ATARI NEEDS USER GROUPS!
Atari have at last come round full circle and are
seeking to actively encourage and support User Groups. In the States
many of the larger User Groups get together to promote 'Atari Fairs'
in different parts of the country and receive a great deal of
support from Atari by way of equipment loan, promotion and guidance.
Could the same thing happen over here? That is what Fiona Mantell of
Atari would like to know.
What Fiona
needs first is for all established User Groups to get in touch with
her giving full details of the group and putting forward some ideas
of how you feel that Atari might be able to help the your group in
the future. Make no mistake, Atari are interested in helping but it
is not a one way street, a great deal of commitment and effort will
be needed by the Groups themselves to make anything work. If you
feel that your User Group is good enough to deserve some recognition
and support from Atari write to Fiona Mantell at Atari Corp. (UK)
Ltd, Atari House, Railway Terrace, Slough, Berks, SL2 5BZ. Do it
now.
STAR WARS
Domark,
who got the computer rights to one of the most sought after games of
recent times, Trivial Pursuit, have now signed an agreement with
Atari Inc. (the coin-op company) for the home computer rights to the
arcade smash Star Wars. You will have a long time to save up though
as programming will not start until later this year with release due
in 'late 1987'. An Atari 8 bit version is promised but let's hope
that it is not last in the queue otherwise who knows when 'late
1987' might be!
YET MORE SMASH HITS
English
Software recently released Smash Hits Volume 7, or was it 6? It
could have been 8, no it is definitely 7 and it features
Elektraglide, Colossus Chess 3.0, Blue Max and Alley Cat. Two
cassettes at £9.95 or two disks at £14.95. The press release says
'advertising in ATARI USER' so if you don't read ATARI USER you
might never know it's available. If that's the case you could write
to English Software and tell them you read about it in PAGE 6 and
you could also ask when they are going to release some more original
games for the Atari. Remember when English Software were the top
Atari software house in the U.K.?
SSI ON TARGET
U.S. Gold's release schedule of SSI's
range of wargames and simulations is well on target with 10 titles
due to be available at the time of writing and another 19 to follow!
So far the releases have all been on disk and are around the £29.99
mark.
Cheapest so far, and perhaps one of the
most interesting, is Wargame Construction Set for those who have
played everything or think they are better at designing games than
SSI! Other titles released include Battle of Antietam, Gettysburg,
U.S.A.A.F, Broadsides, Mech. Brigade, Carrier Force, Panzer
Grenadier, Colonial Conquest and Computer Ambush. Wargamers and
simulation fans have surely never had it so good!
RED
RAT TO THE RESCUE
Red Rat,
fast becoming THE company for the Atari 8-bit machines have come to
the rescue of a couple of programs that nearly disappeared along
with the ill-fated S.E.C.S. An agreement has been reached with
Bignose Software for Red Rat to release GO-FORTH (reviewed in Issue
25) and SPRONG. GO-FORTH will be available on disk only for the XL/
XE at £19.95 and SPRONG, by none other than Paul Lay, has already
been released on tape at £7.95 or disk at £9.95. Anyone who thought
that MUNCHY MADNESS from PAGE 6 was good (and it was excellent)
should rush out to get a copy of SPRONG. There are something like
fifty superbly drawn and challenging screens for you to pogo your
way through and you will be impressed.
Other releases from Red Rat include Astro Droid,
an arcade shoot-em-up by the author of Screaming Wings, and a new
budget game for two players, River Rally. Fast action with split
scrolling screens is promised.
Say thank
you to the Red Rat, Atari owners. While others promise he is nosing
around finding all sorts of goodies for you.
THE REST OF THE NEWS ....
Mastertronic dropped us a
press release to say that their next Atari release would be COLONY.
Apart from that, and the other stories on this page, all the other
press releases we received contained words like 'except for Atari'.
We threw them in the bin. There must be more news about software for
the Atari, like the (rumoured?) stuff from Imagine, but why don't
the companies concerned shout about it? Half an hour on the
typewriter and a second class stamp might get Atari owners into the
shops asking for the latest releases.
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