Written by Pete Cooke and published by Firebird (as a £1.99 budget game) in 1987, Brainstorm is a clever puzzle/strategy game where the aim is to draw lines using a pointer in order to make a bouncing ball travel over coloured sections of the screen, to accumulate points.
Tag Archives: 1987
Shinobi, Arcade
The arcade version of Shinobi was developed and published by Sega in 1987. It is a scrolling run-and-gun action game featuring a lead character called Joe Musashi who is on a mission to defeat the Zeed terrorist organisation. The aim of the game is to rescue kidnapped students of his clan and each level has a certain number of hostages to release.
Contra, Arcade
Contra is a run-and-gun arcade game developed and published by Konami in 1987. It is the first game in the long-running Contra series and was renamed as Gryzor – and tweaked slightly – for European arcades.
Hydrofool, ZX Spectrum
Hydrofool was developed by Gargoyle Games and published by Faster Than Light in 1987. It’s the sequel to Sweevo’s World which was released in 1986.
Ikari Warriors, MSX
The 1987 MSX2 version of the classic coin-op, Ikari Warriors, is arguably the best 8-bit conversion of this scrolling shooter around. It was converted by SNK themselves, so is about as authentic as an MSX fan could hope for. In fact: the producer of this port was Koji Obada, who designed the original arcade game.
Voidrunner, Commodore 64
Voidrunner is second sequel to Gridrunner, the famous Llamasoft grid-based shooter that author Jeff Minter was evolving throughout the 1980s. The C64 version was first published by Mastertronic in 1987, following on from the C16/Plus 4 original.
Return of the Mutant Camels, Commodore 64
Return of the Mutant Camels is the third game in the Llamasoft ‘Camels‘ series, after Attack of the Mutant Camels and Revenge of the Mutant Camels, and it is arguably the best of the bunch. It was first published by Mastertronic in 1987 as a budget game.
The Kung Fu, PC Engine
This impressive-looking fighting game – also known as China Warrior in North America and (informally) “Drunken Master” by some – was the first game ever released for the PC Engine. It was developed by Hudson Soft and first published in 1987 by NEC.
Ranarama, ZX Spectrum
Steve Turner‘s classic Ranarama originated on the ZX Spectrum in 1987. The game is an overhead Gauntlet derivative where you play as a frog (actually a wizard’s apprentice, called Mervyn, whose botched spell has turned him into a frog), who must fight his way through various levels of a maze, defeating warlocks and taking their runes.
Exolon, ZX Spectrum
Designed by Raffaele Cecco and published by Hewson Consultants in 1987, Exolon is a simple-but-effective run-and-gun shooter with flick-screen levels and snazzy Spectrum-esque colourful graphics, with minimal colour clash.
The King of Grabs 