Abductor is an early shoot ’em up from Jeff Minter and Llamasoft; releasing exclusively for the VIC-20 in 1983. The game is a sort of a cross between Galaxian and Defender, except that the aliens swoop down to try to take six arbitrary ‘men’ that you’re protecting. The unfortunate thing is that this idea doesn’t work that well in practise…
Tag Archives: aliens
Andes Attack, VIC-20
Andes Attack was the first commercial game release from Jeff Minter and Llamasoft, and it was of course a clone of an arcade game (Defender). Andes Attack was first released in 1982 for the VIC-20 and did reasonable business, in spite of it not actually being very good.
Benefactor, Amiga CD32
Benefactor is an unusual platform/puzzle game developed for the Amiga by Swedish team Digital Illusions CE and published in 1994 by Psygnosis. It could be described as a “miniature Flashback“, because it has similar game mechanics to that game, but tinier graphics.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two, PC
The second episodic chapter in the Half-Life 2 series is arguably the best of the adventures of Gordon Freeman, and maybe even one of the best games of all-time. Half-Life 2: Episode Two was first released by Valve in 2007.
Half-Life 2: Episode One, PC
The first sequel to the classic Half-Life 2 takes the form of an episodic chapter in the adventures of Gordon Freeman. It carries on directly from the end of Half-Life 2, with Gordon and Alyx actually going back into the crumbling Citadel to try to stop the reactor from exploding. Half-Life 2: Episode One was first released in 2006.
Half-Life, PlayStation 2
This conversion of the classic PC game, Half-Life, to the PlayStation 2 was handled by Gearbox Software and it features the main single-player game, Half-Life: Decay (a cooperative multiplayer version of the main game), and a head-to-head deathmatch component that uses split screen. It was first published by Sierra On-line in 2001.
Half-Life, PC
Half-Life is a classic first-person shooter (FPS) that is regarded as one of the best video games ever made. It was Valve‘s first game and was first published in 1998 by Sierra On-line. Half-Life came out at a time when the market was becoming saturated by FPSes, and it completely changed the way video games were made by developers – and were perceived by the general public.
Strontium Dog: The Killing, ZX Spectrum
Quicksilva‘s second attempt at a Strontium Dog video game in 1984 – released the same year as the awful Death Gauntlet on the C64 – is only marginally better than their first attempt.
The Killing, on the ZX Spectrum, was written by Paul Hargreaves and once again sees you playing mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, trying to survive a gauntlet of hostility on an alien planet. This time, though, he’s voluntarily participating in a contest where vicious murderers fight to the death for cash, in a tournament called “The Killing“.
Fade to Black, PlayStation
Fade To Black is a 3D action adventure game developed by Delphine Software and published for the PlayStation by Electronic Arts in 1996 (the MS-DOS version came out earlier, in 1995). It is the sequel to the classic 1992 platform game, Flashback.
Guile, Archimedes
The best way to describe Guile on the Archimedes is: it’s a lot like David Braben‘s Zarch (aka Virus), but set in tunnels. And if you’ve ever played Zarch before then you’ll know that that means that this game is gonna be difficult…
The box describes Guile as: “a unique three-dimensional flight simulator set in a dungeon adventure“, which is sure to have any rational gamer scratching their head in confusion.