The title of this obscure 1982 arcade game from Pacific Novelty Manufacturing is bad enough, but the gameplay is hilariously “wacky” too. Well, it is kinda crappy, but does have some curiosity value. Mostly because some of the minigames found within are derivative of other famous video games.
Continue reading The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea, Arcade
This over-the-top action game was developed and published by Data East in 1990 and in it you play as Edward Randy, an Indiana Jones-style adventurer who is fighting against an army of evil soldiers, led by “Dark Ogre“, and who’ve kidnapped his friend’s daughter Charlotte, who he is trying to rescue.
Konami’s Ping Pong was the first video game to accurately reflect the gameplay of table tennis, rather than earlier simplifications like Pong. It was first released into arcades in 1985.
Developed by Konami and first distributed into arcades in 1991, The Simpsons is a scrolling multiplayer beat ’em up based on the award-winning animated series of the same name. You can play as either Marge, Homer, Bart or Lisa and must rescue Maggie, who’s been kidnapped by Mr. Burns and Smithers after a diamond heist gone wrong. The game features the show’s original voice actors: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith, reprising their roles as the Simpsons family.
Kiki Kaikai (the literal translation being “Strange and Mysterious World“) is a shoot ’em up developed and distributed into Japanese arcades by Taito in 1986. Set in Feudal Japan, the player assumes the role of a Shinto shrine maiden, called Sayo-chan, who must use her ‘O-Fuda’ scrolls and ‘Gohei’ wand to defeat renegade spirits and monsters from Japanese mythology. Sayo’s ultimate aim is to free The Gods of Fortune who have been imprisoned by evil spirits.
Tugboat is a relatively early colour arcade game, created by Enter-Tech and first distributed as part of the Moppet Video range in 1982. It is a very simple game that was designed for children – housed in a miniature arcade cabinet – in which you control a tugboat moving down a river and must avoid floating logs (and collisions with the banks), and can collect floating buoys by moving left and right.
This terrible pun of a title (meant to ‘parody’ the word Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon) was developed by Sunsoft and distributed into arcades by Sega in 1989. It’s a one or simultaneous two-player Contra clone scrolling through a futuristic warzone.
Tiger Road is a single-player hack-and-slash platform/action game, released into arcades by Capcom in 1987. It pre-dates Sega‘s Golden Axe by two years, but is very similar in terms of gameplay.
Don Doko Don is an arcade game developed and distributed by Taito in 1989. It was only ever released in Japan – as were ports of the game that appeared on the Famicom and PC Engine – although the small amount of text in the game appears to be in English so is easy to understand.
Released into arcades by Taito in 1988, Syvalion is a strange-but-interesting scrolling shooter in which you control a golden metal dragon (called “Mechadragon“) that must fight its way to the end of a series of mazes within a time limit. The dragon can breathe fire to destroy enemies and must pick up power-ups, or move quickly without firing, to keep its flame breath bar filled. At the end of each stage is a boss battle which you need to win to progress.
The King of Grabs 