VGChartz's Evan Norris: "Jeff Minter is a one-of-a-kind force in the gaming space, a fiercely independent programmer, and one of the industry's most recognizable voices. Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, which provides new insights into his early coding work and boasts over 40 games across multiple platforms, is worthy of his brilliance. While it fails to cover his life and times over the past three decades, it provides a definitive look at the first 15 years of his game development career, which started in a humble home in Tadley, England and ended with a flagship title on the Atari Jaguar."
"Jeff Minter is a long-haired English video game developer who got his start creating games for European computers in the early 1980s. Nowadays, Minter is best known for the Tempest series, but he has created an astounding number of games, usually by himself or with very small teams. Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story from Digital Eclipse celebrates the life and works of Mr. Minter, compiling tons of biographical material and 42 classic games in one robust package," says Co-Optimus.
VGChartz's Evan Norris: "From what I've observed over the past few years, and from what the Atari representatives articulated last Saturday in Boston, the company is at a fascinating, pivotal point in its history. Once the king of the American arcade scene, and a major player in the home computer and console markets, Atari fell off the radar in a big way starting in the mid 1990s. Seen in the subsequent years more as the owner of classic IPs and purveyor of plug-and-play retro consoles and less as an innovator & contributor to the video game scene, the company has begun to reinvent itself over the last half decade."
Michael Kitchin writes, "Llamasoft: the Jeff Minter Story is a fairly comprehensive collection of his 80's catalogue which includes curios like Soundscape and Psychedelia. We get a lot of written correspondence from the man himself but very little in the way of video footage. It can feel a little lacking when compared to the other compilations Digital Eclipse has produced. I still found it fascinating to see how his ideas evolved over time and how the Llamasoft aesthetic coalesced. It's just a real shame the game list halts before the company's modern resurgence. Those games easy to find but it would've been nice to hear Minter and Zorzin cover their more recent projects in-depth."
XBOX is the new Atari. I could see them fading away and then coming back in a decade or so once the stench of their horrible corporate practices (always online, DRM, GaaS, no used games, buying out treasured 3rd party IP, copying competitors, cheapening gaming) fades to the winds of change. The industry landscape could be completely different by 2040.
Atari had to learn in a similar fashion. What they were doing to maximize profits was not sustainable for the industry and almost completely crashed it. Microsoft, if left to their GamePass ambitions will happily do the same now if consumers don’t help steer them a different direction. Thankfully Nintendo saved the industry then, and they may end up saving it next time, too, and still not get the credit with their “handheld”.
In any case I’m glad to see Atari coming back, learning from the last and working to be part of the future. I hope Sega sees an opening and hope back into the console space some day too. Atari had the wherewithal to try it. I see no reason why Sega can’t, too.
