Awesome run down Marc! Loved it! Yes! Bitmaps were the best....Xenon II was so hard. Did anyone complete it without cheats?!?! ....maybe I should plug my remix czcams.com/video/wLymNOk4oo8/video.html
Ha! I'd forgotten about that! Great tune, and loved the trippy music vid you made. I hate to admit it, but when capturing this footage, I couldn't even get off the first stage. I blame my autofire for not working. :(
Not sure about the ST version but the Amiga version wasn't all that hard to complete. Both versions it seems though were literally identical and awesome 👍👍
Xenon II was very difficult to play. I have difficulties to think it was voted #3...and even more difficulties about not having the original Xenon within the top50...Shocking!
This countdown series is the best collection of game reviews I have ever seen; period. The dialog was well-written and delivered. The gameplay footage was representative of the source titles and synchronized with the narration. The host is energetic and cheerful in a way that is positively infectious. I had a big goofy smile on my face every time he showed his own. Honestly, this is the prototype for game review that every CZcamsr should be using to up their own games.
This was a brilliantly polished countdown and I just want to say thank you for putting this all together. It was my absolute pleasure to watch this and reminisce with everybody. Dungeon Master #1! That is all!
As soon as the music started for Xenon 2, I got goosebumps and new what it was. Hadn’t heard it for all this time. And Speedball, memories came back of going to my friend’s house after school and playing it.
Great series of videos, thanks for taking the time to do them. Re Dungeon Master, it was so immersive because you really felt you were there in that dungeon. No extraneous descriptive text or distractions to break the illusion and you could do whatever you wanted within that world with the objects in the dungeon. I loved that you could break down a solid wooden door only with a character with an axe and enough experience to have the "chop" skill, burn it down with a torch or fire spell, or choose to find another way round. It was that kind of free choice that made it a true RPG.
You are most welcome, Mark! Thanks for watching. I didn't know that about chopping down or burning wooden doors! I've been playing this game for decades, and there are still new things to learn. Unbelievable!
Wow, just wow. Thank you for all your well invested effort. DM deserved to win and thats what I put as no 1 too. Looking forward too other stuff on your channel. What a guy!
Thanks, Christian. Your kind words are most appreciated. Dungeon Master absolutely ran away with the voting. It got over double the points score of the following game!
There's a very US centric approach to some retro gaming circles. It's all about the NES and that, but in reality, round my way, everyone had Spectrums and C64s in that era. Computers just had a broader range of gaming experiences to enjoy and we were all the better off for it.
Great list. I definitely agree with number 1 and was pleased to see Llamatron too. The only ones I would have squeezed in were Ishar 1&2, Lure Of The Temptress and the underrated Killing Game Show. That last one was so intense. Trying to get your character up to safety in a time limit as a deadly substance started to rise up beneath you. Good stuff. Happy days. I used my ST mainly for music though. It was an incredible machine for MIDI recording. Notator was a stunning piece of software and its still around today albeit under the brand Logic.
Glad you enjoyed it! Always great to have another Llamatron enjoyer on board! This list was voted for by ST fans, so I couldn't squeeze in any games, but your selections are great choices. I've wanted to seriously get into a playthrough of Ishar for years. Lure of the Temptress was the first point and click adventure I ever completed. Thanks for watching!
What a great final five! I'm personally happy that 4 of my top 5 games made it to the top 50 list: Oids, Super Sprint, Falcon and Xenon II. One thing I've realized the past few years is how many great games came out for the ST after I had already moved on to PCs as my primary platform around 1989/1990. I need to go back and start playing some of these games that came out later in the life of the ST!
Yes! They are considered the twilight years of the ST, and are characterised by Amiga becoming the target platform and the ST ports not really getting the attention and resources they needed at times, but there are still some absolutely great games in that era. Let me know if you discover any gems you missed out on!
I've already said it but I'll say it again for this final video: you did a wonderful job throughout this top 50 ST games. Sooo well presented (even about games that you actually don't like much e.g. Xenon II (and I'm with you on this haha)) and, as always, with your legendary positive vibe that could bring world peace. This was a real pleasure to watch (aside from the absence of Maupiti Island...) and is valuable content either for long-time ST owners or for newcomers to the system. Well done mate.
@@thejoyofsticks C'mon 😚 🍻 Also, if that sounds right to you, we should follow each other to share the ST love among other things. I think that I saw your twitter account a few times but it's under a different name than here, what was it again? Oh and, I forgot to tell you: I finally managed to get a copy of that rather hard to find compilation that I told you about once, "ST Action Vol.I". It was the compilation that my brother and I got back then alongside our 520 STf and it was pure joy to find this neat package of games again 🤗
Link up on Stunt Car Racer was amazing fun. I soldered up the simplest possible 3 pin cable with some phone cable and we had the machines in different rooms to add to the tension. Great fun! Never understood why it was never updated for modern machines.
That's amazing! It must have been so much more tense racing against a real person! The game feels like it's on a knife edge all the time anyway, thanks to the brilliant physics engine, I can't imagine two equally matched people going head to head. It must have been unbearable! :D
Thanks so much Stickhead, I'm sorry I missed the premiere again :( No major surprise in the top 5 as we weer going along all knowing which unavoidable great games had not been picked. Except maybe for Monkey Island for me, as I did not play it on the ST, but definitely a worthy Top 5, even though it's not my top 5. So... FTL and Goeff Crammond both have 3 games in the Top 10, and Bitmap Brothers 2 in the top 5. That's fair even though I would not have picked these Bitmap Brothers games. Overall the ranking seem to me like most people made their choices with a mix of nostalgia driven choices and more adult aftherthought in hindsight. I surely did struggle a lot between these 2 tendencies. This was an amazing series, and you have been a great host all along. You have gifted us with a huge contribution to the ST gaming collective mind while keeping us entertained during the lock down. Thanks and bravo!
You are most welcome! And thank you for your support throughout. It's really helped spur me on to complete the list. None of my top 5 made this top 5 either! And one of my top 5 didn't even make the Top 50! (Championship Manager) I'm with you on at least one of the Bitmap Brothers games. I find Xenon 2 quite unpalatable. It really frustrated me even to play it for a few minutes to get the footage for this list! :D If it had been just my opinion, I would have used the opportunity to tear a strip off the game and everyone who voted for it! :D Luckily, I found the strength of will to overcome my bias and give the game its due. I think you are right that nostalgia was a big driving force for people's votes, and I wouldn't have it any other way. That's what keeps me going with the ST more than anything.
Great series. I was genuinely looking forward to this one! Thanks for putting this together. Such a fun time! I hated Monkey Island. All that tramping back and forth was tedious beyond enduring. I finished it, but it was a trial. Speedball 2. Another twitch game that was utterly beyond me. I never could react fast enough to win more than one game in a row. Xenon. Sigh. I knew it would be here somewhere, but jeezo what a boring game. I never saw the point of shmups. It was a case of rote learning the waves, and it was probably even worse than Monkey Island for repetitive mindlessness. Stunt Car Racer! Yay! One of my all time favs. I hoped it would be here. Everything you said was spot on. The drama of some of the bigger tracks was unbelievably visceral at the time. Real stomach churning stuff. I loved this one. Dungeon Master! This had to be number one. Nothing else matched it. Sadly, I had one of the Atari STe models that had a drive that could not read the disc. So, I never got to play my copy, but a friend would bring his Atari around, and I put it through my digital reverb unit (I was in a band!), and all the sound effects reverberated as if we were inside the dungeon! Amazing game.
You are most welcome. Thank you for the kind words! I tried to be exclusively positive during the list, as it was a celebration of what everyone thought were the best ST games. It wouldn't sit right for the loads of people who voted Xenon 2 to tune in to see me tear a strip off their favourite game, but that game seriously rubs me up the wrong way. I like shmups, but that one is just naff. Again, positive only, so I didn't mention that Monkey Island really chugs on the ST. It works much better playing it on SCUMMVM these days. And you get those gorgeous 256 colour portraits too. I wouldn't pick those two games as my own personal 1 and 2, but I have no qualms with saying they deserve to be at the top of the list. Great games. Love what you said about adding reverb to the sound effects! That's incredible. I've got a reverb pedal here for my guitar... maybe I could do something similar! :D
I used to play this in multiplayer with my Null Modem cable! Very fun, and some games could be played in split screen 4 player too:-) Worth the investment. (still got it)
How exciting to see the list getting wrapped up! I wasn't far off last week :) Stunt Car Racer feels like it's one that that became more popular over time and wasn't AS celebrated in the ST's heyday. I actually talked to Bill Stealey earlier this week about the game and what happened to Geoff Crammond and he immediately came back saying he should get ahold of him and that he should do another game like some of the other programmers from back in the day that he's talked to recently. Stunt Car Racer sequel, please! The ST as a release platform is probably too much to ask for ;) Thanks again for doing these! The nostalgia is wonderful, but they're all been well produced as well and your commentary is always great to listen to. Never knew many ST owners back in the day - yay for the internet. Another good list idea could be 'guilty pleasures' - ones that you enjoyed back in the day but you know they're not actually all that good. I bet people could submit a few good suggestions there. Or look and see which genres are under-represented in the top 50 and do a top 5/10 for those.
You certainly were very close! I'm wondering if it had something to do with Retro Asylum covering Stunt Car Racer recently that bumped this already brilliant game up and made it just that bit more visible recently. A Stunt Car Racer sequel would be phenomenal, but how would you have it done? Using all the extra physics and technology that's been developed since and make a 'spiritual sequel' or more like a 'sequel that might have been' that is using the same type of physics engine? 'Guilty pleasures' is a great idea for a video! My own is Double Dragon on the ST. I know it's terrible: terrible animation, sound effects, controls, pixel art, and it's as repetitive as anything, but when I play it, I get this huge, sloppy grin.
I'd imagine it would be something like Stunt Car Racer meets Trackmania - I could live with that :) As for guilty pleasures, plenty come to mind. I was always fascinated with Space Ace for the graphics. and Enduro Racer, Beyond the Ice Palace, Palace's Barbarian, Impressions' Striker, Metro Cross, Bolo, Bubble Ghost, Ironman Super Off-Road, Atomic Robo-Kid, Midnight Resistance, Prehistorik and Saint Dragon all come to mind as games no one will ever put in a top 10 but that I enjoyed quite a bit. I'm sure I could come up with many more if I dug through my old boxes of games. One title I did find excellent was James Pond II: Robocod - did that not get any votes?
Great work, thanks for taking the time to make these videos. I agree with a lot of the choices, and feel we needed something like this for the ST games
Thanks, Bob! They are predictable to us, maybe, but there are people out there who don't know the ST and will want to know what the best games are, so hopefully this list will be helpful to them.
Fantastic and entertaining series. Your passion for the Atari is contagious! I did not watch the final series live but just FYI, I was wearing my Atari t-shirt (gift from my wife) when I watched the final installment. It was like watching the finale of GOT for me lollll. Here is my feedback about the final Top5 1) DM: It was my #1 vote. I would have been (a bit) upset if DM would not have been #1. 2) Stunt Car: It was my #2 vote. It took me a while to adapt to the good speed in order to finish as a wreck...but I went pretty far in the game (never won the whole thing though) 3) Xenon 2: Maybe pretty, maybe good music but I am an unconditional Xenon 1 fan. Sorry. It may be more simple but when it came out it was a big hit! 4) Speedball 2: I loved the #1 and the #2. I believe some wrote in the comments somewhere that #1 was better when you play with a friend and #2 was better when you play against the computer. I agree to that! 5) Secret of Monkey Island: Good game (with a good sense of humor) but surprised to see it that high in the list...
@@thejoyofsticks - Would be cool to see the final tally? How much did Dungeon Master win by? What was the spread say between 3 and 4? that type of thing. Maybe in a wrap up video or something. Just a thought.
Great work Marc. Thanks very much for putting it all together. I'm sure it took a lot of time compiling the list, capturing the footage and adding your thoughts. Hopefully there were a lot of people's favourites in there and hopefully we'll be inspired to check out some of the games that we're not so familiar with.
You are welcome, and thanks very much for watching. I've had a lot of people comment with games they've not seen or played before and have been inspired to give them a try, and even a few people digging out STs from parent's lofts or scouring eBay to get one, so that's been delightful.
You are most welcome! And thank you for your ongoing support. Plutos will always be special, regardless of its position on the list. I don't know if I should tell you this, but it only got a single vote... yours, maybe?
Almost 2 years since your last video. I don't want to pressure you to do more when you're busy but I did want to let you know that I still sometimes check your channel in case you've done something new. Thanks for all you've done over the years anyway, even if you don't have the time to come back.
2 bitmap bro games in the top 5 shows the quality of the software house. Number one I think is throughly deserved. I have also recently bought the monkey island games on steam and my daughter is loving it. Writing down the insults to use at the sword master! True gaming genius never gets old just a tad dusty. Great series thanks for making it!
The Secret of Monkey Island remaster was one of the first times it was done really, really well. I loved that you could switch between the modern and classic visuals at any time. It's a testament to how brilliant the original is that I stopped switching after about a quarter of the game and just played it in classic mode until the end! Thanks for the kind words Queeg! I've been watching Red Dwarf again on Netflix recently and watched the Queeg episode yesterday. We are talking jape of the decade. We are talking April, May, June, July & August fool. So good.
There really was only one game that deserved to be number one. It's still the only game that has made me get a system just so I could play that one game. I still play it on my laptop to this day. In terms of the whole list I am very surprised/disappointed to have seen that "Powermonger" and "Populous 2" didn't make the list at all, especially "Powermonger" which seems to have been missed/underrated by quite a few. Anyway good work as always. I'm off for a three course meal of rat drumsticks for a starters, worm rounds for mains, and a s-cream-er slice for desert. By the way it's illegal to have a party that doesn't contain Gothmog. 😉
Powermonger is still a game I need to play. It's shameful that I still haven't. And I think you are right, lots of people like me played Populous, but missed it's stablemate. I do normally pick Gothmog. And Hisssa and Wuf are my second favourites, because who doesn't want to be buds with a giant lizard and mini werewolf?
It's been great fun watching these videos, thanks for putting it all together! No surprises in this last video except perhaps Monkey Island. I love that game, but it does so much better on other platforms. The music as well as Mark Ferrari's wonderful background art has lost some of its magic here.
Yes, Secret of Monkey Island chugs along on the ST and the art suffers thanks to the lack of available colour. Still, it's brilliantly playable and if you'd never seen another version, you would think it was marvelous. And personally, I quite like the bleepy bloopy version of the music! Would I rather listen to the Roland MT32 version? Of course!
@@thejoyofsticks it was the first version I played, one of the games I had boxed for the ST. I didn't realise what I missed out on until I played the 256-color version later on, and also didn't realise how different it looked until I saw the ST version again recently :)
Thanks for doing these vids. definately revisted my childhood, glad Hunter was up the charts :-) Worthy mention, one of my favourite games for the ST was Laser Squad.. it was an obscure title which was thin on content, but me and my friends were obsessed about it. It was a turn based staegy game that was later turned into Xcom UFO Enemy Unknown.
You are most welcome! It's always great to help people relive those warm, fuzzy memories. Laser Squad was a great game! I loved these kind of strategy games. Lords of Chaos and Space Crusade were good ones on the ST too.
@@HubertCumbadale02 Possibly even better if you don't mind the setting change from scifi to fantasy. The controls have been completely refined (although possibly a bit more intimidating to start off with) and the AI is a lot better - no more cheating by standing in one spot on opportunity fire to clear the first three scenarios like in Laser Squad. I think it's actually my favourite ST game - definitely worth a shot if you liked Laser Squad.
Great series, kept us all going through lock down :) the 50 titles were pretty much as I expected. Though some quirks like Wizball which was pale in comparison to the c64 original. I’d have had Gridrunner and Great Giana Sisters (even with the flip scrolling) in my Top 50. Cheers shw/D-Bug
Thanks for the kind words, chap. Most appreciated! Yes, lots of people have said that the ST version of Wizball pales in comparison to the C64 version. Apparently, there is a bit of a bug in the ST version that prevents you from completing it unless you do it in a certain order?! And still, it was well loved enough to make the top 50! Great to hear you give Gridrunner a nod. I love Jeff's games, and Gridrunner lacks the polish of his later games, but there is that love of arcade blasters (Williams ones in particular) that just shines through as it always did in his games.
Many thanks for this series of episode. Strangely while I played most of these top 50 games, I do not know the top 1... and honestly don’t feel I would have enjoyed this kind of game as much as any other of the top’10. Anyway Thanks again
You are welcome. And thanks for watching! The voting wasn't even close. Dungeon Master got over twice as many votes as the number 2. Incredible really, but people really do love that game.
Theres appreciation for graphics, playability, sound etc and then appreciation for being the first at something. I guess? I'm surprised it's so high, personally. We played Eye of the Beholder to death in on the Ami. Its good, but far from the best Amiga game....
@@lawrencemanning I think people voted with their hearts more than anything. People vote for what they get those nostalgic warm and fuzzies for and I'm absolutely ok with that. After all, that's why I play on my ST rather than my Amiga, SNES or Megadrive... or my PS4 for that matter! :D
Those were all fantastic games! So much fun playing speedball with friends often we would stop trying to score and just turn the match into a massive brawl. Dungeon Master I've sure improved my memory no end just remembering paths mazes and the locations of items getting better and quicker every time you attempted it, bloody purple worms -_- Monkey Island was hours of entertainment learning to duel pirates with comedy insults, one of the first games I ruined by using a walkthrough guide in ST Gamer, taught me a valuable lesson to figure out things yourself and not to follow a guide!
lol Yes! That would be the same with games of NHLPA hockey on my mate's Megadrive! :D Yes! Adventure games can be frustrating, but there's very little game left to enjoy after reading the solution. I'm pretty poor at these types of games (I think my brain is wired differently to adventure game designers so I find it hard to intuit the solutions). I recently completed Beneath A Steel Sky without a walkthrough and it was a glorious feeling. I haven't done that since Lure of the Temptress (same developers), funnily enough.
I was gutted about that. Definitely a top 5 for me. It made equal 51st with Cadaver, so only just missed out. Definitely going in the 'snubs' video, that one!
Major games you have missed : - Monkey Island (adventure game with stunning graphics, sounds and story) - The guild of thieves (textual adventure game with occasional pictures, very long and fascinating) - Shufflepuck cafe - Chessmaster 2000 - Arkanoid 2 (yes it was addictive and playable) - Airball And two games that were my favorite that i have forgotten the tittle of !! Please help.. Game 1 : This is a stunningly smooth and responsive 3D world where you fly a spaceship (in 3D over a detailed ground, much more realistic than all the 3D flying games). People who have played this game will remember that the spaceship thrust was controlled by the space bar while it's 3D orientation by the mouse. Direct laws of physic apply including gravity. And one on one fights with another ship are ridiculously realistic. Your spaceship can be accelerated to ridiculous fast speed and also stopped to a hovering above ground. It puts all other 3D game to shame. Game 2 : This is a survival evolution game, the graphics were lines and the animation poor the playability very low. You started as a worm then evolved to a rabbit then to a human etc.. So why that game. The music soundtrack was fascinating, it was just really a soundtrack with a shitty game.
Thanks so much for doing this series, I even watched the last one "live". If you do a follow up, perhaps you should do the best games you think that were overlooked from the top 50.
Nice one! Sorry I missed it, but the queue for the supermarket was ridiculous and I didn't make it back in time! :D I had thought of doing a 'snubs' video. What do you think should have been in the top 50 but didn't make it?
@@thejoyofsticks Captive is the one that really stands out. If I had played Captive before Dungeon Master it might have been my favourite game. Chaos Strikes Back is better than Dungeon Master in many ways (but not in others). Ultima IV, V and VI are tremendous games. Midwinter 1 and 2 are amazing. I'm sure there's loads more. I don't want you to feel I'm being critical of the list though!
@@DaveVelociraptor Captive is a good shout. That's a great game. Love the context for that one. I've not played Chaos Strikes Back, so I'm going to have to rectify that soon. Lots of people like the Midwinter games, but I think by asking for only 5 games in the vote, it split the vote between the two. Ultima games are on my 'to complete once retired' list. I've wanted to get into them for so long, but they are quite demanding.
@@thejoyofsticks CSB is more difficult than Dungeon Master. It intentionally rips away any sense of safety and order that you can achieve in Dungeon Master. It's a little bit quicker in pace too. Monsters respawn, safe areas are few, you're starving and thirsty more often etc. But it brings the gameplay up to a brand new level. It's Dungeon Master without the comfort blankets. Ultima is a great series. I'd start at IV and go through that way, which is what I did. Ignore 8 and 9. You can look at the earlier ones as a curiosity though but I wouldn't start there. Ultima Underworld 1 and 2 are fantastic games too (them and Ultima 7 are non-ST)
@@DaveVelociraptor My heroes always starve to death in Dungeon Master, so I don't think I'd fair too well in Chaos! :D I quite like my comfort blankets! Thanks for the Ultima tip, I'll give 4 a bash. Seems like it would make a good live stream game?
Good set of games to end the list on. I love Monkey island very much although I've never completed it, unlike its sequel. Speedball 2 is superb and just such a fun game to play with friends. I find it much more enjoyable than a lot of the footie games tbh. Xenon 2 I first saw on the ST and was blown away by the intro music. I had the Amiga version which had a whole song and whilt it was technically impressive part of me prefers the dynamic loop of the ST version. Stunt Car Racer is a classic although if I am being honest it's not a game I enjoy all that much but it is highly regarded. Dungeon Master is just a classic in every sense and so many games exist now because of the success of Dungeon Master. It has been a great series and I've enjoyed the list very much :)
Speedball 2 is one of the best sports games ever, but the future sports sims are rarely considered alongside their more serious cousins. We used to load up Xenon 2 just for the music and then boot up Xenon 1 to play the game! :D Dungeon Master absolutely ran away with the voting. It got over twice the score of the number 2 game!
Dungeon Master was the most important thing besides the midi capabilities for me to buy the Atari ST instead of the Amiga, as it was not available for that system in the beginning. I actually got the similar wow feeling when I played System Shock on the PC and later Half Life. Fantastic groundbreaking games! A tip for Dungeon Master, use doors to close on the enemies, like the first mummy!
Yes! Those are the games that inspire us to make the leap into a new gaming generation. The ads (even now) are always full of technical specs, but its the games we are here for! It was Super Sprint that told me I needed an ST, Mario that told me I needed a SNES, Tetris that told me I needed a Game Boy and so on. So, I'll hold off from the current PS5 vs XBox Series X nonsense until I see a game that I can't live without. (It might be Spider-Man, let's see) There is so much in Dungeon Master that I didn't know. Your door trick for one, and someone told me you can break down wooden doors with an axe if your warrior is strong enough, or burn it with a fireball! How can a game we have been playing for decades still have secrets to learn?! :D
brilliant top 50. loved that xenon 2 and speedball 2 were in the top 5. the bitmaps really were the beatles of 16bit computer gaming.. I missed the 'ice cream' sample thou - did you get that on the ST?
No iconic 'ice cream' sample on the ST, mores the pity! But yes, regardless of what your opinion is of the games, the Bitmaps were really different and played into the 'celebrity developers' thing brilliantly.
Thx for the sum up of best 50 Atari ST games. As a person who had an Amiga back in the days but never get in touched with a computer from Atari, I was corious to see what good games the ST have to offer. Seems there is a big amount of good ones on the 16-Bit Machine from Atari, to bad there seems no games in your list, that looks interessting and did not appear on the Amiga (as the games on the Top 50 are great games but most of them exist on the Amiga). Can you make a List with the best Atari ST games that did not come out on Amiga? Or name a few exclusive ST games that are good? :)
Cannon Fodder only made it to number 77! Shocking, really. And the first Ishar made it to 95. I've always looked at Ishar from afar with respect. It's a game I need to dive into one of these days.
@@thejoyofsticks Ishar 1 was good, 2 was better, beware of 3, there is a slight glitch where if you miss one part of the puzzle you cannot go back or complete the game! But they are amazing games
I agree with you "Cannon Fodder" and "Ishar" should have been part of the top50. Ishar does not seem to be super known which is a pity because it is a GREAT game. I remember making a map on paper to make sure I was exploring the whole territory. Marc (I believe this is your first name), this is definitely a game you need to discover and play as you are an ST fanatic :-)
Great series and a worthy winner, too! I adored Dungeon Master and Stunt Car Racer, so am very happy to see them at first and second place. Wasn't a great fan of Xenon 2, never liked Speedball 2 and have never played Monkey Island in my life :) but hey!
Glad you enjoyed it, Richard! I'm with you on Xenon 2! Even playing it for a few minutes to record this footage frustrated the hell out or me. Still, I had to put that bias to bed and praise the game for the sake of the list! :D
@@thejoyofsticks Xenon 2 had some lovely touches: The way you could scroll backward. The way you could zoom down into the layer below. The smart bomb effect. Super Nashwan mode and beautiful graphics! But it was stupidly difficult to the point of frustration and too much style over substance for my liking. Also, some really poor bullet collision detection leads to lots of unfair deaths. There are much better shmups on the ST (but I know this was a fan-voted top 50, so you had no choice!)
Dungeon Master was the first game i played on my Atari ST. Although I have to say the infamous ST menu disks were my staple diet. Automation, Medway boys and of course Pompey pirates. I had both an ST and an Amiga, and before that a C64. My cherished 8 bit was the C64, but my cherished 16 bit and the one a think about and miss the most was the ST - not the Amiga. Barely give the Amiga a second thought.
Same here! They made up 99% of my games. It's funny, but I never 'dodgy download' software, movies or music these days, but back then (and for years later) I was a total pirate. When people ask me for my tuppence on the 16bit computer debate, I hold my hand up and say that I love the ST because that's the machine that I had back in the day and the one I feel the most nostalgia for. I have both STs and Amigas now, but the Amigas don't get a look-in because of that. It's fascinating to me that you had both, but only feel nostalgic to the ST. Why do you think that is?
@@thejoyofsticks Well I think it was because the ST was my introduction to the 16 bit era and it was such a leap from the 8 bits. So the anticipation and excitement of that leap to be able to play Dungeon Master and all the 16 bit greats sticks in the mind and heart. Jumping to the Amiga from ST wasn't such a leap. Only marginally better graphics in some games with better sound, but that's it. I didn't have the Amiga long before I sold it and went for the next big generational leap - PC.
I just found this video and your not wrong with this selection not sure Stuntcar would of made top 5 maybe Cadaver but as for the rest totally with DM being number 1 for sure. R-Type would maybe instead of Cadaver but they'd both be close. I used to remember Saturday mornings my mum coming in my room and turning my ST off as I'd been playing DM all night lol I still remember some of the spells mon zo gor sar I think was one I spent days just clicking on combos to see if they worked. The Baraian (I forget his name) and Gothmog were always in my team. I've just bought an STFM this is going to be the first thing I play.
Have you considered to make a video review of the most relevant pd/shareware games? Like Robotz, Seven Galaxies, Critical Mass, Prensorium... it could be great.
Thomas Ilg (of Randomazer, Frogs, Anarcho Ride fame) suggested this to me today, funnily enough. It would definitely make a great video, and you've already mentioned some I haven't played.
Wow, that truely was an epic series of videos mate and Im kind of sad its all over!! Maybe you need to make an alternative top 50?! Make peopel vote again, but not allowed to include any games from this list?? :) As for teh top 5, very nice. No real suprises there for me... Monkey Island amazing! And, my money was probs on Dungeon Master for 1st place lol. But that was a hell of a yorney. And great to see so many great games on teh ST. I just wish there was a decent way to emulate the computer with original ROMS rather than using hacked games! But I will always have them meories! Ive looked at getting my ST and STe repaired, but they cost far too much, which makes me sad :(
Well, I definitely want to do a 'snubs' video of games that people feel should have been on the list that aren't, and then maybe a 'hidden gems' video of games that flew under the radar but are actually rather brilliant. Yes, Dungeon Master stormed the voting and got twice as many points as the number 2 game. There is a way to play the originals! Have you heard of the Pasti preservation project? If you go to Atarimania, the disk images they have available are special rips of the original disks. They are pristine and as the game should be. ST prices are bloody ridiculous at the moment. I'm dreading the day when my ST goes and I can't repair it. I'm thinking about getting a MiST or something FPGA based to future proof myself.
@@thejoyofsticks I had not heard about Pasti... wow thanks. Im struggling to get teh games to work though. Will need to read up a bit on this. But thanks for the heads up mate.
I came Sooooo close to buying an Atari 520STFM in 1990 but opted for the Amiga 500 instead. Great times👍 Btw - you can certainly see a slightly higher frame rate on the ST version of Stunt Car over the Amiga version.
I was always skeptical about that! But I guess 8mhz/7.16mhz is a significant difference. It would be interesting to line them up right next to each other so you could do a direct comparison.
@@thejoyofsticks Oh it certainly makes a difference. *For Example:* on the Amiga when you come into a corner on the first track it jerks somewhat hitting that turn. The ST version smooths it out that bit more to make it more playable. I used to play the game all the time on the Amiga so the comparison is there. I can't test it on my current Amiga setup because it's an Amiga 1200 with a 50mhz accelerator but I do remember my Amiga 500 gaming days well 👍 Maybe though the Amiga version doesn't take advantage of extra CPU power, I'll test it to see if it doesn't. If it doesn't I'll make a video about it 😎
Was never going to end any other way, was it? Heh. I still haven't ever played Dungeon Master, to my shame. I didn't really "get" RPGs when I was playing on the ST even though I'm a big fan now. Will have to make some time for it, for sure.
".......and at number one we have Emlyn Hu........" wait, what?! Haha Perhaps that one will pitch up on a top 50 of underrated ST games, eh?! Good job Marc, a very fine top 5 and a well thought out top 50 which I very much enjoyed watching. Any plans to do some more live streams?
Oh... I must have miscounted. Right, scrap the lot, let's start again. I want to do some 'genre rundown' videos soon, and a football one will be high on my list of priorities. I'll definitely be including Emlyn Hughes on that. Did you have any other footy favourites?
@@thejoyofsticks Other than the ones you mentioned (can't remember if Championship Manager got a look in on these vids....surely did?!).....i'd say Premier Manager, definitely. Love that game, still plays really well and better than the sequel in my book. Also check out European Champions - it's essentially Emlyn Hughes 2. I remember a budget game called 1st Divison Manager by Codemasters....it's rubbish but my one abiding memory is quite literally never been able to win away from home! Could never work out why, best I ever got was a few draws but for whatever reason winning away was seemingly impossible. Oh and Manchester United Europe - I know, believe me I didn't want to type that out either!.....not a great game, inferior to the Amiga due to it's snail-like movement BUT nostalgic, i'll give it that.
Don't shoot the messenger! These are the games everyone voted for. My top 5 looks a little different (and changes depending what day you ask me!) 5 - Championship Manager 93 4 - Frontier: Elite 2 3 - Super Sprint 2 - Bubble Bobble 1 - IK+
@@thejoyofsticks Haha I know the feeling, depends on your mood and what you're nostalgic for at the time! Today I think mine is: 1/ Pirates! 2/ Populous 3/ Kick Off 2 4/ Rainbow Islands 5/ Millennium 2.2 But another day it could be different, maybe Speedball 2 for Kick Off 2, maybe Dungeon Master on Frontier, maybe Midwinter, perhaps Obsession...
A great collection there but how could it not be.. To be fair quite a few of the others in that list could have easily made it into the top 5 as could some other titles, we grew up in an amazing gaming era everyone and I wouldn't change it for anything 😊
Yes! None of my personal top 5 were in the actual top 5! :D And one of them (Championship Manager) didn't even appear in the Top 50 at all. You are so right! It was a priveledge to be around and watch this newborn medium grow into what it is today. Just phenomenal.
Thanks for your efforts putting this together, personal preferences aside, if I was to be totally objective... this would be pretty much the top five for the ST - they are all astoundingly good games. I never got into Monkey Island too much myself as I never really got the humour, always seemed to be a bit like my dad pulling out his best one liners, but now I'm an ancient crusty myself (and my jokes are probably distinctly daddish) I should probably give it another try. Speedball 2, I must admit, was a tad better on the Amiga and Megadrive (the plinky sounds of soundchip during gameplay always felt a bit of a let down compared to the bass heavy rumbles on those machines), but it is still an awesome game on the ST. Xenon 2 - this game is hard if you try and play without autofire, I only managed level 4 without it. Get a autofire that works well with it (recommend the Python 1m or the AM Action pad - the latter is like having a beam laser at your disposal) and you can stop worrying about the slightly iffy collision detection of your bullets and worry more about the placement of your ship and collecting as much cash as you can - which is the key to beating the game. With autofire I also got to level 4, but this time on the second loop of the game. Stunt car racer and DM... nough said. They are absolutely world class.
Personally, I hate Xenon 2 quite vehemently, but even I can put my bias aside and see its merits, see why people love it so. And my autofire wasn't working with the game for some reason, so I had to play it without and it was hellish. I kept having to switch hands to get a faster rate of fire! :\ Ha! I love that summary of Monkey Island... just one long dad joke! :D I'm not one for comparing the ST versions of games to the Amiga (because let's face it, most were superior on that machine) but judging the ST game on its own merits, how enjoyable it was at the time etc.
@@thejoyofsticks I think it's simply wrong to say that most Amiga games were superior. For the majority of the STs active life the two machines got identical games - although at the start the ST games were better and towards the end there were some really incredible Amiga games. But for the most part games were made for both platforms at the same time and there was little difference between them. ST CPU runs faster and colours are more vibrant. Amiga has hardware assistance and better sound, more colours etc. But for the most part games didn't leverage this much, and the actual game experience is not different.
@@thejoyofsticks Outrageous! ;) I would probably agree with that on the horizontal scrolling games, but for everything else I would say it is about even, and more depends on whether you like chip tunes or low fi samples. I think Speedball 2 stands up pretty well on the ST, certainly the gameplay and graphics are up there with the Amiga version. Just a bit quiet for my taste. I actually think the ST version of Xenon 2 is better on the ST than the Amiga, the Amiga has a better frame rate, but the sound track grates through repetition (it's a short loop, which sounds better for a bit...) and the SFX is so low res it sounds really muffled. Anyway.. avoiding the tedious ST vs Amiga debate... ;)
@@DaveVelociraptor Loving your defence of the ST, Velociraptor! The games that were identical or better on the ST tended to be the ones that were coded on the ST first and then ported. It wasn't long (bearing in mind I got my ST quite late for Christmas 1990) before Amiga became the target platform, using the hardware scrolling and sprites, and then the ST would get a shoddy port where the programmers didn't have the time or expertise to get them scrolling smoothly. That being said, there are exceptions, and many of those appear highly on this list. A big example for me was Wolfchild. I got the demo (on The One cover disk, I think) and loved it. But as soon as I saw how it ran on an Amiga, it soured it for me and I never bought the full game. I don't mean this as a slight to the ST. It's my favourite computer/games machine by a country mile after all, but I do try to have a realistic and objective view of its place in the history of video games.
@@welliben Now there's a cracking point! The Amiga soundchip is arguably better, from a technical standpoint, but those square waves that the AY/YM chips generate are just gorgeous. And, I think, they have aged better than low quality synth sounds of other so called superior chips from around that time. lol YES! The Amiga vs ST debate rages on and always will! :D
Thinking about it, a chart run down before the video start might have been an idea (with full 80s top of the pops cheesey DJ voice of course) - I couldn't remember what had been in there already. However, good excuse to watch some of the other videos again.
I did think about doing something like this, but then the effort it would need put me off! :D Also, I don't think Led Zeppelin would have allowed me to use Whole Lotta Love, rendering the whole thing pointless!
Well, Xenon 2 made it! The other two are class games, but didn't sell bucket loads, so you might consider them 'hidden gems'. I'm not sure whether to do a 'Top 50: The Snubs' video next, or a 'hidden gems' video next. There is quite an overlap there, so I probably can't do both.
@@thejoyofsticks You could split it between two videos. Games that viewers feel should have made it - Snubs. And games that you feel should have made it - Hidden Gems.
Loved Nitro! Massively underrated game, and I think much better than Sprint and Super Cars 1/2. @The Joy of Sticks would love to see a Snubs/hidden gems video! Along with Nitro, I'd also put Ranarama, Buggy Boy and Onslaught (off the top of my head).
@@superdrsysy Good suggestions! And Buggy Boy is one close to my heart. I love that game, and it was one of the first games I played on the ST. And for about an hour or so, Ranarama was the only full game I had for my own ST!
The difference between the first Monkey Island and the rest is that for some reason with the first game you felt like you were an aspiring pirate, you were in an open world free to do what you pleased. Even though of course that was never the case. Great game indeed on all systems. I never liked Xenon 2 that much, everyone raved about it, but for me it was just meh. I can't pin point the reason now. But gameplay wise, if not graphics, I always preferred Plutos. Something which confused the hell out of anyone who heard me say that. Heh. Don't get me wrong, I can see why people like it. Stunt Car Racer, yep, love it. Dungeon Master. Another game I know many people love, but it was never but a meh experience to me. To be fair I never played much of it, I don't remember how much, but the real time combat and the lack of in game map just ruined it for me. Don't get me wrong, I admire the game, but it never reached the awesomeness that was to me Phantasie III: The Wrath of Nikademus . Thanks for another great video and thank you to all who voted for the games.
That is the key, isn't it? Threepwood is a complete loser and you love him for it. Well, you are not alone on Xenon 2. That game chafes me in places that should be left well alone. I hope I managed to put that bias aside enough to give it a good reception in the list, but it wasn't easy! :D Plutos! Yes! Wait... is it too late to replace Xenon 2 with that? No one would notice, right? Phantasie III is one of those games that pops up in conversation from time to time (I think it was even in the last Top 50 in 2008) and I keep meaning to give it a really good go... maybe when I retire? :D Thanks for the kind words, Trusty!
It was a great series worth waiting a week for the next line-up! A well deserved No. 1! Stunt Car Racer? I wouldn't expected this game on 2, but still great. Xenon 2, yess! I knew (hoped ^^) that this will make it into the Top-5. 👍😁 If you got an STE with fast SD-card drive, like Ultrasatan etc., I really recommend this version here, with original Soundtrack in the intro and ingame: czcams.com/video/odCv-2Om2vY/video.html 😎
I was really surprised by how high Stunt Car Racer got too. It's a great game and I love it, but I didn't realise just how well thought of amongst other ST fans it was. I really struggle with Xenon 2. I find it so frustrating to play. Definitely an unpopular opinion of mine that one! :D Thanks for the tip about the STE version. Next time I pluck up the courage to give it a go, I'll use that one.
Here it is!!!! Now we need to get 100 to 50 count down! That X2 Rube Goldberg ship with all the ordinance gives R-Type a run for its money! It's a pity that the Amiga version of these games is always remembered and talked about as the ST versions were all first, and when you go back to the original magazines, they all were given top scores well before the Amiga version was ever a glint in the eye of the Atari 800's little brother's gamer's eyes. - especially Stunt Car Racer! It's amazingly sad that the SSI never released their Eye of the Beholder series on the ST as they were mere rip offs of Dungeon Master. When we had this in 1987, we jusr laughed at the NES gamers and their 8bit Zelda games. I get the appeal of those now, but DM was the SH@T (in a great way) and there was NOTHING that could make us want to play any more 8-bit games after FTL's masterpiece. It's sad that the ST is still rarely talked about (except among us nutters) as it ran circles around those 8bit systems.
lol I think I've done enough countdown lists for a little while! :D I know what you mean about the Amiga thing. It's the cross we bear as ST owners. The games we loved are constantly compared to their Amiga counterparts and people often think "Why do you even bother with the ST when the games are better on the Amiga?" Well, the real question is "Why do you even bother with old machines when the new ones are so much better?" And the answer to both is the same. It's what we grew up with, it's what we are nostalgic about, it's what we love. I do find the fact that there are people out there who will still argue about which decades old computer is the most obsolete quite hilarious. You've got to find joy wherever you can these days.
Stunt car racer... got to admit I hated this game because i couldn't complete the first race... or even lap. Surprised xenon beat xenon 2 tbh. Ofc speedball2 and dungeon master... note if you actually return the firestaff to lord lysandus he fireballs you (so much for being good)
It does take a bit of getting used to, that's for sure. I cunningly edited out the parts from later tracks where I zoomed off into thin air repeatedly! :D I didn't know that about Librasulus because I always starve to death around floor 5. :(
@@thejoyofsticks The purple worms level? My brother's party did the same, died of thirst. That was because he insisted of fighting monsters head on, taking loads of damage and sleeping all the time.
Awesome run down Marc! Loved it! Yes! Bitmaps were the best....Xenon II was so hard. Did anyone complete it without cheats?!?! ....maybe I should plug my remix czcams.com/video/wLymNOk4oo8/video.html
Ha! I'd forgotten about that! Great tune, and loved the trippy music vid you made. I hate to admit it, but when capturing this footage, I couldn't even get off the first stage. I blame my autofire for not working. :(
Not sure about the ST version but the Amiga version wasn't all that hard to complete. Both versions it seems though were literally identical and awesome 👍👍
Xenon II was very difficult to play. I have difficulties to think it was voted #3...and even more difficulties about not having the original Xenon within the top50...Shocking!
This countdown series is the best collection of game reviews I have ever seen; period. The dialog was well-written and delivered. The gameplay footage was representative of the source titles and synchronized with the narration. The host is energetic and cheerful in a way that is positively infectious. I had a big goofy smile on my face every time he showed his own. Honestly, this is the prototype for game review that every CZcamsr should be using to up their own games.
Wow, Daniel! High praise indeed. Thank you very much. *blush
I agree with you 100%
This was a brilliantly polished countdown and I just want to say thank you for putting this all together. It was my absolute pleasure to watch this and reminisce with everybody. Dungeon Master #1! That is all!
Thank you very much. That really means a lot, and I'm happy you enjoyed it!
As soon as the music started for Xenon 2, I got goosebumps and new what it was. Hadn’t heard it for all this time. And Speedball, memories came back of going to my friend’s house after school and playing it.
Ha ha! That's brilliant! I love the thought of my videos bringing back warm and fuzzy memories for people. Thanks for watching!
Great series of videos, thanks for taking the time to do them. Re Dungeon Master, it was so immersive because you really felt you were there in that dungeon. No extraneous descriptive text or distractions to break the illusion and you could do whatever you wanted within that world with the objects in the dungeon. I loved that you could break down a solid wooden door only with a character with an axe and enough experience to have the "chop" skill, burn it down with a torch or fire spell, or choose to find another way round. It was that kind of free choice that made it a true RPG.
You are most welcome, Mark! Thanks for watching. I didn't know that about chopping down or burning wooden doors! I've been playing this game for decades, and there are still new things to learn. Unbelievable!
Legendary game. Chaos Strikes Back too.
Wow, just wow. Thank you for all your well invested effort. DM deserved to win and thats what I put as no 1 too. Looking forward too other stuff on your channel. What a guy!
Thanks, Christian. Your kind words are most appreciated. Dungeon Master absolutely ran away with the voting. It got over double the points score of the following game!
Last hour waiting for last video! Finally here it comes the top 5!
I'm happy your list included RPG and Adventure games. Back then they were super popular but in retro circles people tend to focus on platformers.
There's a very US centric approach to some retro gaming circles. It's all about the NES and that, but in reality, round my way, everyone had Spectrums and C64s in that era. Computers just had a broader range of gaming experiences to enjoy and we were all the better off for it.
Great list. I definitely agree with number 1 and was pleased to see Llamatron too. The only ones I would have squeezed in were Ishar 1&2, Lure Of The Temptress and the underrated Killing Game Show. That last one was so intense. Trying to get your character up to safety in a time limit as a deadly substance started to rise up beneath you.
Good stuff. Happy days.
I used my ST mainly for music though. It was an incredible machine for MIDI recording. Notator was a stunning piece of software and its still around today albeit under the brand Logic.
Glad you enjoyed it! Always great to have another Llamatron enjoyer on board!
This list was voted for by ST fans, so I couldn't squeeze in any games, but your selections are great choices. I've wanted to seriously get into a playthrough of Ishar for years. Lure of the Temptress was the first point and click adventure I ever completed. Thanks for watching!
epic series! This was just as exciting as watching gamesmaster in the 90s, excellent job
Wow! High praise indeed! Now I just need to spray paint one of my Zipsticks gold!
Speaking of Megablast, Bomb the Bass released a remix a few years ago called Mega Dis. I highly recommend it.
Ooh! I haven't heard that. Thanks for the tip. I did get the recent vinyl reissue of Into The Dragon, though. What a great album!
What a great final five! I'm personally happy that 4 of my top 5 games made it to the top 50 list: Oids, Super Sprint, Falcon and Xenon II. One thing I've realized the past few years is how many great games came out for the ST after I had already moved on to PCs as my primary platform around 1989/1990. I need to go back and start playing some of these games that came out later in the life of the ST!
Yes! They are considered the twilight years of the ST, and are characterised by Amiga becoming the target platform and the ST ports not really getting the attention and resources they needed at times, but there are still some absolutely great games in that era. Let me know if you discover any gems you missed out on!
Thanks a lot Marc! Amazing series. Now let's go with the 50 worst! ;-)
You are most welcome, Maarten! What would be on your worst list?
@@thejoyofsticks Human Killing Machine and Street Fighter !
I've already said it but I'll say it again for this final video: you did a wonderful job throughout this top 50 ST games. Sooo well presented (even about games that you actually don't like much e.g. Xenon II (and I'm with you on this haha)) and, as always, with your legendary positive vibe that could bring world peace.
This was a real pleasure to watch (aside from the absence of Maupiti Island...) and is valuable content either for long-time ST owners or for newcomers to the system.
Well done mate.
Your positive comments are golden. More valuable to me than you could know. Thank you so much.
@@thejoyofsticks C'mon 😚 🍻
Also, if that sounds right to you, we should follow each other to share the ST love among other things. I think that I saw your twitter account a few times but it's under a different name than here, what was it again?
Oh and, I forgot to tell you: I finally managed to get a copy of that rather hard to find compilation that I told you about once, "ST Action Vol.I". It was the compilation that my brother and I got back then alongside our 520 STf and it was pure joy to find this neat package of games again 🤗
Link up on Stunt Car Racer was amazing fun. I soldered up the simplest possible 3 pin cable with some phone cable and we had the machines in different rooms to add to the tension. Great fun! Never understood why it was never updated for modern machines.
That's amazing! It must have been so much more tense racing against a real person! The game feels like it's on a knife edge all the time anyway, thanks to the brilliant physics engine, I can't imagine two equally matched people going head to head. It must have been unbearable! :D
Thanks so much Stickhead, I'm sorry I missed the premiere again :( No major surprise in the top 5 as we weer going along all knowing which unavoidable great games had not been picked. Except maybe for Monkey Island for me, as I did not play it on the ST, but definitely a worthy Top 5, even though it's not my top 5. So... FTL and Goeff Crammond both have 3 games in the Top 10, and Bitmap Brothers 2 in the top 5. That's fair even though I would not have picked these Bitmap Brothers games. Overall the ranking seem to me like most people made their choices with a mix of nostalgia driven choices and more adult aftherthought in hindsight. I surely did struggle a lot between these 2 tendencies. This was an amazing series, and you have been a great host all along. You have gifted us with a huge contribution to the ST gaming collective mind while keeping us entertained during the lock down. Thanks and bravo!
You are most welcome! And thank you for your support throughout. It's really helped spur me on to complete the list.
None of my top 5 made this top 5 either! And one of my top 5 didn't even make the Top 50! (Championship Manager)
I'm with you on at least one of the Bitmap Brothers games. I find Xenon 2 quite unpalatable. It really frustrated me even to play it for a few minutes to get the footage for this list! :D If it had been just my opinion, I would have used the opportunity to tear a strip off the game and everyone who voted for it! :D Luckily, I found the strength of will to overcome my bias and give the game its due.
I think you are right that nostalgia was a big driving force for people's votes, and I wouldn't have it any other way. That's what keeps me going with the ST more than anything.
Great series. I was genuinely looking forward to this one! Thanks for putting this together. Such a fun time!
I hated Monkey Island. All that tramping back and forth was tedious beyond enduring. I finished it, but it was a trial.
Speedball 2. Another twitch game that was utterly beyond me. I never could react fast enough to win more than one game in a row.
Xenon. Sigh. I knew it would be here somewhere, but jeezo what a boring game. I never saw the point of shmups. It was a case of rote learning the waves, and it was probably even worse than Monkey Island for repetitive mindlessness.
Stunt Car Racer! Yay! One of my all time favs. I hoped it would be here. Everything you said was spot on. The drama of some of the bigger tracks was unbelievably visceral at the time. Real stomach churning stuff. I loved this one.
Dungeon Master! This had to be number one. Nothing else matched it. Sadly, I had one of the Atari STe models that had a drive that could not read the disc. So, I never got to play my copy, but a friend would bring his Atari around, and I put it through my digital reverb unit (I was in a band!), and all the sound effects reverberated as if we were inside the dungeon! Amazing game.
You are most welcome. Thank you for the kind words!
I tried to be exclusively positive during the list, as it was a celebration of what everyone thought were the best ST games. It wouldn't sit right for the loads of people who voted Xenon 2 to tune in to see me tear a strip off their favourite game, but that game seriously rubs me up the wrong way. I like shmups, but that one is just naff. Again, positive only, so I didn't mention that Monkey Island really chugs on the ST. It works much better playing it on SCUMMVM these days. And you get those gorgeous 256 colour portraits too.
I wouldn't pick those two games as my own personal 1 and 2, but I have no qualms with saying they deserve to be at the top of the list. Great games. Love what you said about adding reverb to the sound effects! That's incredible. I've got a reverb pedal here for my guitar... maybe I could do something similar! :D
A worthy top 5! And a fantastic series. Thank you for the enormous amount of effort it clearly took.
You are welcome buddy! Thanks for the support throughout!
Thanks for this series Stickhead 🙂 Been great lockdown watching
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching!
I used to play this in multiplayer with my Null Modem cable! Very fun, and some games could be played in split screen 4 player too:-) Worth the investment. (still got it)
Brilliant! I would love to recreate that with my old ST buddy next time he's in town.
How exciting to see the list getting wrapped up! I wasn't far off last week :)
Stunt Car Racer feels like it's one that that became more popular over time and wasn't AS celebrated in the ST's heyday. I actually talked to Bill Stealey earlier this week about the game and what happened to Geoff Crammond and he immediately came back saying he should get ahold of him and that he should do another game like some of the other programmers from back in the day that he's talked to recently. Stunt Car Racer sequel, please! The ST as a release platform is probably too much to ask for ;)
Thanks again for doing these! The nostalgia is wonderful, but they're all been well produced as well and your commentary is always great to listen to. Never knew many ST owners back in the day - yay for the internet.
Another good list idea could be 'guilty pleasures' - ones that you enjoyed back in the day but you know they're not actually all that good. I bet people could submit a few good suggestions there. Or look and see which genres are under-represented in the top 50 and do a top 5/10 for those.
You certainly were very close! I'm wondering if it had something to do with Retro Asylum covering Stunt Car Racer recently that bumped this already brilliant game up and made it just that bit more visible recently. A Stunt Car Racer sequel would be phenomenal, but how would you have it done? Using all the extra physics and technology that's been developed since and make a 'spiritual sequel' or more like a 'sequel that might have been' that is using the same type of physics engine?
'Guilty pleasures' is a great idea for a video! My own is Double Dragon on the ST. I know it's terrible: terrible animation, sound effects, controls, pixel art, and it's as repetitive as anything, but when I play it, I get this huge, sloppy grin.
I'd imagine it would be something like Stunt Car Racer meets Trackmania - I could live with that :)
As for guilty pleasures, plenty come to mind. I was always fascinated with Space Ace for the graphics. and Enduro Racer, Beyond the Ice Palace, Palace's Barbarian, Impressions' Striker, Metro Cross, Bolo, Bubble Ghost, Ironman Super Off-Road, Atomic Robo-Kid, Midnight Resistance, Prehistorik and Saint Dragon all come to mind as games no one will ever put in a top 10 but that I enjoyed quite a bit. I'm sure I could come up with many more if I dug through my old boxes of games.
One title I did find excellent was James Pond II: Robocod - did that not get any votes?
Great work, thanks for taking the time to make these videos. I agree with a lot of the choices, and feel we needed something like this for the ST games
Thanks, buddy! That's nice to hear, and I'm glad you enjoyed them.
What an amazing video once again. Although the results were predictable, these top five games are worthy of praise. Speedball 2 aside, can't complain!
Thanks, Bob! They are predictable to us, maybe, but there are people out there who don't know the ST and will want to know what the best games are, so hopefully this list will be helpful to them.
Fantastic series, thanks for making it
You are most welcome!
Very good job, the series is nicely made and interesting to watch! Thank you!
That's lovely to hear. Thanks, Lucio!
After all that waiting I never got to watch this yesterday !! So let's leave this running while I work .... Great series bud 👍🏻
Thanks Steve!
Excellent stuff , great list 👍👍
Thank you. And thanks for watching!
Fantastic and entertaining series. Your passion for the Atari is contagious! I did not watch the final series live but just FYI, I was wearing my Atari t-shirt (gift from my wife) when I watched the final installment. It was like watching the finale of GOT for me lollll.
Here is my feedback about the final Top5
1) DM: It was my #1 vote. I would have been (a bit) upset if DM would not have been #1.
2) Stunt Car: It was my #2 vote. It took me a while to adapt to the good speed in order to finish as a wreck...but I went pretty far in the game (never won the whole thing though)
3) Xenon 2: Maybe pretty, maybe good music but I am an unconditional Xenon 1 fan. Sorry. It may be more simple but when it came out it was a big hit!
4) Speedball 2: I loved the #1 and the #2. I believe some wrote in the comments somewhere that #1 was better when you play with a friend and #2 was better when you play against the computer. I agree to that!
5) Secret of Monkey Island: Good game (with a good sense of humor) but surprised to see it that high in the list...
Aw thanks, bab! I love that you wore that T. Great stuff.
And I love to hear your Xenon views, too. Great to know I'm not alone on that! :D
Loved this whole series, we'll done and Thank you!
You are most welcome. Thanks for watching!
@@thejoyofsticks - Would be cool to see the final tally? How much did Dungeon Master win by? What was the spread say between 3 and 4? that type of thing. Maybe in a wrap up video or something. Just a thought.
Great work Marc. Thanks very much for putting it all together. I'm sure it took a lot of time compiling the list, capturing the footage and adding your thoughts. Hopefully there were a lot of people's favourites in there and hopefully we'll be inspired to check out some of the games that we're not so familiar with.
You are welcome, and thanks very much for watching. I've had a lot of people comment with games they've not seen or played before and have been inspired to give them a try, and even a few people digging out STs from parent's lofts or scouring eBay to get one, so that's been delightful.
This has been great, I'd love these to continue. Best top down racers please!!
I might do some genre rundown style videos soon. They would have to be my own opinion, though. It takes a lot of work to get those votes collated! :D
Plutos still winner in my heart :) ! Thanks for the weekly videos Stick, its been a blast!
You are most welcome! And thank you for your ongoing support. Plutos will always be special, regardless of its position on the list. I don't know if I should tell you this, but it only got a single vote... yours, maybe?
@@thejoyofsticks Im sure :)
Almost 2 years since your last video. I don't want to pressure you to do more when you're busy but I did want to let you know that I still sometimes check your channel in case you've done something new. Thanks for all you've done over the years anyway, even if you don't have the time to come back.
2 bitmap bro games in the top 5 shows the quality of the software house. Number one I think is throughly deserved. I have also recently bought the monkey island games on steam and my daughter is loving it. Writing down the insults to use at the sword master! True gaming genius never gets old just a tad dusty. Great series thanks for making it!
The Secret of Monkey Island remaster was one of the first times it was done really, really well. I loved that you could switch between the modern and classic visuals at any time. It's a testament to how brilliant the original is that I stopped switching after about a quarter of the game and just played it in classic mode until the end! Thanks for the kind words Queeg! I've been watching Red Dwarf again on Netflix recently and watched the Queeg episode yesterday. We are talking jape of the decade. We are talking April, May, June, July & August fool. So good.
The Joy of Sticks haha! Not many people get the reference! I love Red Dwarf!! (Just in case you didn’t get it hehe) looking forward to the next video.
Great series. Thank you.
You are welcome, Andrew. Thanks for watching!
All these games remind me of the good times I had with my brothers when we were kids...
That is music to my ears! It's great to be able to help people relive those warm, fuzzy memories.
There really was only one game that deserved to be number one. It's still the only game that has made me get a system just so I could play that one game. I still play it on my laptop to this day. In terms of the whole list I am very surprised/disappointed to have seen that "Powermonger" and "Populous 2" didn't make the list at all, especially "Powermonger" which seems to have been missed/underrated by quite a few. Anyway good work as always. I'm off for a three course meal of rat drumsticks for a starters, worm rounds for mains, and a s-cream-er slice for desert. By the way it's illegal to have a party that doesn't contain Gothmog. 😉
Powermonger was brilliant. Finished about 75% of the Amiga version but couldn't go further ☹
Powermonger is still a game I need to play. It's shameful that I still haven't. And I think you are right, lots of people like me played Populous, but missed it's stablemate.
I do normally pick Gothmog. And Hisssa and Wuf are my second favourites, because who doesn't want to be buds with a giant lizard and mini werewolf?
It's been great fun watching these videos, thanks for putting it all together! No surprises in this last video except perhaps Monkey Island. I love that game, but it does so much better on other platforms. The music as well as Mark Ferrari's wonderful background art has lost some of its magic here.
Yes, Secret of Monkey Island chugs along on the ST and the art suffers thanks to the lack of available colour. Still, it's brilliantly playable and if you'd never seen another version, you would think it was marvelous. And personally, I quite like the bleepy bloopy version of the music! Would I rather listen to the Roland MT32 version? Of course!
@@thejoyofsticks it was the first version I played, one of the games I had boxed for the ST. I didn't realise what I missed out on until I played the 256-color version later on, and also didn't realise how different it looked until I saw the ST version again recently :)
@@gaspop_ I love the pixel art renderings of those pirates in the Scumm Bar especially. Just brilliantly drawn.
@@thejoyofsticks that's one thing I like better about the ST version actually. The portraits look so out of place on the 256-color version.
Thanks for doing these vids. definately revisted my childhood, glad Hunter was up the charts :-) Worthy mention, one of my favourite games for the ST was Laser Squad.. it was an obscure title which was thin on content, but me and my friends were obsessed about it. It was a turn based staegy game that was later turned into Xcom UFO Enemy Unknown.
I voted for Laser Squad also - glad to know I wasn't the only one. Did you play Lords of Chaos, the 'sequel'?
You are most welcome! It's always great to help people relive those warm, fuzzy memories. Laser Squad was a great game! I loved these kind of strategy games. Lords of Chaos and Space Crusade were good ones on the ST too.
@@welliben Lords of Chaos is my favourite Julian Gollop game. Absolutely fantastic.
@@welliben No never got the chance, anygood?
@@HubertCumbadale02 Possibly even better if you don't mind the setting change from scifi to fantasy. The controls have been completely refined (although possibly a bit more intimidating to start off with) and the AI is a lot better - no more cheating by standing in one spot on opportunity fire to clear the first three scenarios like in Laser Squad. I think it's actually my favourite ST game - definitely worth a shot if you liked Laser Squad.
Great series, kept us all going through lock down :) the 50 titles were pretty much as I expected. Though some quirks like Wizball which was pale in comparison to the c64 original. I’d have had Gridrunner and Great Giana Sisters (even with the flip scrolling) in my Top 50. Cheers shw/D-Bug
Thanks for the kind words, chap. Most appreciated! Yes, lots of people have said that the ST version of Wizball pales in comparison to the C64 version. Apparently, there is a bit of a bug in the ST version that prevents you from completing it unless you do it in a certain order?! And still, it was well loved enough to make the top 50! Great to hear you give Gridrunner a nod. I love Jeff's games, and Gridrunner lacks the polish of his later games, but there is that love of arcade blasters (Williams ones in particular) that just shines through as it always did in his games.
amazing video
Thanks, Brett!
Many thanks for this series of episode. Strangely while I played most of these top 50 games, I do not know the top 1... and honestly don’t feel I would have enjoyed this kind of game as much as any other of the top’10. Anyway Thanks again
You are welcome. And thanks for watching! The voting wasn't even close. Dungeon Master got over twice as many votes as the number 2. Incredible really, but people really do love that game.
Theres appreciation for graphics, playability, sound etc and then appreciation for being the first at something. I guess? I'm surprised it's so high, personally. We played Eye of the Beholder to death in on the Ami. Its good, but far from the best Amiga game....
@@lawrencemanning I think people voted with their hearts more than anything. People vote for what they get those nostalgic warm and fuzzies for and I'm absolutely ok with that. After all, that's why I play on my ST rather than my Amiga, SNES or Megadrive... or my PS4 for that matter! :D
Those were all fantastic games! So much fun playing speedball with friends often we would stop trying to score and just turn the match into a massive brawl.
Dungeon Master I've sure improved my memory no end just remembering paths mazes and the locations of items getting better and quicker every time you attempted it, bloody purple worms -_-
Monkey Island was hours of entertainment learning to duel pirates with comedy insults, one of the first games I ruined by using a walkthrough guide in ST Gamer, taught me a valuable lesson to figure out things yourself and not to follow a guide!
Also thanks very much for taking your time to make the series, its been a a great way to get Sunday afternoon started :)
lol Yes! That would be the same with games of NHLPA hockey on my mate's Megadrive! :D
Yes! Adventure games can be frustrating, but there's very little game left to enjoy after reading the solution. I'm pretty poor at these types of games (I think my brain is wired differently to adventure game designers so I find it hard to intuit the solutions). I recently completed Beneath A Steel Sky without a walkthrough and it was a glorious feeling. I haven't done that since Lure of the Temptress (same developers), funnily enough.
Loved Monkey Island, for us it was a fun way of learning english 🙂
Brilliant! I bet the insult sword fighting was particularly fun to learn! :D
Another great video Marc 😀👍 Even if Championship Manager didn't make it! 😔
I was gutted about that. Definitely a top 5 for me. It made equal 51st with Cadaver, so only just missed out. Definitely going in the 'snubs' video, that one!
@@thejoyofsticks Perhaps people didn't think about it as you still haven't done part 2 of your guide 😜😜🤣🤣
@@danjclark1975 Oh no! It's all my fault! D:
Very nice series. Enjoyed seeing what the ST had to offe, as an old Amiga fanboy.
If the Amiga fanboys are enjoying the videos, I must be doing something right! :D Thanks for the kind words, Hannibal!
Major games you have missed :
- Monkey Island (adventure game with stunning graphics, sounds and story)
- The guild of thieves (textual adventure game with occasional pictures, very long and fascinating)
- Shufflepuck cafe
- Chessmaster 2000
- Arkanoid 2 (yes it was addictive and playable)
- Airball
And two games that were my favorite that i have forgotten the tittle of !! Please help..
Game 1 : This is a stunningly smooth and responsive 3D world where you fly a spaceship (in 3D over a detailed ground, much more realistic than all the 3D flying games).
People who have played this game will remember that the spaceship thrust was controlled by the space bar while it's 3D orientation by the mouse. Direct laws of physic apply including gravity. And one on one fights with another ship are ridiculously realistic. Your spaceship can be accelerated to ridiculous fast speed and also stopped to a hovering above ground. It puts all other 3D game to shame.
Game 2 : This is a survival evolution game, the graphics were lines and the animation poor the playability very low. You started as a worm then evolved to a rabbit then to a human etc.. So why that game. The music soundtrack was fascinating, it was just really a soundtrack with a shitty game.
The 3d game sounds like Virus.
Thanks so much for doing this series, I even watched the last one "live".
If you do a follow up, perhaps you should do the best games you think that were overlooked from the top 50.
Nice one! Sorry I missed it, but the queue for the supermarket was ridiculous and I didn't make it back in time! :D I had thought of doing a 'snubs' video. What do you think should have been in the top 50 but didn't make it?
@@thejoyofsticks Captive is the one that really stands out. If I had played Captive before Dungeon Master it might have been my favourite game. Chaos Strikes Back is better than Dungeon Master in many ways (but not in others). Ultima IV, V and VI are tremendous games. Midwinter 1 and 2 are amazing. I'm sure there's loads more. I don't want you to feel I'm being critical of the list though!
@@DaveVelociraptor Captive is a good shout. That's a great game. Love the context for that one. I've not played Chaos Strikes Back, so I'm going to have to rectify that soon. Lots of people like the Midwinter games, but I think by asking for only 5 games in the vote, it split the vote between the two. Ultima games are on my 'to complete once retired' list. I've wanted to get into them for so long, but they are quite demanding.
@@thejoyofsticks CSB is more difficult than Dungeon Master. It intentionally rips away any sense of safety and order that you can achieve in Dungeon Master. It's a little bit quicker in pace too. Monsters respawn, safe areas are few, you're starving and thirsty more often etc. But it brings the gameplay up to a brand new level. It's Dungeon Master without the comfort blankets.
Ultima is a great series. I'd start at IV and go through that way, which is what I did. Ignore 8 and 9. You can look at the earlier ones as a curiosity though but I wouldn't start there. Ultima Underworld 1 and 2 are fantastic games too (them and Ultima 7 are non-ST)
@@DaveVelociraptor My heroes always starve to death in Dungeon Master, so I don't think I'd fair too well in Chaos! :D I quite like my comfort blankets!
Thanks for the Ultima tip, I'll give 4 a bash. Seems like it would make a good live stream game?
Good set of games to end the list on. I love Monkey island very much although I've never completed it, unlike its sequel.
Speedball 2 is superb and just such a fun game to play with friends. I find it much more enjoyable than a lot of the footie games tbh.
Xenon 2 I first saw on the ST and was blown away by the intro music. I had the Amiga version which had a whole song and whilt it was technically impressive part of me prefers the dynamic loop of the ST version.
Stunt Car Racer is a classic although if I am being honest it's not a game I enjoy all that much but it is highly regarded.
Dungeon Master is just a classic in every sense and so many games exist now because of the success of Dungeon Master.
It has been a great series and I've enjoyed the list very much :)
Speedball 2 is one of the best sports games ever, but the future sports sims are rarely considered alongside their more serious cousins.
We used to load up Xenon 2 just for the music and then boot up Xenon 1 to play the game! :D
Dungeon Master absolutely ran away with the voting. It got over twice the score of the number 2 game!
Dungeon Master was the most important thing besides the midi capabilities for me to buy the Atari ST instead of the Amiga, as it was not available for that system in the beginning. I actually got the similar wow feeling when I played System Shock on the PC and later Half Life. Fantastic groundbreaking games!
A tip for Dungeon Master, use doors to close on the enemies, like the first mummy!
Yes! Those are the games that inspire us to make the leap into a new gaming generation. The ads (even now) are always full of technical specs, but its the games we are here for! It was Super Sprint that told me I needed an ST, Mario that told me I needed a SNES, Tetris that told me I needed a Game Boy and so on.
So, I'll hold off from the current PS5 vs XBox Series X nonsense until I see a game that I can't live without. (It might be Spider-Man, let's see)
There is so much in Dungeon Master that I didn't know. Your door trick for one, and someone told me you can break down wooden doors with an axe if your warrior is strong enough, or burn it with a fireball! How can a game we have been playing for decades still have secrets to learn?! :D
brilliant top 50. loved that xenon 2 and speedball 2 were in the top 5. the bitmaps really were the beatles of 16bit computer gaming.. I missed the 'ice cream' sample thou - did you get that on the ST?
No iconic 'ice cream' sample on the ST, mores the pity! But yes, regardless of what your opinion is of the games, the Bitmaps were really different and played into the 'celebrity developers' thing brilliantly.
Thx for the sum up of best 50 Atari ST games. As a person who had an Amiga back in the days but never get in touched with a computer from Atari, I was corious to see what good games the ST have to offer. Seems there is a big amount of good ones on the 16-Bit Machine from Atari, to bad there seems no games in your list, that looks interessting and did not appear on the Amiga (as the games on the Top 50 are great games but most of them exist on the Amiga).
Can you make a List with the best Atari ST games that did not come out on Amiga? Or name a few exclusive ST games that are good? :)
Great list, but I am surprised that the Ishar games were not included or cannon fodder!
Cannon Fodder only made it to number 77! Shocking, really. And the first Ishar made it to 95. I've always looked at Ishar from afar with respect. It's a game I need to dive into one of these days.
@@thejoyofsticks Ishar 1 was good, 2 was better, beware of 3, there is a slight glitch where if you miss one part of the puzzle you cannot go back or complete the game! But they are amazing games
I agree with you "Cannon Fodder" and "Ishar" should have been part of the top50. Ishar does not seem to be super known which is a pity because it is a GREAT game. I remember making a map on paper to make sure I was exploring the whole territory. Marc (I believe this is your first name), this is definitely a game you need to discover and play as you are an ST fanatic :-)
Speedball that's it !! easily the best team game on the St.
2 bitmap bros games, monkey island, could have ended for me right there, it couldn't get any better, yet it did.
:D Yes! That's the thing about the ST back catalogue: It just keeps on giving!
What about: defender of crown, choas strikes back bloodwych, conflict, indy jones adventure game, deja vu, player manager, lords of chaos?
Came here to confirm #1
Great series and a worthy winner, too! I adored Dungeon Master and Stunt Car Racer, so am very happy to see them at first and second place. Wasn't a great fan of Xenon 2, never liked Speedball 2 and have never played Monkey Island in my life :) but hey!
Glad you enjoyed it, Richard! I'm with you on Xenon 2! Even playing it for a few minutes to record this footage frustrated the hell out or me. Still, I had to put that bias to bed and praise the game for the sake of the list! :D
@@thejoyofsticks Xenon 2 had some lovely touches: The way you could scroll backward. The way you could zoom down into the layer below. The smart bomb effect. Super Nashwan mode and beautiful graphics! But it was stupidly difficult to the point of frustration and too much style over substance for my liking. Also, some really poor bullet collision detection leads to lots of unfair deaths. There are much better shmups on the ST (but I know this was a fan-voted top 50, so you had no choice!)
Dungeon Master was the first game i played on my Atari ST. Although I have to say the infamous ST menu disks were my staple diet. Automation, Medway boys and of course Pompey pirates. I had both an ST and an Amiga, and before that a C64. My cherished 8 bit was the C64, but my cherished 16 bit and the one a think about and miss the most was the ST - not the Amiga. Barely give the Amiga a second thought.
Same here! They made up 99% of my games. It's funny, but I never 'dodgy download' software, movies or music these days, but back then (and for years later) I was a total pirate.
When people ask me for my tuppence on the 16bit computer debate, I hold my hand up and say that I love the ST because that's the machine that I had back in the day and the one I feel the most nostalgia for. I have both STs and Amigas now, but the Amigas don't get a look-in because of that. It's fascinating to me that you had both, but only feel nostalgic to the ST. Why do you think that is?
@@thejoyofsticks Well I think it was because the ST was my introduction to the 16 bit era and it was such a leap from the 8 bits. So the anticipation and excitement of that leap to be able to play Dungeon Master and all the 16 bit greats sticks in the mind and heart. Jumping to the Amiga from ST wasn't such a leap. Only marginally better graphics in some games with better sound, but that's it. I didn't have the Amiga long before I sold it and went for the next big generational leap - PC.
I just found this video and your not wrong with this selection not sure Stuntcar would of made top 5 maybe Cadaver but as for the rest totally with DM being number 1 for sure. R-Type would maybe instead of Cadaver but they'd both be close. I used to remember Saturday mornings my mum coming in my room and turning my ST off as I'd been playing DM all night lol I still remember some of the spells mon zo gor sar I think was one I spent days just clicking on combos to see if they worked. The Baraian (I forget his name) and Gothmog were always in my team. I've just bought an STFM this is going to be the first thing I play.
Halk and Gothmog were also always in my party.
Have you considered to make a video review of the most relevant pd/shareware games? Like Robotz, Seven Galaxies, Critical Mass, Prensorium... it could be great.
Thomas Ilg (of Randomazer, Frogs, Anarcho Ride fame) suggested this to me today, funnily enough. It would definitely make a great video, and you've already mentioned some I haven't played.
Wow, that truely was an epic series of videos mate and Im kind of sad its all over!! Maybe you need to make an alternative top 50?! Make peopel vote again, but not allowed to include any games from this list?? :)
As for teh top 5, very nice. No real suprises there for me... Monkey Island amazing! And, my money was probs on Dungeon Master for 1st place lol. But that was a hell of a yorney. And great to see so many great games on teh ST. I just wish there was a decent way to emulate the computer with original ROMS rather than using hacked games! But I will always have them meories!
Ive looked at getting my ST and STe repaired, but they cost far too much, which makes me sad :(
Well, I definitely want to do a 'snubs' video of games that people feel should have been on the list that aren't, and then maybe a 'hidden gems' video of games that flew under the radar but are actually rather brilliant.
Yes, Dungeon Master stormed the voting and got twice as many points as the number 2 game.
There is a way to play the originals! Have you heard of the Pasti preservation project? If you go to Atarimania, the disk images they have available are special rips of the original disks. They are pristine and as the game should be.
ST prices are bloody ridiculous at the moment. I'm dreading the day when my ST goes and I can't repair it. I'm thinking about getting a MiST or something FPGA based to future proof myself.
@@thejoyofsticks I had not heard about Pasti... wow thanks. Im struggling to get teh games to work though. Will need to read up a bit on this. But thanks for the heads up mate.
I came Sooooo close to buying an Atari 520STFM in 1990 but opted for the Amiga 500 instead. Great times👍
Btw - you can certainly see a slightly higher frame rate on the ST version of Stunt Car over the Amiga version.
I was always skeptical about that! But I guess 8mhz/7.16mhz is a significant difference. It would be interesting to line them up right next to each other so you could do a direct comparison.
@@thejoyofsticks
Oh it certainly makes a difference. *For Example:* on the Amiga when you come into a corner on the first track it jerks somewhat hitting that turn. The ST version smooths it out that bit more to make it more playable.
I used to play the game all the time on the Amiga so the comparison is there. I can't test it on my current Amiga setup because it's an Amiga 1200 with a 50mhz accelerator but I do remember my Amiga 500 gaming days well 👍
Maybe though the Amiga version doesn't take advantage of extra CPU power, I'll test it to see if it doesn't. If it doesn't I'll make a video about it 😎
Was never going to end any other way, was it? Heh. I still haven't ever played Dungeon Master, to my shame. I didn't really "get" RPGs when I was playing on the ST even though I'm a big fan now. Will have to make some time for it, for sure.
Absolutely! DM absolutely crushed the voting. It got over twice the points of the next game, and most people who voted for it put it at number one.
DM is THE Atari St experience...
".......and at number one we have Emlyn Hu........" wait, what?! Haha Perhaps that one will pitch up on a top 50 of underrated ST games, eh?! Good job Marc, a very fine top 5 and a well thought out top 50 which I very much enjoyed watching. Any plans to do some more live streams?
Oh... I must have miscounted. Right, scrap the lot, let's start again. I want to do some 'genre rundown' videos soon, and a football one will be high on my list of priorities. I'll definitely be including Emlyn Hughes on that. Did you have any other footy favourites?
@@thejoyofsticks Other than the ones you mentioned (can't remember if Championship Manager got a look in on these vids....surely did?!).....i'd say Premier Manager, definitely. Love that game, still plays really well and better than the sequel in my book. Also check out European Champions - it's essentially Emlyn Hughes 2. I remember a budget game called 1st Divison Manager by Codemasters....it's rubbish but my one abiding memory is quite literally never been able to win away from home! Could never work out why, best I ever got was a few draws but for whatever reason winning away was seemingly impossible. Oh and Manchester United Europe - I know, believe me I didn't want to type that out either!.....not a great game, inferior to the Amiga due to it's snail-like movement BUT nostalgic, i'll give it that.
Hi all, get yourself a MISTer FPGA Computer for all your retro nostalgia needs ... you‘ll gonna love it ... 👌🏼🥳🙋🏼♂️
highly recommended.. esp now there is a decent atari st core :)
I'd struggle to disagree with any of your Top 5, I'm pretty certain they'd be in my own Top 20 at the very least!
Don't shoot the messenger! These are the games everyone voted for. My top 5 looks a little different (and changes depending what day you ask me!)
5 - Championship Manager 93
4 - Frontier: Elite 2
3 - Super Sprint
2 - Bubble Bobble
1 - IK+
@@thejoyofsticks Haha I know the feeling, depends on your mood and what you're nostalgic for at the time!
Today I think mine is:
1/ Pirates!
2/ Populous
3/ Kick Off 2
4/ Rainbow Islands
5/ Millennium 2.2
But another day it could be different, maybe Speedball 2 for Kick Off 2, maybe Dungeon Master on Frontier, maybe Midwinter, perhaps Obsession...
A great collection there but how could it not be.. To be fair quite a few of the others in that list could have easily made it into the top 5 as could some other titles, we grew up in an amazing gaming era everyone and I wouldn't change it for anything 😊
Yes! None of my personal top 5 were in the actual top 5! :D And one of them (Championship Manager) didn't even appear in the Top 50 at all.
You are so right! It was a priveledge to be around and watch this newborn medium grow into what it is today. Just phenomenal.
Thanks for your efforts putting this together, personal preferences aside, if I was to be totally objective... this would be pretty much the top five for the ST - they are all astoundingly good games. I never got into Monkey Island too much myself as I never really got the humour, always seemed to be a bit like my dad pulling out his best one liners, but now I'm an ancient crusty myself (and my jokes are probably distinctly daddish) I should probably give it another try. Speedball 2, I must admit, was a tad better on the Amiga and Megadrive (the plinky sounds of soundchip during gameplay always felt a bit of a let down compared to the bass heavy rumbles on those machines), but it is still an awesome game on the ST. Xenon 2 - this game is hard if you try and play without autofire, I only managed level 4 without it. Get a autofire that works well with it (recommend the Python 1m or the AM Action pad - the latter is like having a beam laser at your disposal) and you can stop worrying about the slightly iffy collision detection of your bullets and worry more about the placement of your ship and collecting as much cash as you can - which is the key to beating the game. With autofire I also got to level 4, but this time on the second loop of the game. Stunt car racer and DM... nough said. They are absolutely world class.
Personally, I hate Xenon 2 quite vehemently, but even I can put my bias aside and see its merits, see why people love it so. And my autofire wasn't working with the game for some reason, so I had to play it without and it was hellish. I kept having to switch hands to get a faster rate of fire! :\
Ha! I love that summary of Monkey Island... just one long dad joke! :D
I'm not one for comparing the ST versions of games to the Amiga (because let's face it, most were superior on that machine) but judging the ST game on its own merits, how enjoyable it was at the time etc.
@@thejoyofsticks I think it's simply wrong to say that most Amiga games were superior. For the majority of the STs active life the two machines got identical games - although at the start the ST games were better and towards the end there were some really incredible Amiga games.
But for the most part games were made for both platforms at the same time and there was little difference between them.
ST CPU runs faster and colours are more vibrant. Amiga has hardware assistance and better sound, more colours etc. But for the most part games didn't leverage this much, and the actual game experience is not different.
@@thejoyofsticks Outrageous! ;) I would probably agree with that on the horizontal scrolling games, but for everything else I would say it is about even, and more depends on whether you like chip tunes or low fi samples. I think Speedball 2 stands up pretty well on the ST, certainly the gameplay and graphics are up there with the Amiga version. Just a bit quiet for my taste. I actually think the ST version of Xenon 2 is better on the ST than the Amiga, the Amiga has a better frame rate, but the sound track grates through repetition (it's a short loop, which sounds better for a bit...) and the SFX is so low res it sounds really muffled. Anyway.. avoiding the tedious ST vs Amiga debate... ;)
@@DaveVelociraptor Loving your defence of the ST, Velociraptor! The games that were identical or better on the ST tended to be the ones that were coded on the ST first and then ported. It wasn't long (bearing in mind I got my ST quite late for Christmas 1990) before Amiga became the target platform, using the hardware scrolling and sprites, and then the ST would get a shoddy port where the programmers didn't have the time or expertise to get them scrolling smoothly. That being said, there are exceptions, and many of those appear highly on this list.
A big example for me was Wolfchild. I got the demo (on The One cover disk, I think) and loved it. But as soon as I saw how it ran on an Amiga, it soured it for me and I never bought the full game.
I don't mean this as a slight to the ST. It's my favourite computer/games machine by a country mile after all, but I do try to have a realistic and objective view of its place in the history of video games.
@@welliben Now there's a cracking point! The Amiga soundchip is arguably better, from a technical standpoint, but those square waves that the AY/YM chips generate are just gorgeous. And, I think, they have aged better than low quality synth sounds of other so called superior chips from around that time.
lol YES! The Amiga vs ST debate rages on and always will! :D
Thinking about it, a chart run down before the video start might have been an idea (with full 80s top of the pops cheesey DJ voice of course) - I couldn't remember what had been in there already. However, good excuse to watch some of the other videos again.
I did think about doing something like this, but then the effort it would need put me off! :D Also, I don't think Led Zeppelin would have allowed me to use Whole Lotta Love, rendering the whole thing pointless!
@@thejoyofsticks Lol probably true, perhaps I should have covered it for you on something hideous, like a recorder, or mouth organ.
@@welliben Well now that needs to happen. Maybe for a 10 worst ST games list? If you send me the cover, I'll record that video. That's a promise.
@@thejoyofsticks What have I done! Hhhmm two musical instruments I don't own... How about a MT32 version?
I could make that very bad indeed... :)
i dont understand how d/generation keeps getting left off lists like this... it's one of the best games of all time.
Tick... Tock ... Tick... Tock ... Tick... Tock ... Tick... Tock ... :D
Xenon II, Nitro, Captain Dynamo... only 3 of my rated games are still not in the top 50. I wonder if some of them will be there today
Well, Xenon 2 made it! The other two are class games, but didn't sell bucket loads, so you might consider them 'hidden gems'. I'm not sure whether to do a 'Top 50: The Snubs' video next, or a 'hidden gems' video next. There is quite an overlap there, so I probably can't do both.
@@thejoyofsticks You could split it between two videos.
Games that viewers feel should have made it - Snubs. And games that you feel should have made it - Hidden Gems.
@@DaveVelociraptor Great suggestion! Thank you!
Loved Nitro! Massively underrated game, and I think much better than Sprint and Super Cars 1/2. @The Joy of Sticks would love to see a Snubs/hidden gems video! Along with Nitro, I'd also put Ranarama, Buggy Boy and Onslaught (off the top of my head).
@@superdrsysy Good suggestions! And Buggy Boy is one close to my heart. I love that game, and it was one of the first games I played on the ST. And for about an hour or so, Ranarama was the only full game I had for my own ST!
Oo I could just eat a screamer slice
Mmm... with a side of cheese wheel?
@@thejoyofsticks Hmmm.....worm rind....
The difference between the first Monkey Island and the rest is that for some reason with the first game you felt like you were an aspiring pirate, you were in an open world free to do what you pleased. Even though of course that was never the case. Great game indeed on all systems.
I never liked Xenon 2 that much, everyone raved about it, but for me it was just meh. I can't pin point the reason now. But gameplay wise, if not graphics, I always preferred Plutos. Something which confused the hell out of anyone who heard me say that. Heh. Don't get me wrong, I can see why people like it.
Stunt Car Racer, yep, love it.
Dungeon Master. Another game I know many people love, but it was never but a meh experience to me. To be fair I never played much of it, I don't remember how much, but the real time combat and the lack of in game map just ruined it for me. Don't get me wrong, I admire the game, but it never reached the awesomeness that was to me Phantasie III: The Wrath of Nikademus .
Thanks for another great video and thank you to all who voted for the games.
That is the key, isn't it? Threepwood is a complete loser and you love him for it.
Well, you are not alone on Xenon 2. That game chafes me in places that should be left well alone. I hope I managed to put that bias aside enough to give it a good reception in the list, but it wasn't easy! :D Plutos! Yes! Wait... is it too late to replace Xenon 2 with that? No one would notice, right?
Phantasie III is one of those games that pops up in conversation from time to time (I think it was even in the last Top 50 in 2008) and I keep meaning to give it a really good go... maybe when I retire? :D
Thanks for the kind words, Trusty!
Ahh, shame Impossible Mission II didn't make the list! Well done anyway.
I'm sorry to be the barer of bad tidings, but Impossible Mission 2 only got a single vote. Yours maybe?
Dungeon master #1, rightly so.
It absolutely dominated the voting.
@@thejoyofsticks As it should've done. I lost most of my life to that game when I was about 13! It also heavily inspired Notch with Minecraft.
It was a great series worth waiting a week for the next line-up! A well deserved No. 1! Stunt Car Racer? I wouldn't expected this game on 2, but still great. Xenon 2, yess! I knew (hoped ^^) that this will make it into the Top-5. 👍😁
If you got an STE with fast SD-card drive, like Ultrasatan etc., I really recommend this version here, with original Soundtrack in the intro and ingame: czcams.com/video/odCv-2Om2vY/video.html 😎
I was really surprised by how high Stunt Car Racer got too. It's a great game and I love it, but I didn't realise just how well thought of amongst other ST fans it was.
I really struggle with Xenon 2. I find it so frustrating to play. Definitely an unpopular opinion of mine that one! :D
Thanks for the tip about the STE version. Next time I pluck up the courage to give it a go, I'll use that one.
Uploader, why have you got Xenon 2 named as Future Sport??
The chapters are auto-generated by CZcams. I'll have a look and see if I can change them.
Here it is!!!! Now we need to get 100 to 50 count down! That X2 Rube Goldberg ship with all the ordinance gives R-Type a run for its money! It's a pity that the Amiga version of these games is always remembered and talked about as the ST versions were all first, and when you go back to the original magazines, they all were given top scores well before the Amiga version was ever a glint in the eye of the Atari 800's little brother's gamer's eyes. - especially Stunt Car Racer!
It's amazingly sad that the SSI never released their Eye of the Beholder series on the ST as they were mere rip offs of Dungeon Master. When we had this in 1987, we jusr laughed at the NES gamers and their 8bit Zelda games. I get the appeal of those now, but DM was the SH@T (in a great way) and there was NOTHING that could make us want to play any more 8-bit games after FTL's masterpiece. It's sad that the ST is still rarely talked about (except among us nutters) as it ran circles around those 8bit systems.
lol I think I've done enough countdown lists for a little while! :D I know what you mean about the Amiga thing. It's the cross we bear as ST owners. The games we loved are constantly compared to their Amiga counterparts and people often think "Why do you even bother with the ST when the games are better on the Amiga?" Well, the real question is "Why do you even bother with old machines when the new ones are so much better?" And the answer to both is the same. It's what we grew up with, it's what we are nostalgic about, it's what we love. I do find the fact that there are people out there who will still argue about which decades old computer is the most obsolete quite hilarious. You've got to find joy wherever you can these days.
@@thejoyofsticks Exactly!
DM FTW OK :-)
👌
i think u forgot gods one of the best games .
Hey man! Gods was a good game for sure, but this list was voted for by the public, not me!
@@thejoyofsticks ok i see now
Stunt car racer... got to admit I hated this game because i couldn't complete the first race... or even lap. Surprised xenon beat xenon 2 tbh. Ofc speedball2 and dungeon master... note if you actually return the firestaff to lord lysandus he fireballs you (so much for being good)
It does take a bit of getting used to, that's for sure. I cunningly edited out the parts from later tracks where I zoomed off into thin air repeatedly! :D
I didn't know that about Librasulus because I always starve to death around floor 5. :(
@@thejoyofsticks The purple worms level? My brother's party did the same, died of thirst. That was because he insisted of fighting monsters head on, taking loads of damage and sleeping all the time.