Tag Archives: Cult Game

Daley Thompson’s Supertest, ZX Spectrum

The second of the Ocean-released Daley Thompson sports games is Daley Thompson’s Supertest, which was first published in 1985.

This time there are twelve events, including: rowing, penalties, ski-jump, tug O war, triple jump, 100m sprint, javelin, 110m hurdles, pistol shooting, cycling, springboard diving, and giant slalom (skiing).

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Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, ZX Spectrum

Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, developed and published by Ocean for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, was possibly the first home computer game to feature a celebrity, and a person of colour, as the star of the game – at least in the UK anyway.

If you don’t know: Daley Thompson is a British Olympic decathlon star, and was a gold medal winner at the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and as such was a household name in the UK back when this game was released in 1984. Younger readers might not know who Daley Thompson is, but they really should. Thompson is a legend and has been described as the greatest all-round athlete the world has ever seen. Look him up on YouTube if you want to see his Olympic achievements.

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Gargoyle’s Quest II, NES

The sequel to the intriguing Game Boy game, Gargoyle’s Quest, was first released on the Nintendo Famicom in 1992 by Capcom. It is another spin-off from the successful Ghosts ‘N Goblins series.

Again, you play as Firebrand – the winged demon from Ghosts ‘N Goblins (and Ghouls ‘N Ghosts) – and again it features platforming action, with an interesting ‘fly-and-float’ mechanic.

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Gargoyle’s Quest, Game Boy

This interesting 1990 action adventure platform game is a spin-off from the classic arcade game Ghosts ‘N Goblins.

It features the flying demon character (called Firebrand in English language versions and Red Arremer in the original Japanese version) in the lead role, and who was first seen as an enemy in the Ghosts ‘N Goblins arcade game. That, in itself is quite unusual – getting to play a baddie from an earlier game in a later sequel, and this game is more than just a simple platform game.

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Turbo Esprit, ZX Spectrum

Considered by those who know it as an early precursor to Grand Theft Auto, Mike Richardson‘s excellent Turbo Esprit is an action/driving game where the aim is to catch and arrest drugs smugglers by driving around a city and pinpointing them using a map. It was first published for the ZX Spectrum by Durell Software in 1986.

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Rambo: First Blood Part II, Commodore 64

Rambo: First Blood Part II, by Ocean Software, is a legendary Commodore 64 game without much substance. People revere the music (by Martin Galway), and also like the simple 360 shooter gameplay, but the truth is: this is an example of an early video game without much to do, and what there is is rather simplistic.

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R-Type II, Game Boy

A 1992 sequel to the excellent first Game Boy conversion of R-Type, developed by the same company as previously (Bits Studios).

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R-Type, Game Boy

This 1991 handheld conversion of Irem‘s classic arcade game, R-Type, is surprisingly good.

Yes: it’s monochrome, and yes: the graphics are tiny, but the gameplay is spot on, which is the most important thing.

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R-Type, ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum conversion of Irem‘s classic arcade game R-Type is considered by many to be one of the best games ever made for Sir Clive‘s classic 8-bit home computer.

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Dungeon Master, Amiga

FTL and Software Heaven‘s classic Dungeon Master was available on the Amiga in two different forms. Initially it was only available for Amigas with 1MB of RAM, and wasn’t available for the Amiga 500 (which only had 512kb of RAM) for quite a while, which gave Atari ST owners bragging rights for this amazing game for a few months.

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