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D-Bug Falcon/MSTE Fixes [Atari Falcon/Mega STE]

http://www.dbug-automation.co.uk/

Previewed By J. Monkman

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D-Bug (or Automation as the group were formally known) will probably be a familiar name if you've ever possessed a 16-bit Atari, as they currently hold the record for being the longest standing Atari cracking/packing/demo group with over *20* years behind them.

2007, and the group are still going strong. As (understandably) there aren't a huge number of new releases for the Atari ST(E) these days, the D-Bug crew have recently concentrated their efforts on fixing and patching games to work with Atari's final foray into the home-computing market - the 32-bit Atari Falcon. It gets better though - each re-release is also fully hard disc installable and providing you have the adequate memory they'll also work with both the Mega STE and (more popular) STE/FM models. However, not only have the games been made compatible with the full range of Atari computers, but many come complete with trainers and they've all been tweaked so that they run at a greater frame-rate on the later 16Mhz machines. Simply put, each release is widely considered to be the *ultimate* version of the game.

With the number of real Atari users falling year upon year, from an outsider's perspective it may initially seem that D-Bug's work would go largely unappreciated. Fortunately though, the ever-growing number of emulator users can also benefit from these patches as they all work just as well on a virtual Atari.

D-Bug are also still working on their menu disks (with only four compilations left to go before they reach their final 200th compilation) and it's worth noting that their recent menus have also been fixed to work on both Falcon/Mega STE's and regular Atari's - meaning that games not listed on their Falcon page such as Dragon Flight, Blood Money, Arctic Moves, Encounter, Indigo, Lorna and Hammerboy are also fully compatible with Atari's 32-bit opus.

So if you are the owner of a Falcon, Mega STE, upgraded Atari STE/FM or even just a regular STEEM/Harati user then it's definitely worth keeping an eye on the D-Bug website. At the end of January they announced that from now on they'll be releasing monthly fix-packs (each featuring many games), so add http://www.dbug-automation.co.uk/ to your favourites list now.

The complete list of Falcon fixes to date follows. (Note that '+' means the game comes with a trainer whereas '?Mb' signifies that I'm not sure what the exact memory requirements are - sorry!)

After The War (Dinamic Software) 2Mb
Afterburner (Activision) ?Mb
APB (Domark) 2Mb
Arctic Moves (Dinamic) 4Mb
Astaroth (Hewson) ?Mb
Backlash (Novagen) ?Mb
Blood Money (Psygnosis) 1Mb
Confusion 4Mb (Falcon *Only*)
Damocles (Novagen) 2Mb
Dragon Flight (Thalion) 1Mb
Encounter (Novagen) 1Mb
Forgotten Worlds (US Gold) 2Mb
Gemini Wing (Probe) ?Mb
Ghosts'n'Goblins (Elite) ?Mb
Hades Nebula (Paranoid) ?Mb
Hammerboy+ (Dinamic) 2Mb
Hudson Hawk (Ocean) 2Mb
Indigo+ (Stephane Belin) 1Mb
Into the Eagle's Nest+ (Pandora) 4Mb
Jupiter Probe (Microdeal) ?Mb
Live and Let Die (Domark) ?Mb
Lorna+ (Toposoft) 4Mb
Magic Pockets+ (Renegade) 2Mb
Mercenary 3 (Novagen) ?Mb
Microprose Soccer (Microprose) ?Mb
Midnight Resistance (Special FX) ?Mb
Northstar+ (Gremlin) 2Mb
Quartz (Firebird) ?Mb
Rick Dangerous (Core Design) ?Mb
Rick Dangerous II (Core Design) ?Mb
R-Type+ (Electric Dreams) 4Mb
RVF Honda (Micro Style) ?Mb
Speedball 2+ (Image Works) 2Mb
Starglider 2 (Rainbird) ?Mb
Stargoose (Logotron) ?Mb
Starray (Logotron) 2Mb
Vaxine (US Gold) ?Mb
Virus (Firebird) ?Mb
Xenon 2+ (Image Works) ?Mb

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