I hadn’t seen this 1989 arcade game from Atari Games before, until I played it recently, and even then I found it on the Commodore 64 first, then realised that it was an arcade conversion.
Skull & Crossbones has all the ingredients of a classic arcade action game, but – having played it extensively now – I can see why it failed…
Nintendo‘s 1982 arcade game, Popeye, was somewhat ahead of its time, and also in some respects as archaic to play as a Game & Watch.
It was ahead of its time in the way that it used a relatively high screen resolution (512×448), which results in quite detailed, high res sprites that are unusual for the time.
Unfortunately the same can’t be said of the background graphics, which look like something designed on an Atari 2600… In fact: Popeye is a weird mix of graphical resolutions, but this weirdness doesn’t affect the gameplay at all.
Written by Carol Shaw for Activision and published initially for the Atari 2600 in 1982, River Raid is an early vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up with simple graphics, challenging gameplay, and its own unique set of rules.
Blackwyche is the third game in the Sir Arthur Pendragon series, following on from The Staff of Karnath and Entombed. It was written by Dave and Bob Thomas and published by Ultimate Play The Game in 1985.
The 1994 sequel to StarTropics, Zoda’s Revenge again features the red-haired hero, Mike Jones, only this time he’s on a time-travelling adventure searching to find a series of puzzles shapes called “Tetrads”.
These Tetrads are actually a nod to Tetris, and in the Virtual Console re-release of StarTropics II their names have been changed to “Blocks”, probably to avoid any legal problems. But anyway, I digress…
Following a year after the original Donkey Kong Country, this 1995 sequel is more of the same platforming action, with pre-rendered graphics, only this time you’re playing as Diddy Kong – and his girlfriend, Dixie Kong – on a mission to rescue Donkey Kong.
Continue reading Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, Super Nintendo
Super Ninja Boy is an action role-playing game developed by Culture Brain and released on the SNES in 1991 in Japan, and in 1993 in North America.
It’s a sequel to Culture Brain‘s previous title, Little Ninja Brothers for the NES, and it’s not a brilliant game the truth be told, but it does hold a special place in my heart because it was one of the first games I ever reviewed as games journalist.
This 2005 conversion of the classic PlayStation game, Ape Escape, is a colourful 3D “chase ’em up”, where you’re basically chasing monkeys with a net through time. Yes: through various cartoony periods of history! And it’s a fairly fun game…
Released into arcades by Sun Electronics (aka Sunsoft) in 1983, Arabian is a platform game in which you play a prince on a mission to rescue a princess from a castle in which she is being held prisoner.
The sequel to the quirky Amiga adventure Heimdall, Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds was developed by The 8th Day and published by Core Design in 1994. In my opinion: it is more enjoyable than the first game, although not without its faults.
Continue reading Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds, Amiga CD32
