Category Archives: SNK

Mechanized Attack, Arcade

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.

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The Irritating Maze, Neo Geo

Developed by Saurus and first distributed into arcades on the Neo Geo MVS system by SNK in 1997, The Irritating Maze might seem like an innocently humorous title for a video game, but it is in fact one of the mostly aptly-named video games of all-time…

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Last Resort, Neo Geo

Last Resort is a scrolling ‘bullet hell‘ shooter developed by SNK and first released as an arcade game, on Neo Geo MVS hardware, in 1992. From what I can ascertain it doesn’t seem to have been released on cartridge for Neo Geo AES home systems, but it was later released on the Neo Geo CD.

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Ikari Warriors, MSX

The 1987 MSX2 version of the classic coin-op, Ikari Warriors, is arguably the best 8-bit conversion of this scrolling shooter around. It was converted by SNK themselves, so is about as authentic as an MSX fan could hope for. In fact: the producer of this port was Koji Obada, who designed the original arcade game.

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Magician Lord, Neo Geo

Magician Lord is a bit of a rarity on the Neo Geo – it’s a scrolling action game based on fantasy characters. It’s like a run-and-gun game with magic, basically. Not the kind of game you see very often on the Neo Geo, and it’s a decent game to boot.

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Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy, Neo Geo

Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy was first released on the Neo Geo by SNK in 1994. It is a side-scrolling arcade platform game, sometimes referred to as a “predecessor to Metal Slug“, and featuring two playable characters… Yes, you guessed it: Roddy and Cathy.

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Aero Fighters 2, Neo Geo

Aero Fighters 2 (also known as Sonic Wings 2) is a superb vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter from 1994, developed by Video System and published by SNK on the Neo Geo.

It can be played single, or simultaneous two-player, and you can choose between eight different aircraft to fly. Well, not really ‘fly’, but you know what I mean…

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Samurai Shodown II, Neo Geo

SNK‘s Samurai Shodown II is a legendary fighting game for the Neo Geo, first released in arcades in 1994, then later for home consoles.

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Pulstar, Neo Geo

Pulstar is a horizontally-scrolling, ‘bullet hell’ style shooter developed by Aicom and published in arcades for the Neo Geo MVS in 1995.

And – let’s face it – it’s also a blatant rip-off of Irem‘s R-Type too. That said: it’s not a bad rip-off at all, arguably eclipsing R-Type in terms of graphics.

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