Random Game O' the Day: Attack of the Mutant Camels

[digitalpress]

Anyone with a lick of 80's know-how "knows" about the lighthearted games designed by Jeff "YAK" Minter, who may be better known today for his brilliant Tempest 2000. Throughout the 80's Minter's home-grown development project Llamasoft produced approximately two dozen titles of varying genre primarily for Commodore and Atari computer systems. One of the most memorable of these was Attack of the Mutant Camels.

Played it? Let's hear about your thoughts and experiences with this early Minter marvel. Write your mini-review here.

DP Guide sez:

Attack of the Mutant Camels (Atari XE, by HES) $35/R6
Designed by Jeff Minter. Developed by Llamasoft. The sequel to Gridrunner. Minter is also known for the Atari Jaguar games Tempest 2000 and Defender 2000. Minter has given his permission for others to download and play for non-profit purposes, such as playing it on an emulator. HES stands for "Human Engineering Software". Shooter/Horizontal Scrolling. SANTULLI SLANT: Minter is revered for his irreverence and this game is a true testament to why this is so. AMC plays a bit like the Parker Bros "The Empire Strikes Back" game, though your ship is now attempting to stop the slowly advancing giant mutant camels instead. Super smooth and still loads of fun to play. Rock on, Llamasoft. [Gr: 6, So: 7, Ga: 9, Ov: 8] c1983 Llamasoft. #C518.

[Tempest]

I've never seen this game in cartridge format, only on tape. Anyone have a picture?

Tempest

[digitalpress]

I might have it on cart, I'll scan it when I get home. If not I'll ask Andrew Krieg to scan his, he's definitely got one. I know I have *a* cart version but it might be the C64 version. Back later on this!

[Bratwurst]

I remember reading about this game when it was unveiled at some consumer trade show in VG&CE, along with a prototype force feedback joystick-chair and The Last Ninja.

[DDCecil]

I used to own it, but never got a chance to try it out.

[Mayhem]

The C64 cart version, to increase the confusion, is actually a renamed version of "Matrix" instead. All HES' fault there... and hence in the US the C64 version of the real AMC listed here was called "Advance of the Mega Camels" instead...

[Zaxxon]

If you play Defender 2000 on the Jag till the last stage(99?) there are camels on the ground walking to the right ala Empire Strikes Back/AOTMC. There's is a code to skip ahead to see this.