Microcosm was much-hyped upon release in 1993, but in essence is a very limited ‘rail shooter’ set inside a human body – with pre-rendered video sequences used to depict the third-person viewpoint.
The game was originally developed by Psygnosis for the FM Towns, with some investment from Fujitsu, and was later ported to MS-DOS, the Sega Mega-CD, the 3DO, and the Amiga CD32.
Hamsters is a hilarious action game where the aim is to squash cute animals with a large wooden mallet and to collect the goodies that they drop as a result of being hit… Haha. Take that: cute animals!
Spheres of Chaos is a colourful and superbly-playable Asteroids tribute originally written for the Acorn Archimedes by Iain McLeod and Matt Black and self-published in 1993.
Fireball II is a garish but playable Arkanoid clone for the Acorn Archimedes, written by Simon Heather and published by Cambridge International Software in 1990.
Although the graphics look a bit amateurish, Fireball II does have a number of surprises under the hood, which make it fun to play.
Mr. Doo is an Archimedes clone of Universal‘s classic arcade game, Mr. Do!. And – like many Archimedes clones of existing games – it is only a partial success.
Another Archimedes game that I had recommended to me, but turned out to be poor, is Super Pool. It’s another game by the prolific Gordon J. Key (E-Type; Apocalypse) and published by The Fourth Dimension in 1991.
Luckily for Archimedes owners they have an almost perfect conversion of Namco‘s classic Pac-Mania – aka the Pac-Man who can jump – and it’s an excellent game. It was developed by Krisalis Software and published by Domark in 1991.
Bug Hunter in Space is the sequel to Bug Hunter, both written by Ian Richardson. This follow-up was published by Minerva Software in 1990 and is a platform puzzle game where you play a six-inch bipedal invertebrate called “Hysteron Proteron” on a mission to squash bugs, and stop aliens from destroying all life on earth.
Cataclysm is an obscure action puzzle game on the Archimedes that involves channelling water from plugged-up vats in the top of a vertically-scrolling level, into a drain at the very bottom. Which you do by controlling a jet-pack-wearing guy who can manipulate objects to make the water take a certain route through the scenery.
Apocalypse is a fast-paced, overrated 3D shoot ’em up that was written by Gordon J. Key (the same guy who wrote E-Type) and published by The Fourth Dimension for the Acorn Archimedes in 1990.
The King of Grabs 