Tag Archives: 1982

Choplifter, VIC-20

The 1982 VIC-20 version of Dan Gorlin‘s Choplifter was coded by Tom Griner for Creative Software, and it has to be said that it is by far the worst version of Choplifter out there.

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Spider-Man, Atari 2600

The 1982 release of Parker BrothersAtari 2600 game, Spider-Man, was the first ever video game featuring a character licensed from Marvel Comics. And, of course, by extension, it was also the first officially-licensed Spider-Man game. But is it any good?

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Space Invaders, Atari 5200

Playing the Atari 5200 version of Taito‘s classic Space Invaders you can’t help but wonder what the programmer was thinking when he made it. Had he ever played the original Space Invaders, or was he instructed to “make something better” than the original? Because this seems to ignore a few important details from the arcade game…

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Dazzler, Arcade

Dazzler is an obscure early arcade game – first released in 1982 – from UK-based Century Electronics. In it you play as “OH” (Our Hero) and must deliver bananas to a “monkey” (really an ape) inside a maze, and avoid chasing vultures.

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Salmon Run, Atari 8-bit

Written by Bill Williams (the writer and designer of Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon, among other games), for the Atari Program Exchange, and first released in 1982, Salmon Run is a clever, and uniquely different, video game based upon the life cycle of a fish – a salmon, specifically – that is trying to swim upstream to its spawning ground.

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Sword of Fargoal, VIC-20

Written by Jeff McCord of Automated Simulations, Inc. and first published for the expanded VIC-20 by Epyx in 1982, Sword of Fargoal is a simple dungeon-crawling, Roguelike action game where you play an explorer who is searching a series of randomly generated levels for a legendary sword.

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The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea, Arcade

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.

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Tugboat, Arcade

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.

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Zaxxon, ColecoVision

Alongside Donkey Kong, Sega‘s Zaxxon was another ColecoVision arcade conversion that wowed gamers back in 1982 when they first saw it. And it was so close to the original that it drove sales of the console itself, because gamers wanted the arcade experience in their own homes.

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