Beware The Spaceman

Author: Analyst

  • Atari Set 1.6 Cybermorph (Jaguar)

    Cybermorph box art

    Get ready to hear the words “Where did you learn to fly” a lot. This was a showcase game for the Atari Jaguar — Atari’s last console. It’s a 3D flying game about collecting things and shooting things. The issue is… Nintendo had already released Starfox on the, at that point, much older SNES.

    Nintendo had cheated slightly by including the FX chip in the cartridge to keep the SNES competitive with Sega’s add‑ons. This, I think, proved to be the best strategy. So at the time, Cybermorph, with its flat 3D shapes, didn’t really impress. Its lack of soundtrack didn’t help either.

    Playing today on the Atari 50 Collection, I find I’m playing a relic I should like. The formula that goes all the way back to the 2600 is there — it’s present. It is, after all, a space shooter. But that’s the issue: I wanted to like it. Of the Jaguar games I’ve played, I think Tempest 2000 is probably the better example.

    We’re now at the point where the PSX is around the corner. The writing was on the wall for Atari. But going full circle on our retro revivals… Atari is not dead. You can go to Amazon right now and buy a 2600, and the games are available in multiple formats.

    But for now, Reaction leaves Atari at the Jaguar. I’ll catch you in the next one.

  • Atari Set 1.5 Tempest 2000 (Atari Jaguar)

    We’re jumping forward this time for Atari. The year is 1994, and Atari are trying to re‑enter the console market with the Atari Jaguar. This console was marketed as 64‑bit, though that would be disputed — it used two 32‑bit processors. Its controller also let it down. Atari had chosen a telephone‑keypad‑like thing, something I think must have been inspired by the 2600’s old rival, the Intellivision.

    I’ve only ever seen one Atari Jaguar up close — at a market when I was a teenager. I didn’t have the cash to get one, and to be honest, by the mid‑1990s the Atari name had been out of the console limelight for a good few years.

    The market at this time was the latter end of the 16‑bit generation. We were only a year away from Sony entering the gaming landscape and changing things forever.

    This all brings me to Tempest 2000, arguably one of the only must‑have titles on the Atari Jaguar. Much like the 2600’s best, it went back to what Atari did well: a high‑score chase.

    You just blast the baddies before they reach the top of the 3D shape. At its core, the gameplay is close to the 1981 original — but now with 3D visuals and CD‑quality sound.

    It’s worth bearing in mind that arcades were still going strong at this point. The PSX hadn’t arrived yet with its catalogue of near‑arcade‑perfect ports, and the high‑score chase was still very much a thing.

    It’s worth a play now, but the easiest way is through the Atari 50 Collection. Jaguars today can be expensive, and I’ve rarely spotted one in the wild.

  • Bob the Last Real Car: A Love Story Written in Rust

    a spaceship above the world with title
    cartoon rusty honda

    I have quite a history with driving. One I’m sure we’ll delve into in the future, but to spoil things a little: I think I must have failed a driving test on nearly every road in Scunthorpe.

    Driving comes easy to some people, and I’ve always been a little jealous of that. The compromise that seems to work? Using an automatic car to simplify the controls, and Google Maps to prompt each direction.

    The moment I saw Bob’s advert on Auto Trader, I was thrilled to see he ticked all the boxes. My previous cars had all died with some kind of electrical failure, usually in the manual hybrid gearboxes. Bob has an old CVT gearbox. The controls are so simple he could be a go‑kart. A true old automatic.

    Right here is where I probably made my mistake. Bob is old — sixteen years old at this point. He has one red mirror and one black. His paintwork has gone a little dull with time. His last MOT revealed his aches and pains with the amount of rust cautions on there.

    The first trip to see my dad in the new car got a few comments… ones like “How much did you pay for that!”, the shake of the head, and “They saw you coming.”

    Bob was giving a bit of a groan when pulling off, so I took him to my local mechanic for a gear‑oil change. He too had a similar viewpoint to my dad: “I’m just saying, don’t throw a load of money at him.”

    The consensus seems to be that Bob is terminal. But aren’t we all?

    The two previous cars (one much newer than Bob) let me down with those electrical failures I mentioned. I’m not precious about him getting a knock when parked up. Above all, I don’t like many cars — but I like Bob.

    So come MOT time next year, will it be time to say goodbye? Or am I likely to be looking for some welding for Bob to dodge the car grim reaper for another year?

    I know which one my heart is saying. But for now: keep going, Bob. Please keep going.

  • A Missing Batman Movie Between Burton’s Films? This Book is Close

    Who remembers that movie in between Batman and Batman Returns that introduced Max Shreck and had Clayface as the villain. No? Well… now it kind of exists.

    If you haven’t read Batman: Resurrection by John Jackson Miller, there are some minor spoilers ahead.

    Batman: Resurrection is set between the two Burton films. Bruce and Vicki Vale (the love interest from the 1989 movie) are still sort of together, and Gotham is recovering from the Smilex gas attack in the first film. That attack is how this story’s Clayface comes into existence. He begins as a Smilex victim in a coma on a dodgy ward in Gotham Hospital — a dodgy ward with an even dodgier doctor, but going too far into that would drift into spoiler territory.

    We also get a plot involving Clayface cosplaying the Joker, which anyone who played the Arkham games or watched the animated movie may find familiar.

    What doesn’t work quite as well are lines like “Batman thought.” This is why I think superhero stories are best suited to visual mediums — comics or film — where internal monologue doesn’t feel quite so clunky.

    So where does this sit? It has that “empathise with the baddie” streak of the Burton movies. In my mind, this book would have made a great straight‑to‑VHS film slotted between the two movies. The Clayface/Joker switch would have allowed a Jack Nicholson sound‑alike to step in, and some of the fight scenes feel like they’d work best in animated form.

    It’s that kind of easy read. Not essential by any means, but fun.

  • Atari Set 1.4 Adventure

    Retro Reaction in ZX Spectrum colours

    When you think of the Atari 2600, the games that immediately come to mind are those high‑score chase titles. Some of which we’ve looked at right here. I always think of space games — shooters like Asteroids.

    Six years before Link wore the green hat, and thirty‑five years before the White Wolf perfected an open‑world game, the dot on the Atari screen that represented you started it all.

    Here’s a game I knew of — one I think I had as a child but never understood. This is a game where you really do need to read the manual first. Your goal is to retrieve a magical chalice from the black castle and bring it back to the gold castle.

    There are dragons that look a bit like seahorses, keys to the castles, and a bridge if I remember rightly. It didn’t look much like a bridge, and as with so many other 2600 games, your imagination — and the iconic box artwork — are doing the heavy lifting. I’ve never had a problem with that.

    This game was also one of the first where things happened off‑screen. Which brings me to a villain who belongs in the boss hall of fame right alongside Robotnik and Bowser: that darn bat.

    The bat can take things off you and put things near you. Doesn’t sound boss‑like? So you’re progressing in your quest… here comes this guy again to steal the key from you. Wandering through the maze? He’s back, with a dragon in tow — and guess where he’s dropping it.

    When you finally get that chalice and make the dash back to the gold castle… Guess who’s going to show up.

    Adventure can be played today on Evercade , and Atari 50

  • Atari Set 1.3 — Food Fight (Atari 7800)

    Retro Reaction in ZX Spectrum colours

    This is another recent discovery thanks to the Evercade. I had a friend with an Atari 7800 back in the day. However, being too young to understand, we all assumed it was just a newer version of the 2600. After all, most of my friend’s games were Atari 2600 titles. It was the Wii U / Wii thing years earlier.

    You could forgive us for thinking this. In the UK, only 59 games saw release for Atari’s 7800 system. By comparison, there were around 200 games for the 2600. That black plastic box under my friend’s TV had more in common, power‑wise, with a Nintendo than an Atari. It could be seen as a victim of the American games crash or simply a missed opportunity. As we’ve seen with other systems though, the 7800 is not dead.

    On to Food Fight. Really simple. Guide Charley—who, in my mind, gives off Dennis the Menace vibes—to the ice cream cones while avoiding the angry army of chefs. You can pick up and throw food at them, which temporarily eliminates them and scores you some points. There are also holes to avoid in the kitchen. Make it to the ice cream and you win the round. Get hit by food and you lose a life. Yes, it’s another high‑score chase game.

    It’s all on one screen, and planning your route around the chefs reminded me a lot of games like Pac‑Man. It also has a fun action replay after so many levels, where it plays some music and shows your performance.

    Why the 7800 version for me over the arcade? Well, thanks to Atari 50, I’ve played the arcade version—and it’s harder. Arcades were designed to take your cash as fast as possible. The 7800 version, for me, strikes the balance. The graphics might, at a push, be slightly toned down, but it’s the gameplay that counts here.

  • Time Bomb Quantum: Death and Taxes

    In 2024, the small indie comic label Time Bomb produced a bimonthly British sci‑fi anthology comic called Quantum.

    Up until then, Smith’s was where I went for Batman reprints. But with the Batman Panini reprints cancelled (again), I gave Quantum a go. For a while, I loved heading into WH Smiths and finding the latest issue wasn’t out yet — going back later in the month… but you knew when it was in. Some of these stories were completely different to what I was used to reading.

    I’m sure we’ll come back to a few stories from the anthology, but here’s one that stood out.

    Death and Taxes, in issues 4 and 5. Written by Katie Cunningham with art from Tom Newell. The main premise: what if we achieved immortality, but the government owned your body after death — making the undead work forever.

    It feels like a play on real life, where we all work for the majority of our lives in the hope of eventually receiving some peace in retirement. I also remember looking at our UK government at the time (though it applies to them all) and thinking… I wouldn’t put it past them.

    The main character, Blodd, is written incredibly well in my opinion. She feels layered without being over‑explained. The tone of the story is dark and serious, particularly in contrast to some of the more out‑there sci‑fi stories in the book. Sadly, it only ran for two parts — but as a concept, it was terrifying.

  • Atari Set 1.2 Quantum

    Retro Reaction in ZX Spectrum colours

    This week’s Reaction is a gem I discovered later via the Atari 50 collection. Programmed by Betty Ryan (who later worked on the 2600 version of Pole Position), it’s set in space and it’s a high‑score chase. But that’s where the similarities to a lot of the other big hits end.

    The aim in this 1982 arcade game is to score points by drawing circles around particles. But if a particle or a baddie touches your line before the circle is complete, you lose a life. In the arcade, this was all done using a trackball controller.

    I never saw one of these machines out in the wild, and to my knowledge it didn’t receive a home port at the time — leaving it largely off the radar. Which is a shame, because I had a fun time playing this one.

    I have to wonder if that trackball setup was the reason home ports never happened. Drawing circles with the original 2600 joystick may not have been an easy task.

    It seems Atari are aware of its quality, as they released a remake — Quantum Recharged — playable on modern systems.

    To play Quantum today, it’s included in the Atari 50 Collection, with the remake also available on console and PC.

    But that word Quantum… we’re not done with it this week. Because over on the Off Page blog, we’re looking at Quantum — the comic from Time Bomb.

    Right here next time, it’s Food Fight for the Atari 7800 as the Atari Set rolls on.

  • Wake up — it’s time to leave Dreamland

    Wake up — it’s time to leave Dreamland

    a spaceship above the world with title

    Last week, my brother finally got bitten by the nostalgia bug. He was about to buy a PlayStation on eBay.
    “Why?” I asked. “Yours is still in my attic.”

    So it was — though it took some finding. Eventually I unearthed it in a travel case, alongside an artifact that genuinely shook me.

    The artifact in question? A Super Mario Bros. alarm clock from 1992. Mario looks like he’s been at the mushrooms a little more than usual, and somehow, despite not seeing this thing for at least 20 years, the LED display was still lit.

    Back in the day, this clock came with an instruction manual printed in size‑zero font. You practically needed a PhD to set the alarm correctly. More than once, at 2am, it would wake my entire family with the theme from SMB3 and the yell of:
    “Wake up — it’s time to leave Dreamland!”

    This clock had sat in the attic for two decades, quietly ticking away the seconds, minutes, hours, and days of my life. Once, when that alarm went off, I was at school — and had mistakenly stolen the line guides. (Still sorry, Mr Welton.)

    For now, Mario sits in my spare room, perched on top of the Nintendo. Waiting.

    Because you never know when it’ll be time to leave Dreamland.

  • Barry Gibbons Is SpaceMan

    The biggest news from this past week: guest blogger Barry Gibbons’ TimeWarped makes its debut right here on Beware The Spaceman.

    Barry begins his unreliable narrations by looking back at his time in the scout group and asking questions about the importance of measured achievements.

    Elsewhere on the site, we’re in full Atari mode as Retro Reaction takes a look at Missile Command for the Atari 2600, and Forever 80s dives into the previously unreleased Aquaventure, also on the Atari 2600.