Games: Operation Blood, Pondering About Max, Mission Shark, The Brundles

Volume 1: https://intotheverticalblank.com/2020/11/29/xegs-games-carts-that-should-have-been-if-atari-had-decided-to-continue-vol-1/

When Atari Corp dropped support for all 8bit systems in 1992, they had only produced a couple dozen official game cartridges for the XEGs console. Other companies, Including Atari, nut mostly mainland Europeans in Germany and Poland continued to create titles that should have helped feed a stream of low priced cartridge games for the XEGS. 

These are not Vaporware or “Hope tos”.  all of these games were either released or completed to a level that Atari had a nice pipeline of great games to put out on cartridge if they had kept giving it a shot with the XEGS.  

Here is volume two of our examination of the cartridges that Atari could have easily produced for XEGS, and even expanded on to make them worth  to charge $15.99 or 10 Quid for a full cartridge, 

Operation Blood

Atari Mania 8/10

D. Doyle: A cracking little title

Atari User: “It has to be recommended!” 

Mirage Software 1992

Atari Mania:http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-operation-blood_3800.html

Moby Games: https://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-8-bit/operation-blood

Our Review: 

Overall Quality 8/10

Fun factor 8/10

To make it into an XEGS cart, it would need to be translated into English, and possibly replace some of the sounds and add a wee bit more color using PMGs.
It’s a very fun game. 

Pondering About Max’s

Change In Heat 1989

December 1990 issues of _ANTIC_ magazine has an ad for it

AtariMania:http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-pondering-about-max-s_499.himl

Our Review

Overall Quality 8/10

Fun Factor 6/10

This *could* be a great game if it was not so difficult. The multiple stages are good, but the brawl stage is odd. All are too difficult. It looks nice though.  The graphics on the bar brawl state are not nearly as well done as other stages. The whole thing could use some splashes of colors. 

Mission Shark (Zeppelin 1991)

Atari Mania 7/10

Retro Laird 8/10

XL/XE Gamer: 8/10 – Superb Music

Atari User: Everything Green Beret should have been! 

D. Doyle: Get Yourself a copy!  

AtariMania:http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-mission-shark_36258.html

Our Review
Overall Quality 8/10

Fun Factor 8/10

A very well made game that would need some translation into English. It would be nice if some MASS and GRAVITY  was added to the floating jump physics formulas. 

The Brundles (KE-Soft 1993)

Atari Mania 7.6/10

Atari User – Here at last! 

AtariMania:http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-brundles-_803.html

Our review

Overall Quality: 10/10

Fun Factor 10/10

This is quite literally a version of Lemmings for the German market that was ported to the English market but the name was not changed. Very high quality game that would have made the library for the XEGS that much more complete.
Watch me kill all of the “Lemmings” er Brundles because I was never good at this game.