Although the FM Towns port of Bullfrog‘s classic Syndicate is in Japanese, it’s still a great game to play if you know what you’re doing. Of course this is not the right version of Syndicate to play if it’s your first time (unless you can read Japanese), but it is a sharp port with crisp high resolution graphics and responsive controls.
Tag Archives: British
Shadow of the Beast, FM Towns
Shadow of the Beast on the FM Towns was first published in Japan only by Cross Media Soft – a brand of Victor Musical Industries (a subsidiary of JVC) – in 1991, and came on CD-ROM.
Tim Ansell, who programmed the FM Towns version of Shadow of the Beast (and Shadow of the Beast II), founded the famous British developer The Creative Assembly in 1987 and this was one of a number of contract ports that he did for Psygnosis in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Maziacs, Commodore 64
This conversion of Don Priestley‘s brilliant Spectrum game first appeared on the Commodore 64, courtesy of Andy French and DK’Tronics, in 1984. C64 fans tend to frown on conversions of Spectrum games to their system, but in this case they should be thanking their lucky stars, because Maziacs is a great little game.
Donkey Kong, Commodore 64
The 1986 Commodore 64 port of Nintendo‘s famous Donkey Kong was developed by Arcana Software Design and published by Ocean Software. And it is a decent port of the arcade game.
Arcana also made the superb Amstrad CPC Donkey Kong port for Ocean, so it’s no surprise that this one is good too.
The Sentinel, Amstrad CPC
Geoff Crammond‘s classic The Sentinel was first released for the Amstrad CPC by Firebird in 1987, and it is one of the best 8-bit versions of this weird and wonderful game.
Operation Wolf, ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum version of Taito‘s classic arcade shooter, Operation Wolf, was developed and published by Ocean Software in 1988.
Super Dragon Slayer, ZX Spectrum
Converted by John F. Cain, from an original Commodore 64 game by John Ferrari, Super Dragon Slayer is a platform shooter featuring an agile magician who must jump, climb and shoot his way – left to right – through four large, scrolling levels. It was first published for the ZX Spectrum by Codemasters in 1989.
Super Dragon Slayer, Commodore 64
Designed and programmed by John Ferrari, with music by Barry Leitch, Super Dragon Slayer is a platform shooter first published for the Commodore 64 by Codemasters in 1988. In many ways this game reminds me of the early days of C64 software, with unforgiving gameplay and instant death if you put a foot wrong. That said, this is still a pretty good game. Just a very difficult one.
Marble Madness: Deluxe Edition, Amstrad CPC
The ‘Deluxe Edition‘ of Marble Madness was released the same year as ‘The Construction Set‘ edition and it contains a new set of screens to play through, plus the Construction Set editor, and the ten screens from the earlier release. It’s still complete and utter garbage, though…
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Marble Madness: The Construction Set, Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC version of Melbourne House‘s 1986 release of Marble Madness is more or less identical to the ZX Spectrum version, but with a bit more colour. It was coded by the same author – John F. Cain – and suffers from the same problems as the Spectrum version.
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The King of Grabs 