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This homebrew Arkanoid clone for the Falcon is by Duranik who recently released the amazing Sturmwind for the Sega Dreamcast as well as the stunning Alpine Games on the Lynx. A brilliant advancement of Atari’s own Breakout game it is also now available totally free of charge! Impulse is absolutely packed with features that add even more to the classic brick breaking action. There are 40 levels to play through, saved high score table, digitised sound, passwords and best of all a level designer so you can create your own stages! If the game wasn’t already good enough the addition of this feature makes the game pretty much unbeatable. The high-res colour graphics look excellent, the music and sound effects are top notch and the game controls brilliantly. If you own a Falcon then Impulse is without doubt one of the best games you can own for the machine. If you own a Jaguar then you are in luck too as at the time of writing an enhanced version of this game is just about to be made available to buy on both CD and cartridge, Lynx version next please!

The Ishar games are probably the most successful games produced by French company Silmarils, this third game takes place right after the end of part 2. Probably the first thing you will notice when you start playing this game is how great it looks! Beautiful photo realistic characters, objects and landscapes are the order of the day here and it really shows what the Falcon is capable of. Combat is very similar to many older RPG's as you kind of click furiously to defeat a foe. A strange thing I noticed the game has no map outside the city you start in so you might need a pen and paper or an online guide to help you. This can be rather annoying for a game with such a sheer size as this one. Further more I soon found out it's a pretty tough game indeed where a lot of patience is required. The enemies are very strong and you are pretty pathetic for someone who saved the earth twice before. It is one of those games though that becomes easier the more you play it so its good to take some time out and then go back to it. If you are a Falcon owner and in the mood for a good-looking old school RPG then you really should check Ishar 3 out as it will certainly keep you busy through the long winter nights!

This wonderfully unique game is one of the real gems in the Atari Falcon’s fairly small game library. Essentially this is almost like an update of the classic Williams arcade game Joust. You control a little guy in a pair of robotic trousers that he can use to jump around the levels and kill enemies with by landing on them. These steel pants are also fitted with thrusters that allow you to fly by repeatedly firing them. Unlike Joust the levels in this game scroll and are absolutely huge. They are also maze like in their structure and although there are only a few of them they take hours to explore in full, and I mean hours! Many of the enemies in this game also take multiple hits to kill and take up many different forms. There are birds, gun turrets, monsters and gruesome insects to contend with. Each of these move around in different ways, for example some fly while others are ground based. Many of these enemies will also leave behind power-ups when they are killed such as extra health, lasers, new thrusters and invincibility. This game is absolutely stunning to look at, real attention has been paid to the level designs. But it doesn’t only look amazing it also sounds amazing too with its melodic tunes and digitised effects. There are a few minor quibbles with this game such as the lack of a password option but nothing to really spoil what is a quality product and one of the best games on the 32-bit Atari.