Developed by The Bitmap Brothers and published by Image Works in 1988, Speedball is a violent futuristic sport game where two teams try to score goals by throwing a metal ball into openings at the top and bottom of an enclosed court.
Tag Archives: balls
Championship Pool, Megadrive/Genesis
Created by Bitmasters and first published by Mindscape in 1993, Championship Pool is arguably one of the best pool games of all-time. It’s possible to make subtle or hard-hitting strokes, and the aiming system allows for quick, accurate enhancements that encourage ever more confident play.
NBA Live 98, Megadrive/Genesis
The Megadrive/Genesis version of NBA Live 98 was developed by Tiertex and Electronic Arts and published by THQ in 1997. It is the fourth instalment in the NBA Live series and was the final NBA Live game to appear on Sega‘s 16-bit console.
Brainstorm, ZX Spectrum
Written by Pete Cooke and published by Firebird (as a £1.99 budget game) in 1987, Brainstorm is a clever puzzle/strategy game where the aim is to draw lines using a pointer in order to make a bouncing ball travel over coloured sections of the screen, to accumulate points.
Turboflex, Atari 8-bit
Jeff Minter‘s 1982 Atari 8-bit game, Turboflex, is an interesting but frustrating bouncing ball game where the aim is for you to deliberately bounce a ball into a target inside a box by dropping flippers onto it – diagonal posts that spin the ball in different directions, depending on its position when hit by the ball. The target, depending on your game settings, moves, reverses or does other tricks, so as not to get hit/caught by you.
Heatseeker, Commodore 64
Heatseeker is a weird platform action game, written by Paul O’Malley and published for the Commodore 64 by Thalamus in 1990. It’s probably one of the strangest games I’ve ever played, and it has to be said that the game does suffer a little because of that. It’s so unconventional as to be borderline playable.
Bobby Bearing, Amstrad CPC
Robert and Trevor Figgins‘ isometric action/puzzle game, Bobby Bearing, originated on the ZX Spectrum but is arguably slightly better on the Amstrad CPC.
The game features the titular character, Bobby, who is a smiling ball bearing who can roll around, fit through holes, push things, and… erm, not much else. He does have character, though.
Mario Tennis, Game Boy Color
Developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo in 2000 (in Japan – 2001 everywhere else), Mario Tennis on the Game Boy Color is an alternate handheld version of the Mario-based tennis game on the Nintendo 64 which was published under the same name that same year.
Marble Madness, Game Gear
The Game Gear has a surprisingly good conversion of the classic Atari arcade game, Marble Madness, in its library. It was coded by Steve Lamb and published by Tengen in 1992.
Fireball II, Archimedes
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.
The King of Grabs 