Tag Archives: Cult Game

Berzerk, Atari 2600

Berzerk is a conversion of the 1980 Stern Electronics arcade game of the same name. It was ported to the Atari 2600 by Dan Hitchens for Atari, Inc., who also published it. Atari 2600 Berzerk was first released in 1982.

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Pressure Cooker, Atari 2600

Pressure Cooker, by Garry Kitchen, was first published for the Atari 2600 in 1983, by Activision. It is a food-preparation game where you play as a burger chef (called “Short-Order Sam“) trying to package items with the right ingredients for your customers.

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Gorf, Atari 2600

The Atari 2600 version of the classic arcade shooter, Gorf, was programmed by Alex Leavens and first released in 1982 by CBS Video Games. It is a cut-down version of the arcade original*, with graphics and scenes that barely recreate it.

* = Yes, it doesn’t have the fifth ‘Galaxian‘ stage, which most commercial ports of the game are missing due to rights issues. Enhanced homebrew ports of the game have since re-instated it.

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Barnstorming, Atari 2600

Barnstorming was designed by Steve Cartwright and first published by Activision in 1982. Like most people who play it for the first time, I had to check if I was playing the game as intended, because there’s so little to it.

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International Tennis (1992), Commodore 64

As if one International Tennis wasn’t good enough for the Commodore 64, Zeppelin Games decided to release a second one in 1992. And it’s actually really good. Definitely much better than Commodore‘s previous 1985 version.

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International Tennis (1985), Commodore 64

Commodore‘s go at tennis, as part of its series of C64 sports games, is a pretty poor game overall. It’s got a side-on view and the feel and presentation of the game are lacking.

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Decap Attack, Megadrive/Genesis

Decap Attack is a side-scrolling platform game, developed by Vic Tokai and published by Sega in 1991. This game was originally released in Japan, in 1990, as “Magical Hat no Buttobi Tābo! Daibōken“, but developer Vic Tokai failed to secure the Magical Hat license for use outside of Japan, so decided to remove all traces of it, and completely re-skin the game. So Decap Attack is essentially a Westernised re-skinning of Magical Hat no Buttobi Tābo! Daibōken.

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Sword of Mana, Game Boy Advance

Sword of Mana on the Game Boy Advance is an enhanced remake of the first Seiken Densetsu game, which was released as Final Fantasy Adventure on the original black and white Game Boy in English-speaking territories. It was developed by Square Enix and Brownie Brown and was first released as “Shinyaku: Seiken Densetsu” in Japan in 2003.

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Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, PlayStation 2

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness was the second game released for the PlayStation 2 by Konami, initially coming out in 2005. Much like its predecessor (Lament of Innocence), this game is also a hack and slash 3D action game, with horror and RPG elements.

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