SonSon II is the 1989 sequel to Capcom‘s 1984 arcade game, SonSon, and was developed by NEC Avenue and released exclusively for the PC Engine. Once again it is loosely based on the adventures of the “Monkey King” as popularised by the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West.
Tag Archives: difficult
Shinobi, Arcade
The arcade version of Shinobi was developed and published by Sega in 1987. It is a scrolling run-and-gun action game featuring a lead character called Joe Musashi who is on a mission to defeat the Zeed terrorist organisation. The aim of the game is to rescue kidnapped students of his clan and each level has a certain number of hostages to release.
Contra 4, Nintendo DS
Contra 4 was developed by WayForward Technologies and published by Konami for the Nintendo DS in 2007. It is a direct sequel to Contra III on the SNES, made in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Contra series.
Super Contra, Arcade
Super Contra is the sequel to Contra and was developed and distributed into arcades by Konami in 1988. It’s another challenging vertical screen run-and-gun shooter featuring super soldiers Bill and Lance, fighting the same alien creatures as seen in the previous game. Except this time they’re on a different mission and events are set one year later.
Contra, Arcade
Contra is a run-and-gun arcade game developed and published by Konami in 1987. It is the first game in the long-running Contra series and was renamed as Gryzor – and tweaked slightly – for European arcades.
Renegade, Arcade
Renegade is an arcade beat ’em up that was developed by Technos Japan and distributed into arcades by Taito in 1986. Although Renegade might appear basic by today’s standards it was in fact an important game in the fighting genre and one that defined many of the gameplay standards we still see today.
Rocket Roger, Commodore 64
Rocket Roger is a scrolling action game written by Steve Evans and published by Alligata Software in 1984. In it you control the titular Roger who must fly around using a jet pack and collect crystals from a series of underground caves. The crystals are needed to power your spaceship and you need to collect 99 of them to escape the planet.
Mama Llama, Commodore 64
Mama Llama is a scrolling action game where you have to protect a family of llamas from attack with a robotic sphere called a “Killdroid” while destroying waves of enemies on a 10×10 grid. It was written by Jeff Minter and first released by Llamasoft in 1985.
Hellgate, Commodore 64
I would say that Hellgate is one of my least favourite Jeff Minter/Llamasoft games. While it is competently-programmed and nicely-presented, Hellgate is also a very difficult game to play effectively as a single-player.
Laser Zone, ZX Spectrum
The Spectrum version of Llamasoft‘s Lazer Zone was programmed by Chris Clark for Salamander Software and first published by Quicksilva in 1983. It’s a fairly decent shoot ’em up, with a tricky dual gun mechanic to get your head around.
The King of Grabs 