***CANNED GAME***
A game that should need no introduction: Pac-Man is one of the most popular video games, and one of the most popular video game characters, of all-time. Unfortunately, this ColecoVision port of Pac-Man never made it market and was cancelled before release. Thankfully a completed prototype of the game exists and has been leaked online, and it’s better than most other ports on competitor machines.
The ColecoVision port of Bill Hogue‘s pioneering and influential Atari 8-Bit platform game, Miner 2049er, was programmed by Mike Livesay and published by Micro Fun in 1983. It is an excellent game, but it is arguably way too difficult for its own good.
Konami‘s classic arcade game, Frogger, was first released for the ColecoVision in November of 1983 and it immediately became one of the console’s biggest-selling cartridges.
Frenzy is a 1984 conversion of the 1982 arcade game of the same name, which in turn is a sequel to the maze shooter, Berzerk. The ColecoVision port was developed by Stern Electronics, who made the original arcade game, and is therefore very authentic to that game. In fact: it’s even better than the arcade game, because it’s less archaic, more playable, and is more varied.
The famous sequel to Nintendo‘s classic Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. sees the roles reversed in this cute platform game, in that this time it’s Mario (aka Jumpman, as he was known back then) who is the protagonist, and Donkey Kong who has been kidnapped and must be rescued. This time, by his son, Donkey Kong Junior.
The ZX Spectrum conversion of Data East‘s Midnight Resistance was created by Jim Bagley and Keith Tinman and was published by Ocean Software in 1990. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that it is probably the best run-and-gun shooter on the humble Speccy, and punches well above the machine’s weight.
Adventure Island II on the Game Boy is actually a port of Adventure Island III on the NES/Famicom. The Game Boy Adventure Island numbering scheme ignores the first game in the series and this 1993 handheld conversion is the rather excellent part three for the NES/Famicom, but re-titled as part two for the OG Game Boy. Because it’s always fun to confuse people with mismatched titles in a series…
New Adventure Island was first released by Hudson Soft in June 1992 in Japan, for the PC Engine, and later that same year for the TurboGrafx-16 in North America. It is more or less a remake of the original Adventure Island, which in turn was a port of the Sega arcade game, Wonder Boy.
Thankfully this is an adaption of Adventure Island II on the NES/Famicom, rather than a port of the original Adventure Island. I say “Thankfully” because the original Adventure Island was nothing more than a port of the Sega‘s 1986 arcade game, Wonder Boy, and Adventure Island II on the NES/Famicom was a step towards something a bit more substantial. Which is what we’re getting here.
Hudson Soft‘s Adventure Island on the NES/Famicom is an adaptation of Sega‘s Wonder Boy arcade game, although subsequent Adventure Island games were original titles and the series went on to become a relatively popular ‘spin-off’ in its own right. Adventure Island was initially released in Japan in 1986, then in North America 1988, and finally in Europe in 1992.
