The 1988 sequel to Mega Man, Mega Man 2 is more of the same rock-hard platforming and shooting action on the Nintendo Entertainment System (aka the Famicom).
Your six major protagonists this time are: Bubble Man, Air Man, Quick Man, Heat Man, Wood Man, Metal Man, Flash Man, and Crash Man. And – as usual – each has their own themed level which you can choose from in the opening menu.
The full title of this 1995 sequel is Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds, and it is an excellent continuation of the series.
Magic Carpet from Bullfrog was first released in 1994 through Electronic Arts. It is a DOS-based, first-person action game with you – the player character – flying a ‘magic carpet’ around a series of islands, fighting evil wizards and monsters and collecting ‘mana’ to increase your magical powers.
Or – to give the game its full title: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – a legendary, open-world RPG with a dragon-riding, fantasy horror setting, and a chilly, Nordic, snowy feel to the landscapes.
Released into arcades in 1985, TwinBee is a cute, vertically-scrolling shooter that is much more challenging than it looks.
Sega‘s 1991 arcade release, Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, is a strange-but-cute side-scrolling shoot ’em up featuring a young witch on a broomstick, called Cotton.
The Birds and the Bees is a simple, side-scrolling collect ’em up, with you playing a bee, out collecting pollen from nearby flowers. It was released by Bug-Byte Software on the ZX Spectrum in 1983.
You must avoid flying birds, clouds, and other dangers, and touch the heads of flowers to open them up and collect the pollen. Then fly your collected pollen back to the hive. It’s easier said than done, but the way the bee moves makes playing the game very enjoyable. There’s also a useful ‘radar’ type display at the bottom of the screen, which gives you some indication of oncoming enemies.
That said: The Birds and the Bees is nowhere near as interesting to play as its sequel – Antics.
The Birds and the Bees is notable for contributions to the graphical side of things, by Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy author Matthew Smith, and also for being Currah Microspeech compatible (meaning: if you had the add-on, the game had synthesised speech)
Doesn’t currently have its own Wikipedia page, though. Which shows its relative obscurity.
120 grabs is about the limit I’ll go to, but this game looks so good that it is worth it…
BioShock Infinite (2013) is the third game in the BioShock series, and it is one a hell of a game! It is a bright, imaginative, funny, touching, emotional, violent and downright SURPRISING adventure, set in a steampunk-style cloud city called Columbia.
The DNA of the game feels like BioShock, but you’re not underwater this time – you’re in the clouds. And you’re swinging from building to building like a Victorian Spider-Man, and toting First World War style weapons.
The world you’re exploring feels like history gone wrong, because it IS history gone wrong. Everything about BioShock Infinite is stunning: the story, as it unfolds; the action (which is breathtaking, and shockingly violent in places); the graphics (a staggering level of detail in the 3D modelling, and the lighting is phenomenal); the sound (the soundtrack – by Garry Schyman – isn’t quite as iconic as his previous two BioShock scores, but is still superb); the gameplay mechanics (zipping along rails and jumping around is easy, intuitive and fun). It’s hard to describe just how good playing this game is, other than to say that it is still unparalleled in its detail and beauty.
BioShock Infinite is very re-playable too. Other than the awkward autosaves: it’s pretty much a perfect single-player story experience.
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock_Infinite
Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/8870/BioShock_Infinite/
