The 1987 conversion of Ikari Warriors is bit of an “auteur piece” on the ZX Spectrum. What I mean by that is: one guy made it on his own. He programmed the game; created the graphics, and did the sound. That man was David Shea, and the truth be told: he did an excellent job of it – managing to squeeze in most of the arcade game‘s features. Which is pretty impressive on a Spectrum.
Tag Archives: conversion
Ikari Warriors, Commodore 64
This Commodore 64 conversion of SNK‘s classic arcade game, Ikari Warriors, is considered to be one of the best vertically-scrolling shooters on the system. It was programmed by John Twiddy and published by Elite Systems in 1986.
Hunchback, ZX Spectrum
Hunchback is a conversion of the 1983 arcade game by Century Electronics. It has been written that Hunchback is loosely based on the 1831 Victor Hugo novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, because it features Quasimodo running along a castle wall, trying to rescue Esmeralda from a tower at the end, but that is disputed by some who claim that Robin Hood is the main influence. Regardless, at least in this conversion the main character does actually look like Quasimodo…
Out Run, Megadrive/Genesis
This 1991 Megadrive/Genesis conversion of the classic arcade race game, Out Run, was written by Sega’s AM2 development team – who made the original – and it is therefore very authentic and just as much fun as the arcade game.
Cyberun, MSX
Cyberun is a notorious release from Ultimate Play the Game and US Gold, first published in 1986.
Nosferatu the Vampyre, Amstrad CPC
This Amstrad CPC conversion of the classic ZX Spectrum game definitely benefits from having better use of colour than the original. It also runs a little faster than the Speccy version, which makes it slightly more playable.
Metal Gear, NES
This reworked Nintendo Entertainment System port of the MSX version of Metal Gear first came out in 1987 (1988 in North America), just three months after the original. While it’s considered (rightly) to be inferior to the original MSX version it was a major hit and went on to sell over a million units in the United States alone.
Space Invaders, Atari 2600
This conversion of Taito‘s classic arcade game to the Atari VCS/2600 was first released in 1980, and – boy – did it shift some units…
APB, ZX Spectrum
Another fine conversion of Atari‘s classic arcade game, APB (All Points Bulletin), this time converted by Walking Circles for Tengen and first published by Domark in 1989.
Hydra, Atari Lynx
Hydra is a third-person powerboat action game with driving game mechanics and presentation, and it’s fair to say that it is mostly hated by people who play it. It’s not that bad though… It’s actually a conversion of an obscure Atari arcade game from 1990. This conversion was released on the Lynx in 1992.
The King of Grabs 