Rapscallion is a bizarre and humorous action adventure written by Albert Ball and published by Bug-Byte for the ZX Spectrum in 1984.
You play an un-named king who has had his crown and castle seized by his arch enemy, Rapscallion the Rogue. Rapscallion has thrown you into the dungeon to rot, but you are saved by your friend, The Fairy Princess, who transforms you into a bird and grants you six lives. This allows you to begin your quest for revenge…
Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, developed and published by Ocean for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, was possibly the first home computer game to feature a celebrity, and a person of colour, as the star of the game – at least in the UK anyway.
If you don’t know: Daley Thompson is a British Olympic decathlon star, and was a gold medal winner at the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and as such was a household name in the UK back when this game was released in 1984. Younger readers might not know who Daley Thompson is, but they really should. Thompson is a legend and has been described as the greatest all-round athlete the world has ever seen. Look him up on YouTube if you want to see his Olympic achievements.
Pi-Balled was published by Automata UK in 1984 and is basically a Q*Bert clone. And it’s not a bad one at that.
Snacks ‘N Jaxson is one of the weirdest arcade games I’ve ever played in my life… It is beyond bizarre; it may even frighten children, or anyone who plays it, because it is so damn strange.
And it looks damn ugly too. The colours used in the game are unappealing, and the gameplay is also unnervingly jarring. Whoever designed it must’ve either taken a lot of acid back in the early Eighties, or been a John Wayne Gacy fanatic. Or both.
The Atari 800 version of David Crane‘s Ghostbusters is almost as good as the C64 original. It has excellent digitised speech; the obligatory chiptunes rendition of Ray Parker Jr.‘s hit single, and the game is nice, smooth, and non-flickery to play.
The ZX Spectrum version of David Crane‘s classic Ghostbusters is just as dull/entertaining (delete as applicable) as the original Commodore 64 version. But with some extra colour clash thrown in for good measure… 🙂
Ghostbusters on the Apple II was one of the early 1984 conversions of David Crane‘s Commodore 64 hit, and – in all honesty – it is somewhat lacking.
David Crane‘s 1984 adaptation of the hit film Ghostsbusters was also a big hit on the video game scene too. It hit number one on the sales charts for most home systems and is still talked about to this day.
The Commodore 64 version was the first one released.
Giant’s Revenge is the second sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk, which was created by Chris Kerry (with graphical assistance by his brother, Steve) and published by Thor Computer Software for the ZX Spectrum in 1984.
The House Jack Built is the sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk. It was released the same year as Jack and the Beanstalk – in 1984 – and is a marked improvement on its predecessor.
It was again created by Chris Kerry, helped by his brother, Steve, and published by Thor Computer Software, based in Liverpool.
The King of Grabs 