Although the FM Towns port of Bullfrog‘s classic Syndicate is in Japanese, it’s still a great game to play if you know what you’re doing. Of course this is not the right version of Syndicate to play if it’s your first time (unless you can read Japanese), but it is a sharp port with crisp high resolution graphics and responsive controls.
Tag Archives: Cult Game
Chaos Strikes Back, FM Towns
Chaos Strikes Back is a continuation of the classic Role-Playing Game, Dungeon Master. It’s a sequel – but not the sequel – to the first game, and was originally released as a stand-alone expansion disk on the Atari ST. On the FM Towns it was published on CD-ROM by Victor Musical Industries in 1990, and there’s a bit of faffing around to do before you can actually start the game*. Thankfully you can at least do this in English as there’s an option to play in that language.
*= Before you can play Chaos Strikes Back you must either create a new party (by entering the prison and choosing from the available portraits), and then save it to a new 720Kb floppy disk; or load a set of characters from a pre-existing FM Towns Dungeon Master save. You then need to enter the CSB portrait editor utility program and then click on ‘Make New Adventure’ to activate and save a new Chaos Strikes Back file to the disk. Only then will you be able to load and start the game…
Shadow of the Beast, FM Towns
Shadow of the Beast on the FM Towns was first published in Japan only by Cross Media Soft – a brand of Victor Musical Industries (a subsidiary of JVC) – in 1991, and came on CD-ROM.
Tim Ansell, who programmed the FM Towns version of Shadow of the Beast (and Shadow of the Beast II), founded the famous British developer The Creative Assembly in 1987 and this was one of a number of contract ports that he did for Psygnosis in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Viewpoint, PlayStation
The 1996 PlayStation version of Aicom‘s classic isometric shooter, Viewpoint, was ported by Visual Concepts Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It features updated graphics and music, with the same basic gameplay elements of the original.
Maziacs, Commodore 64
This conversion of Don Priestley‘s brilliant Spectrum game first appeared on the Commodore 64, courtesy of Andy French and DK’Tronics, in 1984. C64 fans tend to frown on conversions of Spectrum games to their system, but in this case they should be thanking their lucky stars, because Maziacs is a great little game.
Space Gun, Arcade
Released into arcades by Taito in 1990, Space Gun is a first-person sci-fi horror shooter set on a crippled spaceship that has been overrun by killer aliens. It can be played by one or two players.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, Arcade
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes is a ‘crossover’ arcade fighting game developed and published by Capcom in 1998. It is the third instalment in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, which features characters from Capcom‘s video game franchises combined with characters from the Marvel Comics universe.
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Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Arcade
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter is the sequel to X-Men vs. Street Fighter and the second instalment in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. The game was first released as an arcade game by Capcom in 1997. It then received ports to the Sega Saturn in 1998 and the PlayStation in 1999.
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X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Arcade
X-Men vs. Street Fighter is Capcom‘s third fighting game to feature Marvel Comics characters, following X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes, and is the first instalment in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. It was originally released as an arcade game in 1996, and was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1997, the Sony PlayStation in 1998, and Windows PCs in 2001.
Marvel Super Heroes, Arcade
Marvel Super Heroes is a one-on-one fighting game developed by Capcom and distributed into arcades in 1995. It is the second Capcom beat ’em up based on characters from the Marvel Comics line and is loosely based on “The Infinity Gauntlet” storyline from the Marvel Universe. The gameplay follows the Street Fighter II template for fighting games and uses six buttons and a joystick for each player. The game can be played in either normal or ‘turbo’ mode.
The King of Grabs 