Considered by those who know it as an early precursor to Grand Theft Auto, Mike Richardson‘s excellent Turbo Esprit is an action/driving game where the aim is to catch and arrest drugs smugglers by driving around a city and pinpointing them using a map. It was first published for the ZX Spectrum by Durell Software in 1986.
Tag Archives: 2D graphics
Flat, two-dimensional graphics, usually constructed of pixels. Not three-dimensional.
Rambo: First Blood Part II, Commodore 64
Rambo: First Blood Part II, by Ocean Software, is a legendary Commodore 64 game without much substance. People revere the music (by Martin Galway), and also like the simple 360 shooter gameplay, but the truth is: this is an example of an early video game without much to do, and what there is is rather simplistic.
Pogo, ZX Spectrum
Ocean Software‘s 1983 release, Pogo, is arguably the best Q*Bert clone on the ZX Spectrum. And there were a lot of Q*Bert clones around at the time.
It was one of the very first Spectrum games I ever bought and it kept teenage me occupied for a few days, before I eventually grew tired of it.
Pi-Balled, ZX Spectrum
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.
R-Type II, Game Boy
A 1992 sequel to the excellent first Game Boy conversion of R-Type, developed by the same company as previously (Bits Studios).
R-Type, Game Boy
This 1991 handheld conversion of Irem‘s classic arcade game, R-Type, is surprisingly good.
Yes: it’s monochrome, and yes: the graphics are tiny, but the gameplay is spot on, which is the most important thing.
R-Type, ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum conversion of Irem‘s classic arcade game R-Type is considered by many to be one of the best games ever made for Sir Clive‘s classic 8-bit home computer.
Dungeon Master, Amiga
FTL and Software Heaven‘s classic Dungeon Master was available on the Amiga in two different forms. Initially it was only available for Amigas with 1MB of RAM, and wasn’t available for the Amiga 500 (which only had 512kb of RAM) for quite a while, which gave Atari ST owners bragging rights for this amazing game for a few months.
Hammerwatch, PC
Hammerwatch is a brilliant single or multi-player fantasy action game with tiny characters fighting off hoards of killer monsters. It features beautiful pixel graphics, atmospheric lighting effects, RPG elements, and seriously challenging gameplay. It was created by Swedish developer Crackshell and first published in 2013. Hammerwatch is available for Windows, Linux, OS X, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and XBox One.
Turrican II: The Final Fight, Commodore 64
Turrican II: The Final Fight is the outstanding sequel to the excellent Turrican – a classic run-and-gun platform shooter created by German coder Manfred Trenz. It was originally published by Rainbow Arts for the Commodore 64 in 1991.
The King of Grabs 