Mechanized Attack is a manic, one or two-player lightgun shooter that was released into arcades by SNK in 1989.
On the face of it you could argue that Mechanized Attack is a clone of Taito‘s 1987 hit, Operation Wolf. You could also argue that it’s not a very good clone.
Switchblade II is a platform action game that originated on the Amiga; was developed by Gremlin Graphics, and published for the Atari Lynx by Atari Corporation in 1992. It is similar in some respects to Capcom‘s Strider, although the main character – Hiro – isn’t quite as dynamic as Strider Hiryu. The first Switchblade wasn’t released for the Lynx – just the sequel was.
The sequel to Switchblade, Switchblade II originally came out on the Amiga and was developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1991. The designer/programmer of the original Switchblade, Simon Phipps of Core Design, had no involvement in the creation of this follow-up.
Created by Simon Phipps (co-founder of Core Design), and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1989, Switchblade is a platform action game that could be described as a ‘spiritual successor’ to the Rick Dangerous games (also created by Simon Phipps). Switchblade features similar gameplay and graphics to Rick Dangerous, although it is more refined, less cartoony, and is far less frustrating to play. Switchblade came out on the Atari ST first and ports for the Amiga, C64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum followed.
Rick Dangerous 2 is the sequel to 1989’s Rick Dangerous. It was developed by Core Design (with programming by Simon Phipps, graphics by Terry Lloyd, level design by Robert Churchill and sound/music by David Pridmore), and published by Micro Style (a Microprose sub-label) in 1990.
Rick Dangerous is a cartoony Indiana Jones parody that was written by Simon Phipps, co-founder of Core Design, with graphics by Terry Lloyd. It was published on various 8-bit and 16-bit home computers by Firebird Software in 1989 and was generally well-received.
Developed by Brian A. Rice, Inc. and released by Atari Corporation in 1992, Lynx Casino is a compendium of gambling games joined together by a man walking over a gaudy carpet in a virtual casino. Those who’ve wandered through any of the vast casinos in Las Vegas will know how lurid the carpets can be, and the graphic designers who worked on this at least got that part right…
Metro-Cross is a scrolling race/action game in which you control a character known as “The Runner“, who must cross the finish line on a course full of obstacles, before the timer reaches zero. It was developed and distributed into arcades by Namco in 1985.
I find it pretty amazing that Hudson Soft‘s famous maze-based, bomb-blasting game, Bomberman, was released for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, but it was. It was developed by Hudson Soft themselves and published by Sinclair Research in the UK (much like Hudson Soft‘s other famous Spectrum game, Stop the Express). Even more bizarre is the name of the game, but there was a good reason for the change…
The second Lethal Enforcers, first released into arcades in 1994, goes in a different direction to the first Lethal Enforcers – Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters being a lightgun shoot ’em up set in the ‘Wild West’, in 1873. What hasn’t changed, though, is the fact that Konami used the same technology for digitising the graphics in this game as they did the first, and it still looks pretty dodgy as a result…
The King of Grabs 