Microcosm was much-hyped upon release in 1993, but in essence is a very limited ‘rail shooter’ set inside a human body – with pre-rendered video sequences used to depict the third-person viewpoint.
The game was originally developed by Psygnosis for the FM Towns, with some investment from Fujitsu, and was later ported to MS-DOS, the Sega Mega-CD, the 3DO, and the Amiga CD32.
This rather obscure Prince of Persia/Another World/Flashback tribute was created by Hungarian developer Invictus Games exclusively for the Amiga 1200 in 1997. It was initially released on CD-ROM only, which is strange as the Amiga 1200 didn’t come with a CD drive, so players had to purchase an external CD-ROM drive or somehow transfer the game to a hard drive and play it that way. Invictus later re-released the game as freeware for Windows, in 2004, to coincide with the company’s 10th anniversary.
Also known as Akumajo Dracula X: Chi no Rondo, Rondo of Blood is a famous entry in Konami‘s Castlevania series that was initially made exclusively for the PC Engine CD and first published in 1993.
Known as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The 20th Anniversary in Europe, Interplanetary Mission is an isometric action adventure featuring the famous movie character, E.T. And, while the game is no classic, it is at least much better than the infamous Atari 2600 game from 1982. In fact: it’s not too bad at all.
Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands was coded by British developer Probe Entertainment and published by Acclaim in 1996. It was also released for the PlayStation, PC MS-DOS and Windows, but I’m just covering the Sega Saturn version here because they’re mostly identical.
Continue reading Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands, Sega Saturn
The FM Towns conversion of Bubble Bobble is another perfect Japanese port of the arcade game. It was developed by Taito themselves and released on CD-ROM by Ving in 1990.
Vib-Ribbon is a unique game on the PlayStation. It is the only game I can think of that is mostly black and white and uses simple animated vector-style line art to present the visuals. That said: Vib-Ribbon is full of character and charm and goes to show what can be achieved when developers think out of the box.
Jumping Flash! is a first-person platform shooter co-developed by Exact and Ultra and published by Sony in 1995.
You play as a jumping robot, called Robbit, who must collect a number of “Jet Pods” (which look more like big carrots) on each level, then stand on the exit pad. This must be done within a strict time limit.
A port of an arcade sequel by Capcom, released for the PlayStation in 2000. The original Strider is rightly revered by gamers and the sequel pays homage to it by retaining the original’s look and feel.
The King of Grabs 