The second game in the Software Farm ‘high resolution range’ (the first being Forty Niner), Rocket Man is another technical miracle on the Sinclair ZX81. It was first released in 1984.
Tag Archives: 2D graphics
Flat, two-dimensional graphics, usually constructed of pixels. Not three-dimensional.
Forty Niner, ZX81
This 1983 release from Software Farm broke new ground on the Sinclair ZX81. You see: graphics on the ZX81, before Forty Niner, consisted of chunky basic graphics and ASCII symbols, because the machine wasn’t really capable of anything else. Or so the world thought…
Phantom Slayer, Dragon 32
Phantom Slayer is an early 3D maze game where the aim is to kill sinister, hooded figures that are chasing you through a randomly-generated, first-person maze. It was written by Ken Kalish and published by Med Systems in 1982 for the TRS-80 (and its UK counterpart, the Dragon 32).
River Raid II, Atari 2600
Based on Carol Shaw‘s classic vertically-scrolling shooter, but not created by her, River Raid II is a more challenging and slightly more complex take on the River Raid concept.
Vib-Ribbon, PlayStation
Vib-Ribbon is a unique game on the PlayStation. It is the only game I can think of that is mostly black and white and uses simple animated vector-style line art to present the visuals. That said: Vib-Ribbon is full of character and charm and goes to show what can be achieved when developers think out of the box.
Strider 2, PlayStation
A port of an arcade sequel by Capcom, released for the PlayStation in 2000. The original Strider is rightly revered by gamers and the sequel pays homage to it by retaining the original’s look and feel.
Revelations: Persona, PlayStation
Revelations: Persona is the first game in the Persona series, which is a spin-off from the Shin Megami Tensei series, and was first published by Atlus for the PlayStation in 1996. It was actually the first game in the entire Megami Tensei series to be officially released in the West.
Ganbare Goemon: Uchū Kaizoku Akogingu, PlayStation
Yippee! A Goemon game on the PlayStation! This one called Ganbare Goemon: Uchuu Kaizoku Akogingu (in English: “Ganbare Goemon: Space Pirate Akogingu“), and it’s apparently a direct sequel to Ganbare Goemon 3 although Sasuke and Yae are not playable characters in this game. This was the first Goemon game on the PlayStation and it was first published by Konami in 1996.
Thankfully this game was given an English fan translation in 2020 by Adventurous Translations, which makes it playable to non Japanese speakers. According to the readme file on the translation patch the game was not much fun to translate (mostly for technical reasons), and isn’t seen as being a very good game by the person who translated it. That said: I got the translation patch to work fine and am overjoyed that I can now play it in English, so a big thank you to Adventurous Translations for their efforts (they are much appreciated).
Continue reading Ganbare Goemon: Uchū Kaizoku Akogingu, PlayStation
Rapid Reload, PlayStation
Called Gunner’s Heaven in its native Japan, Rapid Reload is a run-and-gun scrolling shooter with amazing 2D graphics, massive amounts of destruction, and lots of tough boss battles. It was developed by Media.Vision and published by Sony.
Rapid Reload was first released for the PlayStation in 1995 and made an immediate impression with gamers, predominantly because of the action-packed gameplay and the sheer amount of on-screen carnage. Outside of arcades, little had been seen on this scale before – at least in terms of the amount of stuff going on on-screen. You only have to play the first level to know what you’ve got in store when you play Rapid Reload.
Quarth, Arcade
Quarth is a brilliant mixture of Tetris and shoot ’em up and was first played in arcades in Japan in 1989. Outside of Japan it is known as “Block Hole“, which – let’s face it – is a stupid name, so I’m sticking with the original name, Quarth.
The King of Grabs 