ST-urday #023: Seconds Out
by mento
Welcome ST besties to my Atari party as we once again plumb the depths of the Atari ST's crypt for, I dunno, skeletons. This analogy got pretty dark real quick. I'd do the usual pre-amble bit but I'll be starting a weeks-long daily series in just a few ticks and I need to save all my primo material for that. You know, food I've been eating (surf and turf! It was my stepsisters' birthday), games...
Welcome ST besties to my Atari party as we once again plumb the depths of the Atari ST's crypt for, I dunno, skeletons. This analogy got pretty dark real quick. I'd do the usual pre-amble bit but I'll be starting a weeks-long daily series in just a few ticks and I need to save all my primo material for that. You know, food I've been eating (surf and turf! It was my stepsisters' birthday), games I'm looking at but not actually playing yet because I have this whole Steam daily series to work on (Fallout 4!) and wiki projects I've been progressing (PC Engine library of 1989! This one here's a shoot 'em up featuring one of those gyroids from Animal Crossing!). It's all a rich tapestry for sure, but let's press on.
Seconds Out
It occurs to me that I've been whitewashing the Atari ST's past of late. When starting ST-urday, I wanted to do the mostly-unknown platform a solid and really show off what was best about owning an Atari ST: its status as an affordable, accessible proto-PC on the cutting edge of the 16-bit generation. The ST's strengths were always in its mouse-and-keyboard driven games: point-and-click graphic adventures from Sierra, LucasFilm and ICOM Simulations; RPGs from Silmarils, FTL Games and SSI; strategy games from Gremlin Graphics, Bullfrog and MicroProse. What I've been skipping over is the vast amount of crap, most of it either shoddy Arcade ports or attempts to emulate popular action console games of the era with limited success. The many "The Great Giana Sisters"es of the Atari ST library. We've looked at the ports before now - the Double Dragon double-bill was eye-opening, to say the least - but let's look at one of those imitators.
Seconds Out is a 1988 boxing game from the small UK studio Tynesoft, a company named for the river that runs through the northeast of England. As will become evident quickly from the following screenshots, it's biting the steez of Nintendo's Punch-Out!!. Downright gnawing on it, even. The original Arcade version, mind, not the better-known NES game that was once endorsed by Kid Dynamite himself (who is now solving mysteries on an animated Adult Swim show that I've been meaning to check out). The Arcade version introduced mainstays like Bald Bull, but rather than having a tiny Mac at the bottom of the screen, the Arcade version had a regular-sized Mac presented in wireframe so the player could clearly see the expressive, well-animated and eccentric opponents in front. That's also what Seconds Out is going for.
Still, if making a game that's a bit like another game is a crime, then half the industry's getting thrown in the chokey. No, Seconds Out's chief offense is that it's terrible. The designers only got as far as "we should copy this Nintendo boxing game" without realizing how integral aspects like dodging or blocking or finding and exploiting weaknesses in the opponent is to the overall experience. Seconds Out, in comparison, is more of a button-spammy mess. It's one case in a great many where Atari ST owners were presented a sub-par clone of something popular and highly acclaimed on a different system, and snapped it up without checking it over to see if it was a lemon first. Of course, you can get burned the other way around too: the Super Nintendo versions of Theme Park and Worms are, well, not quite the games their PC versions were.
Welcome to Seconds Out! This Bryan guy? I've no idea who he is!
The main character is Marco, this coked out fellow on the left. Eh, it was the 80s. Our opponent for the first fight is the customary "lull the player into a false sense of security" weakling with the fitting name. I'd say he has a glass jaw, but that thing looks more like a kayak.
There's a lot of things I love about the presentation of this game. Like how my hair has wireframe highlights, or some of these faces in the crowd. That woman on the front row who's had her eyes stitched shut, perhaps, or whatever face that guy on the back left is making.
Anyway, this screen is fairly straightforward. We have our energy/health bars, there's a timer for the round and there's a power gauge that increases with every punch that connects from my character, but drops with every punch that connects from the opponent. I wasn't able to tell if filling the gauge unlocks some kind of star punch equivalent or it just made me hit harder in general. The game only has one button, after all.
Joe Weed is far easier than the rest of the game's opponents. I could barely knock down the next guy, let alone knock them down three times in the first round for this instant KO. Medusa seems stoked about this victory though!
As per Punch-Out tradition, our next opponent is a vaguely racist caricature. 
Jones is a lot stronger than the last guy, but he's still kind of a chump. If he takes too much damage, he'll start moving away from you to recover health. That's a wuss move, dude.
His "special", which doesn't have a tell like it does in Punch-Out!!, is this twin-punch thing that looks like he's trying to do a double fistbump. It's surprisingly gentle looking, given how much it hurts.
Between rounds, your trainer tries to rouse you from your near-unconsciousness. It's one of those corner-time mini-games where you have to press all the directional buttons rapidly to restore a small amount of health. Naturally, your opponent also receives a big health recovery boost.
Of course, there are times where I get lucky with a punishing combination attack that the opponent can't escape from. I say "combination attack" as if there was some skill involved, but I really just hit the punch button over and over. 
After three rounds, it goes to a points decision. We're both celebrating a bit early.
Jones can't believe it and neither can I. He knocked me down about five times to my one. He did run away a lot though; that doesn't seem too sportsmanlike. They account for that in points decisions, right?
Next opponent is... this strung-out hippie. Looks like I'll be trading blows with Trader Joe's.
This guy's kinda adorable in his camel tank top. Makes you wonder how he got this far in the rankings.
Oh right, because he headbutts people. This is Hagman's main attack, and the source of his "Hammerhead" nickname, and will knock you on your ass in seconds with enough of them.
Like so. This fight is the first to really give you a hard time, mostly because he regenerates the lost energy from attacks almost immediately while Glasgow-kissing you to the canvas over and over.
His victory was... decisive. Comprehensive, even. Was the ref even looking?
And then, after a win, your opponents inexplicably grow a few extra feet. Maybe I'm just delirious from all the head trauma. Either way, this is where Marco's journey ends.There's a lot to defend on the Atari ST but its action games are inexcusable, at least for the most part. It was capable of some really nice-looking and well-playing Arcade ports, Taito games especially, and there were a handful of platformers and shoot 'em ups unique to the Amiga/ST that were almost as good as anything the NES had to offer. The majority were like the above, however: superficial MS-Paint lookalikes with barely any of the substance of the games they aped. Still, it's too bad I couldn't get past the headbutting guy; I'm sure the later boxers get even weirder.