A decent 1990 conversion of Williams Electronics‘ controversial coin-op, Narc, by Ocean Software.
Tag Archives: conversion
Marble Madness, X68000
The Sharp X68000 version of Atari‘s classic Marble Madness is pretty much arcade perfect – barring, of course, the trackball controls of the original arcade game. In fact: if you compare the graphics to the arcade game you might notice that they’re crisper and slightly higher resolution.
Barbarian, Atari ST
Palace Software‘s notorious Barbarian is a ‘sword and sandal’ beat ’em up with a knockout gimmick: you can decapitate your opponent with a well-placed sword stroke!
Granted: you have to time it correctly, and get the distance between you and your opponent right, but when you pull it off the head bounces off in hilarious fashion, before being finally getting booted off the screen by a gremlin.
Flicky, Arcade
Originating in arcades in 1984, Flicky is a super cute bird-collecting platform game by Sega that relies heavily on gravity, inertia, and jumping to provide the challenge.
The aim of the game is simple: you play a blue bird who must collect up the small, yellow chicks (the “PioPio“), and avoid contact with the cats (the “Nyannyan“) on your way to taking the chicks home (the door you came in through). The quicker you do this, the more bonus points you get.
Simple. Or at least you might have thought so…
Crystal Castles, Arcade
Crystal Castles is a legendary arcade maze game developed and published by Atari, Inc. in 1983. What made the game so good were: the trackball and jump button controls (which gave a good degree of freedom to make headway at pace) and the unusual isometric graphics (which drew on-screen in an unusual and interesting way).
Atic Atac, Commodore 64
Wow… This is arguably the best modern remake of an old video game that I’ve ever seen!
This beautiful 2020 homebrew rendition of Ultimate‘s classic Spectrum game comes courtesy of three individuals: the code was written by Tomaz Kac of Nostalgia, the graphics were created by Steven Day (aka Ste), and the music by Saul Cross.
All three of them deserve some serious credit.
“After 37 years the C64 finally gets its own version of Atic Atac,” says Tomaz Kac, “I hope we did the game justice. We tried to make it very special, not just by getting as close to Spectrum version, but by expanding it quite a bit. We hope you like it!”
Masterblazer, Amiga
Masterblazer is a 1990 conversion of the classic LucasFilm Games game, Ballblazer, but with faster, smoother graphics than the 8-bit versions, and a couple of extra play modes.
That said: the 8-bit versions were all pretty much fast and smooth enough, so is this Amiga update good enough?
Special Criminal Investigation, Commodore 64
Special Criminal Investigation is quite a ‘special’ game. It is part of the Chase HQ series and was released on cartridge only, for the Commodore 64 at least, by Ocean Software in the UK.
SCI was also released late in the Commodore 64‘s lifetime (in 1990 to be precise), so benefited from coders knowing advanced programming techniques that could push the beige bread bin further than it had ever been pushed before.
And the result is a fast-paced, visually-impressive, and highly playable racing game. Sorry, chasing game… A conversion of the Taito arcade game, sometimes known as simply S.C.I. or Chase HQ 2: Special Criminal Investigation.
Continue reading Special Criminal Investigation, Commodore 64
First Samurai, Commodore 64
First released on the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST in 1991, this 8-bit Commodore 64 conversion came later, in 1992. And – considering that it is stepping down a generation – the programmers did a good job of retaining what made the originals so good.
Platform action – lots of swords! Leaping around like a lunatic! Climbing cliff faces. Killing monsters – discovering secrets! Atmospheric SID tunes. What more could you want? 🙂
SunDog: Frozen Legacy, Atari ST
Sundog is a sci-fi strategy/RPG/adventure game designed by Software Heaven (aka FTL – the makers of Dungeon Master), and is generally held in high regard. It originally came out on the Apple II in 1984, then later converted to the Atari ST in 1985.
I have to admit, though, that Sundog is a touch too archaic for my tastes. At least in terms of wanting to put hours into a game. The Atari ST version certainly looks better than the Apple II version, though.
The King of Grabs 