B.A.T. (Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters) is a sci-fi adventure with role-playing elements published by the French company Ubi Soft, taking players to the fictional planet Selenia, where, as a secret agent, they try to prevent an invasion by a hostile alien race. The game combines exploration of a sprawling open city with a dialogue system, buying equipment in dozens of shops, hiring helpers with special skills, and combat encounters, making it one of the more ambitious attempts of its era to combine a classic point-and-click adventure with RPG mechanics. The player also has to look after their character's basic needs, such as sleep or food, which lends the whole adventure an unusual flavor of a day-to-day survival simulation in an alien environment.
On the Atari ST, the game stood out especially for its extensive, icon-driven interface, which allowed dozens of different actions - from making phone calls and arranging meetings to hacking computers and detailed shopping for weapons, armor, and medical supplies needed to survive in a hostile environment. The graphics used a rich color palette and atmospheric locations full of neon signs and futuristic buildings that reinforced the feeling of an alien, hostile planet, though the demands on the Atari ST's performance sometimes led to slower loading between screens.
B.A.T. is often remembered as a game that was ahead of its time in complexity and freedom of choice, although the sheer number of interlinked systems made it a hard-to-approach title for many players without a detailed manual at hand. Today, it stands as an interesting testament to how the European scene experimented with genre hybrids far beyond established conventions, and it remains a cult favorite for old-school adventure fans even years later, one people keep returning to thanks in part to later sequels, which, however, no longer appeared on the Atari ST.
Why play it: For old-school adventure fans and lovers of genre hybrids who don't mind chewing through a dense web of interlinked systems without a detailed manual at hand.
Game 65 of 72 for Atari ST
