The 1994 sequel to StarTropics, Zoda’s Revenge again features the red-haired hero, Mike Jones, only this time he’s on a time-travelling adventure searching to find a series of puzzles shapes called “Tetrads”.
These Tetrads are actually a nod to Tetris, and in the Virtual Console re-release of StarTropics II their names have been changed to “Blocks”, probably to avoid any legal problems. But anyway, I digress…
StarTropics is an action adventure game released by Nintendo in 1990. It was developed in Japan, but was only ever intended for released in North America and Europe, which is kinda weird, but that was the plan all along apparently…
The sequel to the superb Super Pipeline is more of the same frantic pipe-fixing action, with you playing a foreman, directing helpers to fix holes in order to keep the water flowing.
Actually, is it water, or is it oil? I don’t know…
In the early 1980s a Bridlington-based company called Taskset made some stand-out Commodore 64 games and Super Pipeline is one of their best.
In fact, only the sequel – Super Pipeline II – is on a par with this entertaining game, at least as far as Taskset output is concerned.
Psytron is an early shoot ’em up released for the ZX Spectrum by Beyond Software, who published it in 1984.
It’s a futuristic “base defence” game in essence, with you playing through six different levels trying to fend off alien invaders on a 10-screen landscape – the “Betula 5 Installation”.
Starion is a classic space combat game, written by David Webb and published by Melbourne House in 1985.
The PC MS-DOS version of Tau Ceti was coded by Derek Baker at Comtec and published by CRL Group (Thunder Mountain in North America) in 1987.
It features gaudy, four-colour, CGA graphics, but is otherwise the Tau Ceti we know and love.
The 1986 Atari ST conversion of Tau Ceti – by Ron De Santi of Comtec – is much faster than the 8-bit versions and therefore more challenging. And what a brilliant challenge it is!
John Twiddy‘s C64 conversion of Pete Cooke‘s classic space shooter is arguably even better than the Spectrum original.
Graphically it’s a little chunkier, but the extra colours make a difference.
A very good 1989 homebrew conversion of Cinemaware‘s classic Defender of the Crown, programmed by The Cat, from Hungary.
