The first game in the Call of Duty series was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision in 2003. Call of Duty uses the id Tech 3 engine to recreate famous battles of World War II, and uses AI-controlled team members to simulate squad play.
Golden Axe: Beast Rider was developed by Secret Level, Inc. and published for the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 by Sega in 2008. What initially drew me to this game was the fact that it was 18-rated, in an age when few games are. I wondered why it was an 18. I also wondered if it was worthy of the Golden Axe name.
This enhanced edition of the classic sci-fi RPG, System Shock, was developed by Nightdive Studios and first released in 2023. What Nightdive has done is bring the original 1994 classic into the modern age, with high definition graphics and a boatload of quality-of-life features.
This is the original VGA/SVGA* version of System Shock, first released in 1994. The game was developed by Looking Glass Technologies and published by Origin Systems in North America and Electronic Arts in Europe.
*= System Shock was originally released in VGA (320×200 resolution), but was soon upgraded to SVGA (640×480 resolution) via patches and re-releases. I’m showing both the VGA and SVGA versions here.
Epic Games‘ Unreal Tournament 2004 is the third game in the Unreal Tournament series, and is an updated version of its predecessor, Unreal Tournament 2003.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is an award-winning action game based on the DC Comics character, Batman. It was developed by London-based Rocksteady Studios and published in 2009 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Eidos Interactive, for PC, PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XBox One, Mac OS X and Nintendo Switch.
This is the expanded version of Diablo II, called Lord of Destruction, released by Blizzard in 2001.
Written by Graeme Baird, Ian Oliver and Andrew Onions, 3D Starstrike was the hit-outta-nowhere* from Realtime Software, in 1984. Well, actually, that was the ZX Spectrum version, which came out the year before this – the Amstrad CPC port. Which was released in 1985.
*= Aided somewhat by the success of Atari‘s famous Star Wars arcade machine.
Developed by Canadian company Planet Interactive Development and published – in Europe only – by Light and Shadow Productions in 2001, Gremlins Unleashed is a platform game based on the first Gremlins film, and in which you can play as either Gizmo the Mogwai, or Stripe the Gremlin.
Gun Smoke (aka “Gun.Smoke“) is an arcade shooter by Capcom, first released in 1985. It is basically a ‘wild west’ version of their previous hit Commando, only this time you’re playing as a cowboy, shooting at outlaws.
The King of Grabs 