. You can also set the length of your game, by altering the winning score: a 500 point game will typically last half an hour, but longer games are available: 1000 points, 1500 points and an unlimited game, which will presumably continue until you are the sole surviving major power.

Colonial Conquest is a turn-based strategy game, and each turn gives you the opportunity to move your army and navy around in order to invade and hopefully capture enemy territories. During the build phase you can add to your military might by building more fleets and recruiting more men.

Combat isn’t the only option available to your neighbouring territories, Subversion can be used to bribe a minor territory into joining your cause, and Aid can be given to countries in order to persuade them to resist your rivals.

These alternative approaches add much depth to the game, and it is easy to see why it occupied a lot of ST strategy fan’s time during those early years.

#34 – Xenon 2

Released: 1989
Developer: Bitmap Brothers/Assembly Line
Publisher: Image Works
Genre: Shoot-em-up

Xenon 2 has fallen a little out of grace since software houses stopped making commercial releases for the ST. If this poll was held in the early nineties, I’m certain it would have finished much higher. So what happened?

The graphics are certainly up there with the best, scrolling is smooth featuring parallax backgrounds, and the sound (from the excellent opening tune from Bomb The Bass to the high quality spot effects) is of a high quality. Nice touches pervade the entire game. The ship and its weaponry are excellently animated, and each level and its nasties are well designed, each with a distinct theme.

Gameplay is far from lightning quick, the screen scrolls downwards quite slowly, and your ship feels sluggish, despite the two speed-ups given to you at the start of the game. When enemies are defeated they deposit bubbles which can be collected and used as cash in the shop. The power-ups are nice and varied and experimenting with different ship setups adds replay value.

Deaths are often caused by enemies’ unpredictable flight paths as opposed to their firepower, and when they appear from behind without warning, this feels a very cheap way to increase difficulty.

Overall, though, I feel that this game represents high quality vertical shoot-em-up action on the ST and the Bitmap backlash has treated it a little unfairly. Not the best shooter by some measure, but a solid, well presented game nonetheless.

#33 – Championship Manager ’93

Released: 1993
Developer: Domark/Intelek Data Research
Publisher: Domark
Genre: Football Management Sim

I was both surprised and delighted by the position of Domark’s second game in its Championship Manager franchise (now known as Football Manager).

Criticised at the time of release for being a glorified spreadsheet due to its non-graphical nature, extensive statistics and tables of data, ’93 was the first in the series to feature real players, teams and staff (thanks to Intelek’s input). The extra realism took a very accomplished simulation and made it the most compelling, addictive and deep football management game ever made.

Up to four players can play, choosing to manage any of the league clubs in the four English divisions. Start as Premiership contenders, where both the stakes and expectations are high, or pick a lower league club and take them to glory? The choice is yours.

For me, this game represents a perfect balance; acheiving an accurate simulation without compromising on the fun. Transfers are quick and easy: just choose the amount you want to bid, highest bid wins and the player is transfered instantly, no waiting around like in later CM games. Also, you won’t be asked to micro-manage, assign training routines or any of that tiresome nonsense, just buy your players, pick the team and formation and away you go!

The games presentation may put some people off (even the original Football Manager on the Speccy rendered the highlights of each game for you to watch) and once you find a successful formation, the game can become too easy. Each new career can take up to 20 minutes to start as the ST calculates all the player data, and their are some minor bugs (my game’s player history often showed that several players had played for Aston Villa in 1900, and occasionally crashed when trying to access club history).

As is often the case with games that stretch the boundaries, there are flaws, but few games of this era had this kind of scope and depth. A must for all the Ron Managers out there.

#32 – Vroom

Released: 1991
Developer: Dan McRae
Publisher: Lankhor
Genre: Racing

Vroom by name and Vroom by nature, the impression of speed in this Formula One racer is unrivalled by another game on the ST. Zooming through tight tunnels at top speed really gets your heart pounding. This game really needs to be seen to be believed. The screen even tilts backwards and forwards in response to your acceleration and braking!

The game comes in two flavours: Arcade and Racing. In Arcade mode, you must overtake a set number of cars before the race is over in order to qualify for the next. In Racing mode you are forced to use the mouse (ouch) which is a more precise control method, but takes a lot of getting used to. You are placed in a tournament amongst some (almost) familiar names and must earn your place on the grid with a qualifying session, then earn points according to your place at the finish line over a season of six races.

Indicator lights at the side of your cockpit will tell you the condition of your tyres and engine and a gauge at the top of the screen shows your remaining fuel. Over rev your engine, run low on fuel, or crash into the trackside objects and you may have to pit. Miss the pit at these crucial times and you can kiss the trophy goodbye.

Nice touches like the wing mirrors that actually tell you what is behind you, working speedometer, and the option to race against a friend via null modem link rounds off an exhilarating experience that must be sampled by all ST racing fans.

#31 – Typhoon Thompson

Released: 1988
Developer: Dan Gorlin
Publisher: Broderbund Software
Genre: Shoot-em-up

Dan Gorlin (of Choplifter fame) is responsible for possibly the quirkiest game of the list so far. A transport ship has gone AWOL on a distant ocean planet leaving only a single survivor – a baby – the titular Sea Child.

All previous attempts to recover the baby have failed due to the planet’s hostile inhabitants and their determination to hold on to the baby. Here is where you, the fearless (though from the opening sequence, somewhat press-ganged) Typhoon Thompson, step in. With the help of the Spirit Guardians and the weapons they provide you in return for magical artifacts, you must take on the sea sprites.

You control your hover sled with the mouse as you scoot about the pseudo 3D environment at quite a pace. You must locate a pod and shoot it, releasing a flyer. Destroy the flyer and out pops the sprite which you must capture before he returns to the pod. When you have all of the level’s sprites on board, you can confront the King, who will give you the artifact you need.

Initially, controlling your sled is difficult and frustrating, but nicely animated comical sprites and neat gameplay elements – you can force your sled under water if the action gets a little too hot – make this curious game worth a punt if your after something a little different.

#30 – Mercenary 2: Damocles

Released: 1990
Developer: Paul Woakes
Publisher: Novagen Software
Genre: Err… Cataclysm prevention simulator

Sandbox games are ten-a-penny these days, and games are readily lambasted for being linear if they don’t offer a gamer choices, different ways to accomplish goals, or freedom to explore. But in 1990 Damocles offered an entire star system of nine planets in which you could fly from one planet to another, enter its atmosphere and zoom over continents and seas looking for cities, fly down to a city, land at an airport (or crash onto a patch of grass, if your piloting skills are akin to mine) and walk about on foot, or drive a car to buildings which could be entered and explored, items looted or bought.

If I said that Damocles world was incredibly rich, I’d be telling a porky pie. There are no people (or NPCs of any kind) around at all (handily explained away by the plot, which I will come to later) and many of the cities and buildings are obviously procedurally generated and completely baron of any interest. Even so, this game world was truly breathtaking when first encountered.

Part of said game world is currently under serious threat from the appropriately named comet, Damocles, which is on a collision course with the densely populated ‘M’ class planet Eris. Obviously, many people have a vested interest in Eris’ survival, and should you succeed in preventing its destruction you will become unimaginably rich. In line with the game’s open-ended gameplay, this can be achieved in many different ways.

The old Mercenary engine (this game’s predecessor) has received a complete overhaul, and now features filled vector graphics moving along at a nice pace – only slowing when a lot of detail is on screen. While planet side you will witness the passage of time, sunrises, sunsets, and moons will orbit the planet, all adding to the atmosphere.

I’m not sure it’s possible on current hardware, but the prospect of a remake of this game on modern technology would blow my mind. I wonder what Paul Woakes is up to these days?

#29 – Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

Released: 1990
Developer: Bitmap Brothers
Publisher: Image Works
Genre: Future sport sim

The original Speedball introduced us to the eponymous uber-violent steel-clad sport, and the sequel picks up the very same ball and runs with it. And runs. And runs some more. Then kicks someone in the face, and runs a little further.

Superficially very similar to its prequel, Speedball 2 has the same metallic sheen and the aim is still to score goals while staving your opponent’s heads in. However, there are a number of improvements. Speedball 2 is one of those rare beasts: a sequel that improves upon the original in almost every way: the pitch is larger, with more features, like the multiplier loop, stars, golden ball nodes (which make the ball a lethal weapon) and more power-ups; each team has more players; League and Cup modes feature a roster of players which you can train and others you can buy; League mode has two divisions, making promotion a possibility (though strangely relegation is simply game over); and best of all, you can actually send your opponents players to hospital. Nothing beats seeing your rival’s star forward (who he has just spent thousands of credits on) crying in a bloody and broken mess on the floor as two med-bots scrape his remains off the floor and cart him off.

I usually try and find a fault here in order to give at least an illusion of balance or objectivism, but I’m really struggling. Oh, I’ve got one! There is a bit of a difficulty spike when jumping from division 2 to division 1. That’s it… Sorry.

Such is the brilliance of this title; a friend of mine refers to the ST as ‘The Speedball Machine’ and – much to my chagrin – refuses to call it anything else, often offering to superglue the disk in the drive for me. “Why does the machine even have an eject button?” he would quip. Git.

#28 – Populous

Released: 1989
Developer: Bullfrog
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Strategy

Say what you like about Peter Molyneux and his hyperbole, he is a video game visionary and has been striving to create something unique and ground-breaking his whole career. Sometimes he has stalled (though still a great game, Fable disappointed many), sometimes he has come within a hairs-breadth (Black and White broke ground with compelling gameplay mechanics and fascinating user interface, but actually wasn’t that much fun) and every now and again, hit the nail square on the bonce.

Populous was a revelation (no pun intended) when it was released in 1989. Not the first God game by quite some distance (Intellivision’s Utopia predates it by seven years) but certainly the game that gave the genre a boot up the proverbial and made people sit up and take notice.

Evolved from an isometric terrain editor that Molyneux had been playing with where you could raise and lower the turf (the simplest divine power in the finished game), the game sees you take control of a god who cannot issue direct commands to his subjects, but must influence his civilisation through other means: levelling land to enable the folks to build homes, placing religious artefacts to encourage their movement to other areas, and helping your little fellas get along in life by sticking the boot into their enemies.

The godly powers are ingeniously wicked in design and can be used in devious combinations to bamboozle unwary opponents: earthquakes, swamps and volcanoes are all predictably destructive, and you can ordain knights who fight extremely dirty, burning all in their path. Floods are great, providing you have built your own land high enough. Can’t be bothered to play a level to its natural conclusion (the destruction of one of the two races) then a good Old Testament style Armageddon is what you need to sort the men from the boys (interestingly, Molyneux envisions the end of the world to be a massive football hooligan style brawl).

Populous has a solidity of design and execution rarely seen in games from any era. Its magnificence is evident from the first moments of the first game. It just wills you to keep playing. I introduced this game to a ten year old last month, and he is addicted already, shunning his previous favourites Rome: Total War and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2. And I haven’t even touched upon its multiplayer mode.

#27 – Falcon

Released: 1987
Developer: Sphere Inc.
Publisher: Spectrum Holobyte
Genre: Flight Simulator

Falcon is no pick up and play arcade blaster, as a peek at the huge manual and extensive keyboard overlay will tell you. When it was released in 1987, Falcon was heralded for its realism and smooth filled vector graphics.

Falcon also featured modem play so you could dogfight with a friend who owned any version: Mac, PC, or Amiga. If you were lucky enough to own 1 meg of memory, you could open up the black box after a failed mission to see where you went wrong.

If you’re a flight sim virgin (ahem, like me) you can adjust the difficulty by choosing your rank. Lowly Lieutenants give you infinite ammo, and makes you indestructible, so it’s just a matter of pointing the plane in the right direction and away you go. Colonel is a different barrel of fish altogether, you will encounter realistic flying conditions and enemy planes will chew you up like a pack of juicy fruit. Sphere boasted at the time that the enemy plane’s AI was based on real Soviet fighter manoeuvres.

Originally supplied with 12 missions, 2 expansion packs were also made available featuring more missions, planes and scenery.

#26 – Gauntlet 2

Released: 1989
Developer: Domark
Publisher: US Gold
Genre: Shoot-em-up

Gauntlet on the Spectrum was my first taste of cooperative multiplayer gaming, and from my first ghost slaying I was hooked. Gauntlet, Bubble Bobble, Streets Of Rage 2, Guardian Heroes, Rainbow Six, Halo: co-op gaming has provided me with some of the most enjoyable moments (and through-the-night marathons) of my on-going gaming career.

Gauntlet is the definitive top-down dungeon crawling hack’n'slash (though really a shoot-em-up), so what does its sequel offer? Dragons, that’s what… double bastard-hard ones, too. All players (up to four – a bit of an ST rarity) can choose who they control, so no more squabbling over the Valkyrie, and there is a greater variety of dungeon, with some new pickups and monsters (my personal favourite is the ‘It’ monster – whoever it touches is it and all enemies swarm to him like Retro Fusion attendees to the bar).

The XBox Live version of Gauntlet does not hand out continues like the Ice cream man handed out bubblies, instead opting for a ‘if you die, that’s it’ approach which is rather hardcore (read ‘horribly unfair’) but does add tension and a challenge, the home versions could have done with at least an incentive to hold on to your health – but then, there is always the scoreboard.

One might say that unlimited continues would diminish the enjoyment/challenge of any Gauntlet game, but we never noticed: we were always looking forward to the next dungeon. “Will there be a dragon?” “Don’t be selfish, I want some potions too.” “Why did you shoot the food again, you Joey?” And so on. The game was so much fun we weren’t worried about the challenge, or how the game would end.

“That was a heroic effort.”

#25 – Bubble Bobble

Released: 1987
Developer: Software Creations
Publisher: Firebird Software
Genre: Arcade Platformer

Bub and Bob’s first adventure is a high quality arcade conversion (like Rainbow Islands, its younger brother) that did an excellent job of bringing all the cutesy fun home to your beige (and definitely not cute) box.

The hokey plot takes a backseat in this platform cute-em-up, the play mechanic is what shines here. Baron Von Blubba has turned you into a dinosaur and your chosen method of violence is the ability to blow bubbles encasing your enemy, and then popping them. Simple, and ingenious.

Augmenting this simple combination of bubble blowing, baddie popping and platform hopping is some seriously deep gameplay. Everything you do in the game has influence on what is going on: the amount of running and jumping you do, the amount of bubbles you blow, how quickly (or slowly) you complete a stage all have an influence on what happens next.

The physics behind the scenes really add to the experience: some stages are ‘bubble stages’ that convert all loose bubbles into collectables when the last nasty is dispatched, each level has its own convection currents that push the bubbles around the screen, a bubble burst whilst touching another will burst that bubble and so on, there are so many nifty features.

The pick-ups are great too: Fruit gives points (the more baddies popped together, the higher the available points), sweets upgrade your bubbles (faster, longer higher rate of fire), running shoes increase speed, candy canes offer big end of level bonuses, umbrellas skip levels, the list goes on and on.

There are so many subtle nuances and tricks to learn that this game is still showing me new things today, and I’ve been obsessed about it for over 20 years!

#24 – Buggy Boy

Released: 1988
Developer: Tatsumi Electronics Co.
Publisher: Elite Systems Ltd.
Genre: Racing

Racing games can often be accused of taking themselves far to seriously. Not so Buggy Boy – It’s ridiculous and down right silly. Race against the clock as you collect flags in the right sequence, pass through gates that give you points or more time, boot footballs, jump off logs over gates and trees, avoid barrels and boulders, speed through tunnels and over bridges.

With five courses to choose from, you must reach the goal via five legs of varying terrain using your two speed Baja buggy. Only the later courses will offer a challenge to complete, but as you learn how to exploit each course for points, the urge to return and improve scores will provide replay value.

Graphics are not mind-blowing but clean and clear – not without charm. Sound is minimal: whiny engine, spot effects for collisions, flags, gates etc. and the odd bit of music.

Buggy Boy is fun, and one of the few racing games that works brilliantly as a score attack game.

#23 – Time Bandit

Released: 1985
Developer: Bill Dunlevy
Publisher: Michtron
Genre: Action Adventure

Time Bandit is often described as a Gauntlet clone, which is a little unfair, seeing as the original Time Bandit appeared on the TRS-80 in ’83 way before Gauntlet saw the light of day.

As the bandit, you are tasked with travelling through time to 16 different levels separated into 6 eras, defeating their guardians, collecting treasure and recovering artefacts. You control the bandit with the joystick, limited to just four directions, using the fire button to shoot the guardians. The top-down viewpoint scrolls around to reveal mazes and puzzles of the ‘find-the-key-to-the-door’ variety.

The two-player mode adds extra interest, and you can choose to play cooperatively or to blast your pal into next week and keep the artefacts all to yourself.

Retro gamers will delight in the discovery of the Pac-Man level, Centipede pastiche and surprising text adventure elements.

Time Bandit is certainly showing its age, but in 1985 it was groundbreaking, offering both fast paced action and a sprawling world with levels which could be tackled in any order the player wished.

#22 – Lemmings

Released: 1991
Developer: DMA Design
Publisher: Psygnosis
Genre: Puzzle

Original concepts don’t come along very often in video games. Even at the tender age of eleven, the first time I played Lemmings I knew I was witnessing something special.

Like most truly great ideas, the premise is very simple: guide your band of hapless rodents across some tricky terrain to the exit by issuing them with a stock of eight orders. You could order lemmings to climb, float, explode, block, build, bash (horizontally), dig (diagonally down), and tunnel (vertically).

Cunning level design had you using combinations of these orders (sometimes restricted in availability) in order to succeed, many levels having multiple solutions. Later levels will be seemingly impossible until a new technique is learned or new implementation of an old one realised.

Lemmings’ visual appeal is timeless: Expertly animated little sprites against well drawn backgrounds. I’m currently playing the homebrew conversion of Lemmings on my DS and it still looks fresh. Hilariously appropriate children’s nursery rhymes and other familiar melodies accompany your rescue efforts along with the occasional splat or pop.

After developing the excellent shooters Menace and Blood Money, Lemmings would shoot DMA design (now known as Rockstar North) to super-stardom, giving them the scope and financial backing needed to produce their seminal Grand Theft Auto franchise.

#21 – Microprose Formula One Grand Prix

Released: 1992
Developer: Geoff Crammond
Publisher: Microprose Software
Genre: Racing

Time – perhaps more accurately, emulation – has been very kind to Geoff Crammond’s Formula One Grand Prix. While offering the first truly immersive F1 experience with practice, qualifying, racing and car tweaking all deeply involving; the slow frame rate shatters my rosy memories. The 3D engine was truly breath-taking at the time, but when I return to it now I find it very difficult to enjoy.

Never fear, this is where the excellent Steem emulator steps in. Under the ‘Machine’ tab in the options menu you can set the CPU speed of the emulated Motorola 68000 CPU from 8Mhz all the way up to 128Mhz. A little experimenting with this to find the optimum speed, and a smooth racing experience is yours!

This is the closest the ST gets to an accurate racing sim, but still manages to be accessible. When first learning the game, the game has many assists turned on: auto braking, gears, visible racing line, no damage etc. and as you begin to learn the accurately modelled tracks you can switch them off one by one until you are in full control. Incidentally, I was playing Forza motorsport on XBox earlier today that has a very similar assist related difficulty setting. F1GP was obviously very influential.

Real driver names and teams are not featured (this game did not acquire the FIA licence) but a nifty edit feature means that you can keep everything up to date. Personally, I just like to put Schumacher in so I can repeatedly run him off the road.

Full seasons, lots of cars on track, Working mirrors, realistic collisions with flying debris, weather conditions, car tuning and replays with multiple camera angles all added to this superbly definitive F1 driving experience.

#20 – Populous 2

Released: 1992
Developer: Bullfrog
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Strategy

Playing as a demi-god and a son of Zeus, you must prove to your father that you are worthy of entering the Pantheon by defeating the Greek gods one-by-one in combat. You won’t be getting your hands dirty of course, that’s what your loyal followers are for.

Populous 2 offers many more ways to influence your people and their environment. This time around you have twenty-two divine powers (compared to the eight of the original) each split into six categories (with their own mana bars). Instead of ordaining knights as in the original, each category has a hero, and each hero has special abilities. For example: Perseus (human category) will pillage all in his path, while being intelligent enough to avoid malevolent obstacles; Adonis divides every time he fights; Hercules is very strong and Helen turns your enemies into love-sick puppies, following her to their watery doom.

Other new god powers include: plagues, tree-planting (I jest ye not), road and wall building, lightning storms, tsunamis, and baptismal fonts (these can convert followers’ allegiance from one deity to the other) and many more whose strategic value must be learned in order to ensure success.

In some ways, the extra godly powers you possess in Populous 2 upset the balance and as a result, multiplayer games aren’t always as enjoyable as in the original. It is much harder to pre-empt your opponents moves when there are many more different strategies they could adopt, so the Chess-like struggles and stalemates that made marathon matches so enjoyable is lost. This is countered, however, by the fact that there is loads more to do and more powers to experiment with, keeping the single player campaign interesting for longer.

Some reviewers criticised Populous 2 for being to similar to its predecessor, but at the end of the day, this is Populous – more variety, better sound and better visuals, and that can’t be a bad thing.

#19 – Civilization

Released: 1993
Developer: Sid Meier/MPS Labs
Publisher: Microprose
Genre: Strategy

Sid Meier’s third solo project for Microprose (following Railroad Tycoon and Covert Action) was to make his name in the industry and spawn a franchise that spans three decades and is still going strong. It kick started a genre and opened up the strategy games market to a much wider audience.

The year is 4000bc and your normally barbaric and nomadic tribe have decided to stop clubbing each other on the head, put down their loin cloths and get their act together. You, as their leader, must guide them through this difficult period, shepherding them through the trials and tribulations of communal living, technological advances, cut-throat revolutions and encounters with other cultures.

Do you choose to develop technologies to ingratiate your populace and improve their standard of living in order to boost city growth, or do you concentrate on martial advances in order to build and train units of unequalled might to crush your enemies – taking their land and pillaging their gold? Each approach has its problems and benefits.

The game’s interface is sometimes a little slow and cumbersome, and there are some issues concerning the randomness of battle outcomes. For example, it is entirely possible for your heavily armoured tank to be defeated by a bloke in a tin hat carrying a spear (or a phalanx to you).

Despite the flaws, this game offered something truly unique at the time of release and is still eminently playable today. That ‘just one more turn’ addictive quality and huge variation of game styles and difficulties (no two games are ever the same) that are the hallmarks of the Civ series shine through in what is an essential experience for both strategy enthusiasts and curious onlookers.

#18 – Hunter

Released: 1991
Developer: Activision
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Action Adventure

As mentioned before (see #29 – Damocles) open world games were once a rarity, and when one came along it really made you sit up and take notice. Hunter was no exception with its 3D filled vector graphics and sprawling world of island-hopping gameplay.

Each game starts at allied HQ with a very simple objective ranging from assassinating the president to destroying a variety of military targets. You are given a gun and a car and what you do next is totally up to you. OK, so you can’t decide to bake bread or sew yourself a nice elven doublet a la World Of Warcraft, but you are given complete freedom to explore the map, interact with NPCs, pilot/drive/sail/ride the game’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of vehicles, find a range of weaponry, fight enemy troops, catch ducks and so on.

This was the first game I ever played where it was so fun to be part of its world that I would often go off task, completely ignoring the objectives and exploring its rich world: old men in lighthouses, man-eating sharks, helicopters sabotaged with deliberately low amounts of fuel, enemy uniforms (when worn you would not be shot at by enemy forces), hidden areas, new vehicles. This game really did have the appeal of a proto-GTA: when the missions get boring, just go and find something more interesting to do.

To fit a game like this onto a 16-bit machine with just 512k of memory is astounding, and well deserving of its top 20 placing.

#17 – Deuteros: The Next Millennium

Released: 1991
Developer: Activision
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Strategy

As a big fan of Millennium 2.2 I was delighted to discover that Deuteros, its sequel, has a very similar feel – its dystopian near-future setting side-stepping cliché and providing a superbly atmospheric backdrop to more resource-management strategy brilliance. (This game features a magnificent knowing nod to its prequel which I won’t spoil here)

Set a thousand years after Millennium 2.2, the Earth city has matured and its inhabitants are ready to expand into the solar system once more. To do so, materials must be collected, citizens trained and scientific theories researched. As before, tasks are allocated, then time can be advanced with a click of the appropriate icon. This time around, it is possible to build up to 16 factories, meaning that your job of task-juggling is made that much more tricky.

All tasks are easily accessed through an icon driven interface, and a little bit of experimenting during the gentle opening part of the game will soon see you well acclimatised. Everything is well drawn, and the sound – though minimal, it is space after all – adds to the atmosphere.

Unfortunately it is possible to miss key ‘trigger’ events in this game, leaving you with nothing to do to progress the game’s narrative and having to restart the game due to this happening is very frustrating. It can also be a little overwhelming at times, too many balls in the air as it where – if this grates then you may want to stick to Supremacy: more brain friendly, but not as deep and rewarding as this.

Several twists along the way will keep you enthralled and available building projects requiring exotic minerals will keep you exploring. More scripted events than its predecessor – including some genuinely shocking moments – keep you on tenterhooks, you can never rest on your laurels in this game.

#16 – Captain Blood

Released: 1988
Developer: Exxos
Publisher: Mindscape
Genre: Adventure

From a game of exploration to a one of space strategy, now here is Captain Blood: a space exploration strategy game, and a very strange, metatextual dream-like odyssey it is too.

L’Arche du Capitaine Blood is the nickname of Bob Morlock, a games programmer inspired by the 1930s film of the same name. While alpha testing his latest sci-fi themed game, he is sucked into the very world he has just designed. Blood soon finds himself in a spot of bother – a hyperspace accident results in him being cloned several times over and left in a deteriorating state of health. If blood can find his clones and kill them, he can recover the vital fluids he needs to survive.

However, the last five clones have caught wind of Blood’s plan and have buggered off to the five corners of the known universe (the universe is pentagonal, you know). Finding them is going to be trickier than eating a jam doughnut without licking your lips. Luckily, you can get helpful info from aliens you meet on your travels.

To reach these Xenomorphs, you must remotely pilot a probe through a fractal landscape until you reach its location. Communicating with these aliens via the UPCOM (an icon driven interface) will reveal coordinates of other inhabited planets that you can hyperspace to in order to continue your search (cue 2001: A Space Odyssey style hyperspace colourshock).

Captain Blood offers something rarely seen in the world of video games: an experience that is truly unique. Captain Blood is like no other game made before or after it (We’ll gloss over the mediocre sequel, Commander Blood).

#15 – Xenon

Released: 1988
Developer: Bitmap Brothers
Publisher: Melbourne House
Genre: Shoot ‘em ‘up

Captain Xod’s run into a Xenite ambush and unless you can blast your way through 16 sectors of the Xenite scum to reach him in time, he’ll be on the receiving end of a nasty face-hugging from one of those squiggly things we all had nightmares about after we saw Aliens.

Anyone who tries to tell you that graphics make a game need an education. Sit them down with a copy of this and its sequel and watch the epiphany grip them. Xenon II is certainly more beautiful, with its snazzy parallax and what-not, but the original shines where it matters most.

As you make your way up the vertically scrolling levels, you can morph between a ground-based tank or a airborne ship with a deft press of the space key. This adds a tactical risk/reward dilemma: often you can only destroy a wave of enemy craft (and therefore glean the available points) if you are at the same elevation as them, but by matching their elevation, you become more susceptible to their attacks. More than just points are available: as enemy craft and gun turrets are destroyed, upgrades for your craft can be collected, adding drones, lasers and smart bombs to your arsenal.

It’s as hard as a bronze statue of Stu Pearce, but somehow keeps you coming back for more punishment. Every go you get just that little bit further, and you are compelled to keep playing until you see the various bosses and new scenery that you just know are around the corner.

#14 – Starglider

Released: 1986
Developer: Argonaut
Publisher: Rainbird
Genre: 3D Shoot ‘em ‘up

The Atari Power Pack of 20 games bundled with my ST when I was it was given to me for Christmas was a revelation. Conversions of great Sega coin-ops, fiendish puzzlers and top draw shooters all provided plenty of entertainment that Chrimbo morn. Starglider, however was the game that knocked me for six and left me in no doubt that I was well and truly within the glorious grip of the 16-bit era.

This is because Starglider sang to me. Sang to me! I couldn’t believe my ears! Sure, listening to the tune now, it’s a crackly sampled piece of dodgy eighties techno-rock that lasts all of ten seconds, but to my 8-bit trained ears this and the in-game speech were trumpet calls heralding the future of video games. The game itself wasn’t bad either.

While sat in the pilot seat of your AGAV fighter, you must rid the planet Novenia of its mechanoid Egron invaders using your state-of-the-art ship’s lasers and guided missiles. For all the depth implied by the novella included in the box, this game is simple vector based blaster: shoot everything that moves in return for points, and avoid being blasted by enemy lasers. If your fuel or shield energy begins to wane, you can dock with a silo for a top up. Here you can top up your missile supply as well as get some valuable info on the foes you are likely to encounter.

Heavily inspired by the Star Wars arcade hit, it’s easy to see the Atari coin-op’s influence here. Starglider did a good job of bringing its mentor’s fast, fluid gameplay to the home, while offering more depth and freedom of movement.

#13 – Defender Of The Crown

Released: 1987
Developer: Master Design Software
Publisher: Cinemaware
Genre: Strategy

The King is dead! Long live the King! … Err, who is the next king? Let’s have a bit of a scrum to find out shall we?

Playing as one of four Saxon knights, you must see off the Norman invaders as you vie for your ascendancy to the throne. You start the game with a solitary castle and a pitiful 10 men. It is from this lowly status that you must build your army, expand into other territories, loot and lay siege to castles, and do battle with your Saxon rivals and Norman enemies. Other distractions include the obligatory damsel rescue, a spot of jousting (Which I always found excruciatingly difficult).

Defender Of The Crown really blew the doors off for graphics on 16-bit machines. The art direction of James Sachs was way ahead of its 1986 vintage and was used by many retail outlets to showcase the power of the new machines (not to mention by people wanting to show off to their mates).

Though sacrificing colour due to hardware limitations, the ST version included many features that the Amiga version lacked, due to the Commodore machine’s release being somewhat rushed.

Though not a strategy game of any real depth or longevity, the first play through of DOTC was a memorable experience thanks to its extraordinary presentation and production values.

#12 – Captive

Released: 1990
Developer: Antony Crowther
Publisher: Mindscape
Genre: RPG

Captive is huge. Unbelievably vast. Its creator once said that to fully complete it would take forty years. Better get cracking then…

You are a prisoner on a starship in turmoil. Your only hope of escape is the laptop left behind in your cell. Upon booting up this laptop, you discover you have remote access to four droids. In order to break out of your jail you must successfully guide them to bases on many different planets in order to find and destroy the power generators that keep you confined.

Featuring the same real-time pseudo-3D graphics and user interface made famous by Dungeon Master, Captive procedurally generates each level you visit, allowing the game to have 64,000 levels without requiring a hefty memory upgrade. So even after the Captive is freed, there is plenty more to see and do.

As you play, the nasties you encounter get increasingly tougher, so you must make your ‘bots tougher too. Each of their limbs can be replaced with better ones, though the capacity of the torso’s power source must not be exceeded. The droids’ skills must also be improved if they are to make use of the more advanced weaponry found later in the game.

A great premise excellently executed by the legendary Tony Crowther, if you’re a fan of this kind of game, Captive really should not be missed.

#11 – Kick Off

Released: 1989
Developer: Dino Dini
Publisher: Anco
Genre: Football Simulation

The release of Kick Off coincided with my rebirth as a football fan. At nine years old, my Mum took me to St. Andrews to watch Birmingham City concede a late equaliser to West Bromwich Albion in a 1-1 draw. Ironically, as I took my first step in the life of anguish and pain that is being a Blues fan, Kick Off was filling my gaming life with … pain and anguish.

You see, Kick Off is a rare breed amongst football games: gone is the zoomed out view enabling you to see what’s going on, and gone is the sedate pace allowing you to ponder your next move, and most significantly, gone are the player friendly sticky boots that feature in virtually every footy game ever conceived. If you turn your player willy-nilly, you can not expect the ball to follow. Expert timing is expected at all times, as you can only turn when the ball is directly at your feet.

Kick Off is fast, furious and bollock hard (especially for an eight year old brought up on Emlyn Hughes International Soccer) but ultimately extremely rewarding. Each goal is earned through blood, sweat, tears and the aforementioned ninja timing.

Unfortunately lacking the after-touch control of later iterations (you will have to boot up the Extra Time expansion for that luxury), more than a little buggy and slow-down never more than a goal-mouth scramble away, Kick Off is far from perfect, but that excitement I felt when first playing this, eight years of age at my uncle’s house is still tangible to this day.

#10 – Llamatron: 2112

Released: 1991
Developer: Jeff Minter
Publisher: Llamasoft (Shareware)
Genre: Shoot ‘em ‘up

I am utterly delighted to kick off the top ten with Jeff Minter’s bonkers remake of Eugene Jarvis’ seminal Robotron.

When Eugene’s first machines hit the arcades in the early eighties punters were blown away by a torrent of light and sound paired with kinetic (and double-hard) gameplay. One of these punters was a little hairy fellow whose tag – ‘YAK’ – would dominate those scoreboards. Almost a decade later he would take advantage of the STs architecture to bring home the audio-visual spectacle of a Jarvis arcade.

While a lot more forgiving than its estranged parent (and featuring a lot more hoofed animals) Llamatron retains the survival horror pretext and its (move and shoot independently in eight directions) control mechanism. As you mow down all manner of grunts (Coke cans, Rizla packets, toilets, computer chips) you must save beasties before they are corrupted by the evil brains; mutated into Llama hating monstrosities hell-bent on destroying you.

Your ungulate is best controlled using two joysticks enabling full control of your laser llama spit. An optional drone, who acts as a second player to accompany your blasting makes Llamatron even more accessible. However, even with help, Llamatron features some harsh difficulty spikes: some levels are like a walk in the pastures, while others will happily graze on your entire stock of lives.

With tight controls, non-stop action and just the right amount of crazy, Llamatron is the finest shareware game ever released for the ST and a real high point in both the ST shooters canon and the Llamasoft back catalogue.

#9 – Elite

Released: 1988
Developer: Mr. Micro
Publisher: Firebird
Genre: Space flight simulation

There isn’t a lot to be said about Ian Bell and David Braben’s seminal 3D space exploration/combat/trading game that hasn’t been said already. Open ended gameplay, huge galaxies to explore, immersive flight and combat system, blah, blah.

For those approaching Elite for the first time, you could be forgiven for thinking “What’s all the fuss about?” for the majority of what made Elite so special in 1984 (The year it was released for Acorn’s BBC) we now take for granted, indeed demand from more modern games in the same ilk.

Cast your mind back to 1984. and you would almost certainly be playing quirky platformers and second rate conversions of arcade games. All very enjoyable but ultimately disposable experiences. Then along comes a game that creates a universe around you compels you to explore it, exploit it, experience it – any way you choose. It was the first game I ever played that I fell asleep thinking about.

The ST version, coming late to the party as all cool cats do, kicks things up a notch by offering a mouse-driven interface, quick filled vector graphics, new missions, new equipment, and radar magnification. It still isn’t considered to be the definitive version though, that accolade belongs to the Archimedes version.

A classic on any system, and worth checking out on the ST thanks to the colourful visuals and extra features.

#8 – IK+

Released: 1988
Developer: Archer Maclean
Publisher: System 3
Genre: Beat ‘em ‘up

A complete re-write of the original, IK+ offered something truly unique at the time: A third fighter! This extra dimension means that you could no longer take a moment’s breather to size up your opponent, converting the chess-like duels of Way Of The Exploding Fist into something more akin to an incredibly skilful and choreographed bar brawl. (Without the flying stools)

As you start to learn the ideal distances for punching your foes in the googlies or kicking both of your antagonists square in the face at the same time, it really does seem like an art-form. Moves begin to flow from your joystick and you can see all the heavenly glory without concentrating on the finger. Play this game for a prolonged period and see what I mean. It’s almost like a trance. You enter the zone and become untouchable. Unfortunately, it only lasts a round or two before Blue puts you on your arse again and brings you down to earth.

The bouts are decided with a simple points system. A good, clean, honourable hit is rewarded by two points, while a sneaky back-stab is worth one. The player who gets six points first is the winner. If you finish last, you are kicked out of the tournament. After each round, your master shows up to let you know how you performed. As you gain points, you progress through the belts and your opponents go from Steven Seagal to Dan Inosanto.

Very few fighters can boast the fluidity and ‘natural’ almost instinctive feel of IK+. Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur have it, Dead or Alive was oh-so close, but IK+ embodies what beat-em-ups should be all about; instinctive and accessible controls, fast action, a touch of humour, tireless multiplayer and a heady challenge. If you haven’t played this then do so right away, but if you have, join me at the altar of MacLean. Ommmmmm…

#7 – Super Sprint

Released: 1986
Developer: Electric Dreams
Publisher: Electric Dreams
Genre: Top-down racing

Super Sprint was the first game I ever played on an Atari ST and therefore directly responsible for the ensuing 20 year (and counting) love affair with the machine. It was at a friends house where a couple of his friends had brought their STs over. I remember being wowed by link up games of Populous, the Konix Speedking, the Real Ghostbusters (I know) and a strange space shoot ‘em ‘up game with millions of levels called Whirligig.

It was 3-player Super Sprint that really stuck in my mind though, and kicked of a nag campaign that would eventually see my Mum cave and buy me an Atari ST for Christmas. Super Sprint is pure, unadulterated fun and incredibly addictive.

Your car is control by three inputs alone: rotate left, rotate right, and accelerate. The simplicity of the control mechanism is matched by the gameplay: all you must do is finish the 4 laps of the track before the drone cars – fail to do this and its game over. Along the way you can pick up spanners which can later be spent on upgrading your car’s acceleration, top speed, or traction.

Things get tricky as you progress through the races, pretty soon your opponents aren’t your only worry: whirlwinds, puddles, oil slicks, cones and moving barriers populate the track, conspiring to delay and frustrate your attempts to finish before that git in the green car.

A well executed conversion of a solid design, its simplicity is Super Sprint’s main weapon, and the key to its unrivalled multiplayer experience. Grab two mates and have one of the best laughs your ST can provide (after you resolve which poor bugger gets to use the keys).

#6 – Turrican 2

Released: 1991
Developer: Factor 5
Publisher: Rainbow Arts
Genre: Platform run ‘n’ gun

Some of us doggedly stuck with computers; determined to shun consoles, but we needed Metroid and we needed it badly. The likelihood of Nintendo converting its brilliant side-scrolling shooter to our flavour of beige box was slimmer than posh-spice, so thank god for Manfred Trenz and the boys at Factor 5 for bringing us a Tin-Man for the 90s: Turrican.

You are Commander Bren McGuire a lone gun-man (my favourite variety of gun-man) bedecked in the livery of Turrican: an experimental bionic armour and you’re out to reap revenge on a group of metal gimps known as “The Machine” who have incinerated all your army mates.

Turrican’s levels are open to exploration, and are packed with secret areas featuring extra lives and different weapons. These weapons come in many varieties, my favourite being the Ghostbuster-esque 360-degree multi-beam activated by holding the fire button: you can sweep this beam back and forth along the screen, obliterating your enemies like fag-ends in a urinal.

Unfortunately, as was becoming the trend at the time, the ST version palled in comparison to the Amiga version. The Atari version had a smaller play window, was missing the nice raster background and a lot of the sprites are not as well realised. All is not lost however, as efforts are underway to revamp ST Turrican using the STE’s capabilities. This is a massive undertaking, but a valiant and exciting one. Take a look here.

Atmospheric music, characteristic weapons, large multidirectional smooth-scrolling levels and a comprehensive challenge all add up to a great platform run ‘n’ gun experience usually only experienced by console fanatics. And I haven’t even mentioned the R-Type style horizontal shoot ‘em ‘up sections or the oversized end-of-level guardians!