Sidewinder – by Arcadia – is a well-respected, and quite exciting, vertically-scrolling shooter on the Amiga, first released in 1988 by Mastertronic.
What makes it exciting are the excellent graphics – in particular the explosions, which are beautifully animated – and the rapid fire Bullet Hell action, which is extremely challenging.
Taito‘s 1988 arcade release, The NewZealand Story, is a super-cute platform game featuring a kiwi called Tiki, who is on a rescue mission to save his friends who have been kidnapped by a Leopard Seal. Tiki can jump and shoot arrows from his bow (as kiwis do), as well as commandeer various different floating or flying vehicles to get around in.
The NewZealand Story was an instant hit with gamers and is still much loved today.
The fourth and final Magic Knight game by David Jones, released by Mastertronic Added Dimension at the budget price of £2.99 in 1987.
The third Magic Knight game by David Jones, released by Mastertronic Added Dimension at the budget price of £2.99 in 1986.
Knight Tyme was initially released as a 128K-only game (the screenshots here are from that version), and later a cut-down 48K version was released.
The second Magic Knight game by David Jones, released by Mastertronic Added Dimension at the budget price of £2.99 in 1985.
The screenshots shown here are from the enhanced 128K version, released in 1986.
The first Magic Knight game by David Jones, released by Mastertronic at the budget price of £1.99 in 1985.
Finders Keepers is much more of a platform/maze game than the other games in the Magic Knight series, which are all menu-driven graphical adventures. This one is much more straightforward.
Coming some ten years after the release of the arcade original, Q*bert for the Game Boy was developed by Gottlieb and published by Jaleco in 1992.
This 1992 sequel to the arcade classic Terra Cresta is a PC Engine exclusive – it did not appear in arcades first.
It’s more of a remake than a sequel, but is incredibly varied and a more than worthy successor to Terra Cresta. As far as mainstream ‘Bullet Hell’ shooters go there are few better.
Terra Cresta is the sequel to the classic Moon Cresta and is a beautifully-made, vertically-scrolling shooter with progressive weapons build-up, and challenging ‘Bullet Hell’ action.
It was developed by Nichibutsu and released into arcades in 1985.
Jet Pac on the Commodore VIC-20 is pretty much the same as the classic ZX Spectrum version. It even has ‘colour clash’ like the original…
The King of Grabs 