Magician Lord is a bit of a rarity on the Neo Geo – it’s a scrolling action game based on fantasy characters. It’s like a run-and-gun game with magic, basically. Not the kind of game you see very often on the Neo Geo, and it’s a decent game to boot.
Tag Archives: 1990
Boulder Dash, NES/Famicom
The NES/Famicom version of the classic Boulder Dash was developed by Data East and published by JVC in North America and Data East in Japan in 1990.
It is distinguished from other Boulder Dash conversions by having completely different graphics and sound from the original.
Boulder Dash, Game Boy
The Game Boy version of Boulder Dash was programmed by Beam Software and is somewhat similar to the NES version (not exactly the same since it was developed by a completely different company). It is a jolly re-imagining with different graphics, but the same devious level designs as the original. And it is of course monochrome, rather than colour.
James Pond: Underwater Agent, Amiga
Written by Chris Sorrell, with music by the late Richard Joseph, James Pond: Underwater Agent is the first in a trilogy of James Pond games and was first published on the Amiga by Millennium Interactive in 1990.
Rainbow Islands, Amstrad CPC
Graftgold‘s conversion of Rainbow Islands on the Amstrad is a decent port of the brilliant Taito arcade game. It was published by Ocean Software in 1990.
Turrican, Amstrad CPC
Rainbow Arts‘ classic C64 shoot ’em up, Turrican, was converted to the Amstrad by Probe Software, and it demonstrates how to do this kind of side-scrolling run-and-gun shooter on the CPC. Compared to something like Gryzor, Turrican is streets ahead in terms of presentation and playability.
Castle Master II: The Crypt, Amstrad CPC
Castle Master II: The Crypt is the sequel to the ghost-hunting Freescape game, Castle Master, and it was released by Domark in 1990 as part of a double pack with the first Castle Master. As far as I know it was never published as a stand-alone title.
The Crypt is the same as Castle Master in many respects, except that the puzzles and environments are obviously different. The controls and aims are the same as before: destroy the spirits before they destroy you; find keys to open doors, and loot the treasures inside a haunted crypt to score points as you go.
Castle Master, Amstrad CPC
Castle Master is a first-person 3D adventure game set in a haunted castle, where the aim is to destroy spirits before they overwhelm you. The game uses the famous Freescape engine, which was an early 3D engine for creating polygonal environments. It was developed by Incentive Software and first published by Domark in 1990.
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu, NES
The Famicom/NES version of Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu was developed by Now Production (who made Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti and Splatterhouse 3, among others) and was published by Hudson Soft in 1990. It’s a side-scrolling beat ’em up with platforming elements based around the famous movie actor Jackie Chan.
Gauntlet, Sega Master System
The Sega Master System conversion of Atari‘s classic arcade game Gauntlet is surprisingly good. For starters: it’s got the fastest fire rate of any of the home versions available, and it plays with a high intensity. This does, however, make the game especially challenging because the health of your heroes does tend to go down rather quickly.
The King of Grabs 