Category Archives: Activision

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Atari Jaguar

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a scrolling platform game that is both a reboot of the original Pitfall! by David Crane and the fourth game in the Pitfall series. It was ported to the Atari Jaguar by British company Imagitech Design and published by Activision in 1995, having been released for the Megadrive/Genesis and Super Nintendo the previous year.

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Return to Castle Wolfenstein, PC

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a re-imagining of id Software‘s classic Wolfenstein 3D, developed by Gray Matter Studios and first published by Activision in 2001. It uses the id Tech 3 engine (as created for Quake III) and has a single-player campaign, as well as a multiplayer component where players are split into Allies and Axis.

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Judge Dredd, PlayStation

Developed by Gremlin Interactive and published by Activision in North America and Gremlin in Europe in 1997, Judge Dredd on the PlayStation is an on-rails lightgun shooter in a similar vein to something like Virtua Cop, only much, much worse.

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Wonder Boy, Commodore 64

Wonder Boy on the C64 is a conversion of the 1986 Sega arcade game. It was developed by Images Design for Activision and published in 1987.

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Karnov, Commodore 64

This arcade conversion of Data East‘s 1987 coin-op was highly controversial at the time of release, because it was viewed as a “lazy, direct port” of the ZX Spectrum version, which was not what Commodore 64 owners wanted to see.

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Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, Atari 8-bit

This Atari 8-bit conversion of David Crane‘s classic Atari 2600 platform game is subtitled the “Adventurer’s Edition” because it contains a whole new second level that becomes available after you complete the first.

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Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, Atari 2600

Activision‘s 1984 sequel to Pitfall!Pitfall II: Lost Caverns – was again designed and programmed by David Crane. This time, though, the cartridge had a custom display processor chip inside, which allowed for improved visuals and continuous four channel music (the Atari 2600 is normally only capable of two channel sound).

Gameplay is similar to Pitfall!, although in this follow-up the world you can explore is much bigger than previously and is made up of eight screens in width, by 27 screens in height, making 216 screens in total. When you walk from one screen to another the new screen scrolls smoothly into view.

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The Great American Cross Country Road Race, Atari 8-bit

This simple but playable road racing game was written by Alex DeMeo for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers and was first published by Activision in 1985.

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Heretic II, PC

Heretic II is the de-facto sequel to Heretic, developed by Raven Software and published by Activision in 1998. It is a third-person fantasy action game that uses a modified version of the Quake II engine.

Heretic II sees the return of Corvus in a new adventure in the land of Parthoris. Upon arriving in Parthoris Corvus discovers that the town has been swept with a mysterious plague, so he sets out to investigate. He soon wishes he hadn’t as he discovers that he too is infected, so embarks on a quest to cure himself. This takes him through a variety of different environments, all filled with dangerous traps and monsters.

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Hexen II, PC

Hexen II is the direct sequel to Hexen and uses a modified version of the Quake engine to create the game world. It was developed by Raven Software, published by id Software and distributed by Activision on PC CD-ROM in 1997.

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