Metal Mutant is a side scrolling action adventure game developed and published in 1991 by the French house Silmarils for the Atari ST, Amiga (OCS) and DOS. The game plays and feels pretty much like the other great games from Silmarils: Targhan, Starblade and Colorado. The Atari ST version comes in 1 disk.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY The story takes place somewhere in the far future where a scientist invents and develops a super computer named Arod 7, to watch and protect all colonies. But it seems that the colonists have had enough by this machine's control over their lives and now rebel teams are almost everywhere. You control the "Metal Mutant Machine" a rebel-made super robot and land to the planet Kronox in order to find and destroy Arod 7. As Metal Mutant, you have the ability to transform into three different metal morphs: First one is the Cyborg, a humanoid robot that carries a devastating axe and a deadly fork. Cyborg can jump through long gaps with ease or even lift itself using a steel rope launcher when needed. The second morph is called Dino and it's a powerful metal dinosaur that can forcefully bite its opponents (especially the shorter ones) and also throw flames through its mouth and tail. The third one is Tank, a caterpillar-driven robot that looks like a small tank from World War I (!) This guy uses a torpedo launcher and can fire towards the enemy from a great distance and in all 8 directions. You can transform into these mutants by pressing at any time Down and Fire simultaneously, depending on the situation you're in to and on the type of enemies you are about to battle. Walking through the planet's surface you collect various upgrades than can help increase energy, power up your weapons so that you can survive. Difficulty level is getting gradually higher, so you'll have the time to master the game's mechanics and the control of your mutants.
GRAPHICS / SOUND Metal Mutant on the Atari ST features great environments, sprites and smooth animation. The game's visuals are great though they are mostly based on green. The Atari ST version is almost identical to its Amiga and DOS counterparts (as most Silmarils' ST games are). The sound on the ST features many sampled sound effects from your mutants' specific sounds to other ambient sounds around the planet's surface. The intro music is a well composed sampled theme much like the Amiga version's but in lower sampling quality. Overall, Metal Mutants (as well as the other Silmarils games) is among the best video games for the Atari ST machines.
CPU: Motorola 68000 16/32bit at 8mhz. 16 bit data bus/32 bit internal/24-bit address bus. MEMORY: RAM 512KB (1MB for the 1040ST models) / ROM 192KB GRAPHICS: Digital-to-Analog Converter of 3-bits, eight levels per RGB channel, featuring a 9-bit RGB palette (512 colors), 320x200 (16 color), 640x200 (4 color), 640x400 (monochrome). With special programming techniques could display 512 colors on screen in static images. SOUND: Yamaha YM2149F PSG "Programmable Sound Generator" chip provided 3-voice sound synthesis, plus 1-voice white noise mono PSG. It also has two MIDI ports, and support mixed YM2149 sfx and MIDI music in gaming (there are several games supported this).