Steve Hales‘ superb Fort Apocalypse is a classic American video game that originated on Atari 8-bit home computers in 1982.
The game is a multi-directional, scrolling shooter where you control a helicopter flying around a series of underground caverns looking for men to rescue.
The Atari 800 version of Rescue On Fractalus was released in 1984 and was the first version available. It was a critical success and drew quite a lot of attention to Atari 8-bit home computers (jealous Commodore 64 owners had to wait almost a year before they got a conversion).
Con-Quest is a 1986 ZX Spectrum release from Mastertronic, created by the inimitable Derek Brewster.
In it you play a character called Oscar who has just inherited a large castle. The castle isn’t vacant though – it’s full of the evil minions of the demon Grell, who you must evict.
The Curse of Sherwood is a 1987 action/adventure game from the prolific programmer/designer Derek Brewster.
A fine side-scrolling action game released in 1988 on the budget Rack-It label (for a mere £2.99), Battle Valley is a hectic mixture of tank blasting and helicopter flying, with a pounding soundtrack and solid graphics.
Bobby Bearing is an interesting isometric action game on the ZX Spectrum, published by The Edge in 1986.
You play as Bobby – a ball bearing – and must roll around the large, colourful maze, looking for and rescuing his four lost brothers and one cousin.
Bonanza Bros. is a split-screen, two-player, side-scrolling action game that first appeared in arcades in 1990. A number of home conversions followed although none were better than this Sega Megadrive/Genesis version which was released in 1991.
The ZX Spectrum original of Ant Attack was so good that it spawned a decent 1984 Commodore 64 version, by Paul Fik and Bitterne Software.
Contra: Hard Corps is Konami‘s attempt to recreate the thrills and spills of the legendary SNES game, Contra III: The Alien Wars (aka Super Probotector), on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, and – to be honest – it falls a little short of its SNES cousin.
Part 2 of our Anachronox special. A selection of grabs from later in the game. Showing just a fraction of the wide variety in this groundbreaking American Role-Playing Game.
