Realtime Games‘ 1988 hit, Carrier Command, is a compelling mixture of 3D simulation and real-time strategy.
In it you take control of a futuristic, robotic aircraft carrier and must work your way through an island archipelago, taking control of each island and competing against a rival carrier.
Mike Singleton‘s 1989 release, Midwinter, is a classic action strategy game with a mixture of early 3D polygonal graphics and 16-colour 2D graphics.
I won’t beat around the bush: I absolutely HATE Nebulus 2: Pogo-A-Go-Go… I wanted to love it – because I love the original Nebulus – but this game is NOT by the original author (John M. Phillips), and – after playing it for a few hours for the first time this week – I can only conclude that it is absolute rubbish.
Developer Paul Woakes takes the Mercenary series much further in Damocles (1990) – the second game in the series.
What is interesting about Demon’s Crest – a 1994 Super Nintendo release from Capcom – is that it is a spin-off from the Ghosts ‘N Goblins series.
Eagle-eyed gamers will recognise the red-skinned, demonic lead character – called Firebrand – as an enemy from the original Ghosts ‘N Goblins arcade game. In fact: Demon’s Crest is actually the third game featuring Firebrand, after Gargoyle’s Quest (Game Boy), and Gargoyle’s Quest II (NES).
Parasol Stars is a wonderful sequel to Taito‘s classic Rainbow Islands, although it was never released in arcades.
The game was initially developed exclusively for the NEC PC Engine in 1991, and later released on other formats by Ocean Software. The brilliant Amiga version was released in 1992 and remains a firm favourite among Bubble Bobble series fans.
Although the mighty Dungeon Master did come out on the Atari ST first, its best incarnation can be found on the PC, in MS-DOS.
Geoff Crammond‘s Stunt Car Racer on the Amiga is a blistering game!
In fact: on all systems Stunt Car Racer appeared on, it worked extremely well. Mainly because Crammond programmed most of them himself (barring the Amstrad and Spectrum versions), which gave them consistency, and a boost because he was such a good programmer.
Black Crypt is the first game developed by Raven Software. It’s an Amiga exclusive, initially published by Electronic Arts in 1992. It could be argued that it’s also an unashamed clone of FTL’s Dungeon Master, but it is at least an exceptional one.
The King of Grabs 