The Apple II version of Argonaut Software‘s classic cockpit shooter, Starglider, was ported by Solid Image, the same developer who made the flawed C64 version. And – unsurprisingly – it retains all the flaws of the C64 version, and brings a few problems of its own to the party, just for good measure…
Category Archives: Argonaut Software
Starglider, PC
The 1987 PC MS-DOS version of Argonaut Software‘s classic 3D shooter, Starglider, was ported by Realtime Games Software, who did the excellent Amstrad and ZX Spectrum ports. Unfortunately, the game is available only with four-colour CGA graphics, which does diminish the look of the game significantly.
Starglider, Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 version of Starglider was ported by Solid Image and published by Rainbird in 1986. Unfortunately, the developers didn’t manage to convert Starglider‘s unique control method over to the C64 – instead they chose to use a fixed aiming reticule in the centre of the screen, and this results in a rather degraded gameplay experience.
Starglider, Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC version of Argonaut Software‘s classic 3D shooter, Starglider, was developed by Realtime Games Software, who also coded the excellent ZX Spectrum version. It could be argued that it is even better than the Spectrum version, because it runs faster and also uses more colours in the polygons, although the game does have a smaller cockpit and play window than the Spectrum version.
Starglider, ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum version of Argonaut‘s classic Starglider is actually surprisingly good. Or, rather: the 128K version is very good (the 48K version plays well enough, but it lacks the digitised speech and other enhancements, so is a little plain). And the main reason Starglider on the Speccy is respectable, is because it was converted by Realtime Games Software, who were pioneers in the field of Spectrum-based 3D games, having created the legendary Starstrike, Starstrike II and Carrier Command (among others).
Starglider, Amiga
Argonaut Software‘s Starglider, when it first came out, was a flashy release. It came in a big blue box, with a novella, a manual, and a single floppy disk. Magazines were raving about it, and I remember buying it… for the ZX Spectrum. LOL.
Starglider, Atari ST
The Atari ST version of Argonaut Software‘s pioneering 3D shooter, Starglider, first came out in 1986 – a year before the Amiga version (for some reason – I don’t know why).
X, Game Boy
This game – called simply “X” – was a Japan-only release, in 1992, on the original black and white Game Boy, but its conception and development would later have a profound effect on Nintendo‘s confidence in producing 3D-based games.
X was created by British developer Argonaut Software (specifically, by Dylan Cuthbert, who was later infamously ‘poached’ by Nintendo from Argonaut), and was a demonstration of their ability to produce 3D-based games on home video game systems. This impressed Nintendo, who then tasked Argonaut with creating a new 3D game on their Super Nintendo console, which eventually became the classic Star Fox. And the rest is history… Sort of.
Croc 2, PlayStation
First released for the Sony PlayStation in 1999, and is the sequel to the smash hit Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, Croc 2 is a 3D platform game developed by Argonaut Software and published by Fox Interactive.
Vortex, Super Nintendo
Vortex is a 3D shoot ’em up developed by Argonaut Software and published by Electro Brain in North America, Sony in Europe, and Pack-In-Video in Japan in 1994. It is one of the few games (other than Star Fox, Stunt Race FX, Yoshi’s Island, Doom, Dirt Trax FX, Winter Gold, and Star Fox 2) to use the Super FX co-processor chip to allow for faster 3D graphics than the vanilla SNES is capable of.
The King of Grabs 