Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is the sequel to the timeless Atari, Inc. shooter, Star Wars, and it was first released into arcades in 1985. It is, of course, based on the classic 1980 film of the same name.
Arcade Special
The video game arcades of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s were very special places. They were where the majority of innovation was taking place in the video games industry, and over those three decades countless classic video games were released into these dingy, constantly noisy places for friends to crowd around and play. Video game arcades were social places where all kinds of different people hung out.
Atic Atac, Commodore 64
Wow… This is arguably the best modern remake of an old video game that I’ve ever seen!
This beautiful 2020 homebrew rendition of Ultimate‘s classic Spectrum game comes courtesy of three individuals: the code was written by Tomaz Kac of Nostalgia, the graphics were created by Steven Day (aka Ste), and the music by Saul Cross.
All three of them deserve some serious credit.
“After 37 years the C64 finally gets its own version of Atic Atac,” says Tomaz Kac, “I hope we did the game justice. We tried to make it very special, not just by getting as close to Spectrum version, but by expanding it quite a bit. We hope you like it!”
Atomic Robo-Kid, Arcade
Atomic Robo-Kid is a horizontally-scrolling, progressive weapons shooter, designed by Tsutomu Fujisawa and manufactured by UPL in 1988.
It’s not a very well-known arcade game, but does have its fans. It also managed to get converted to a number of home systems too (including for the Sega Megadrive, but it never appeared on the SNES).
Winter Camp, Commodore 64
Winter Camp is the 1992 sequel to the popular Summer Camp. Both were ‘auteur pieces’ on the Commodore 64, with John D. Ferrari doing design, programming, and graphics on both releases.
Summer Camp, Commodore 64
Summer Camp is an old school platform game that came out towards the end of the C64‘s life – 1990 to be precise.
It’s a cartoony collect ’em up in the style of Manic Miner, although in this you play Maximus Mouse trying to collect pieces of a blueprint.
Xenon 1, Oric
Xenon 1 by IJK Software is a very early shoot ’em up for the Oric 1 home computer. It shows off what the Oric is capable of, which is: not very much… 😉
Masterblazer, Amiga
Masterblazer is a 1990 conversion of the classic LucasFilm Games game, Ballblazer, but with faster, smoother graphics than the 8-bit versions, and a couple of extra play modes.
That said: the 8-bit versions were all pretty much fast and smooth enough, so is this Amiga update good enough?
Creatures, Commodore 64
Also known as “Clive Radcliffe Exterminates All The Unfriendly Repulsive Earth-ridden Slime“, Creatures is a beautifully-realised platform/puzzle game with colourful graphics and challenging gameplay.
The game was programmed by John Rowlands, with graphics by Steve Rowlands, and was published by Thalamus in 1990.
Retrograde, Commodore 64
Developed by Apex Computer Productions, in association with Transmission Software, and published by Thalamus in 1989, Retrograde is a side-scrolling, progressive weapons shooter written by the same guys who made Creatures.
Retrograde came before Creatures, though.
The King of Grabs 