The Commodore 64 version of Melbourne House‘s fantasy maze shooter, Wiz, unfortunately suffers from an ailment that might make the game unpalatable to many Commodore 64 fans, and that is: it has slow, jerky scrolling…
Tag Archives: 1987
Wiz, ZX Spectrum
Created by Silhouette Software and published for the ZX Spectrum by Melbourne House in 1987, Wiz is an obscure scrolling action game where you control a wizard who must climb levels to gain magical powers so that he can break the link that joins the dark world to the light world. Whatever that means…
The Sentinel, Amstrad CPC
Geoff Crammond‘s classic The Sentinel was first released for the Amstrad CPC by Firebird in 1987, and it is one of the best 8-bit versions of this weird and wonderful game.
Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa, Sega Master System
Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa is the sequel to the classic 1986 Sega arcade game, Fantasy Zone. Rather unusually, it came out first on the Master System, before later being released as an arcade game. Usually the opposite occurs, but in this case the Master System version was released in 1987 and the arcade version came out in 1988.
Continue reading Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa, Sega Master System
Marble Madness, Atari ST
The Atari ST version of Marble Madness was converted by Will Harvey (who also programmed the C64 and Apple II versions – among others), and Jim Nitchals, and was published by Electronic Arts in 1987. It is very similar to the 8-bit ports Harvey produced, rather than the more authentic Amiga version (that he didn’t).
Marble Madness, PC
The PC version of Marble Madness runs under MS-DOS and was developed by Will Harvey (and a small team of other people at Sandcastle), and was published by Electronic Arts in 1987.
Since they were all coded by the same person, the Commodore 64, Atari ST, Apple II, Apple IIgs and PC versions are all very similar. This one also contains the hidden secret level accessible from the first course, although don’t get too excited about it because it’s not very good.
Tiger Road, Arcade
Tiger Road is a single-player hack-and-slash platform/action game, released into arcades by Capcom in 1987. It pre-dates Sega‘s Golden Axe by two years, but is very similar in terms of gameplay.
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, NES/Famicom
The second game in the Castlevania series, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, was originally released in Japan (as “Dracula II – Noroi no Fuuin“) for the Famicom Disk System in 1987, and in North America for the NES in 1988. Europe had to wait until 1990 for a release of the game.
Castlevania, NES/Famicom
The first Castlevania game was initially released in Japan, by Konami, under the title of “Akumajō Dracula” in 1986. Versions for the MSX2 and Famicom Disk System were developed simultaneously, with the Famicom version coming out on 26th September, and the MSX version a month later, on 30th October. That same game was later released in Europe on 30th October 1987 – translated into English – under the title of “Vampire Killer“.
When it came time to convert the game to the Nintendo Entertainment System for a North American release it was decided to re-title the game as “Castlevania“*. This turned out to be a significant decision as it became a big hit and grew to become a popular and well-known series of video games. The name “Castlevania” entered into the lexicon of classic, instantly-recognisable game titles, later becoming a portmanteau of “Metroid” and “Castlevania” (“Metroidvania“) to describe an entire sub-genre of action/platform games that all share similar gameplay features.
*= Although it’s not clear who actually came up with the name “Castlevania” it has been reported that the change was due to Konami of America senior vice president Emil Heidkamp‘s discomfort with the religious connotations of the title “Akumajō Dracula“, which he believed translated as “Dracula Satanic Castle” (although some argue that it translates as “Demon Castle Dracula“).
Commando, Apple II
The 1987 Apple II conversion of Capcom‘s Commando was developed by Quicksilver Software, Inc. and published by Data East in North America only, and it is a reasonable port although the play window is probably the smallest out of the all the versions of Commando I’ve played so far.
The King of Grabs 