The Commodore 64 version of Lucasfilm Games‘ The Eidolon came out just after the Atari 8-bit original, in 1985. The game divided critics, but in my opinion it is an atmospheric and unusual cave exploration game, with weird-looking monsters and scary-looking dragons, and is still worth playing today.
Tag Archives: Aric Wilmunder
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, FM Towns
LucasArts‘ classic point-and-click adventure, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, was released for the FM Towns by Victor Musical Industries in 1993, and although it was a Japan-only release it does include the English language version, which makes it perfectly playable to Westerners.
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Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, FM Towns
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is the second SCUMM game from Lucasfilm Games (aka LucasArts), after Maniac Mansion, with game development led by David Fox, and with Matthew Alan Kane as co-designer and co-programmer. It was originally released for the Commodore 64 in 1988, and this enhanced FM Towns port was published in Japan in 1990 by Fujitsu. The game is playable in both English and Japanese.
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The Eidolon, Atari 8-Bit
Using an enhanced version of the fractal engine created for Rescue On Fractalus, The Eidolon is a first-person action game – developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by Epyx in North America in 1985 and Activision in Europe in 1986 – that divided critics when it was first released. While Zzap!64 magazine gave it 97% and a gold medal; raved about the game, and said that it was “not to be missed“, the reviewers of Computer Gaming World disliked it, describing it as “one of the worst games of 1986“… There’s no accounting for taste…
Maniac Mansion, NES/Famicom
The NES/Famicom version of Maniac Mansion was developed and published by Jaleco in 1990 and is still worth playing today. It’s a fine port of a great game and translates well enough to Nintendo‘s machine that it arguably plays even better than the C64 original (although many will cry “Sacrilege!” to that).
Sam & Max Hit the Road, PC
Sam & Max Hit the Road, released by LucasArts in 1993, marks the video game debut of the infamous dog/rabbit crime-fighting duo.
Created by artist Steve Purcell, Sam & Max are “freelance police” and basically engage in a series of surreal mysteries involving bigfoot, and a whole host of other weird characters and strange situations.
Day of the Tentacle, PC
This is the original 1993, VGA, MS-DOS version of Day of the Tentacle, with graphics presented at a fairly low-resolution 320 x 200. They still look great to me though.
Compare this to the high def Double Fine remake of 2018 and there is no contest – the high def version wins every time – although there is still a perverse nostalgic thrill to be had from playing the original VGA version.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, PC
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was initially published by LucasArts in 1992 and was immediately recognised as something rather special – at least better than what most of the competition were doing at the time.
What makes Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis so good is the melding of the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie mythos, and the great writing, art and animation talent of LucasArts.
The Secret of Monkey Island, PC
This is the original MS-DOS classic, as released by Lucasfilm Games (later to become LucasArts) in 1990. The Secret of Monkey Island is a humorous point-and-click adventure introducing wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood and his evil arch nemesis the pirate LeChuck.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, PC
This excellent LucasArts point-and-click adventure game was first released in 1989 (to coincide with the film of the same name) and preceded the classic Fate of Atlantis by three years.
I have to admit that this one passed me by until now, and I’m still recovering from the shock of discovering a new SCUMM adventure from the same core team who gave us Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, and Sam & Max…
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The King of Grabs 