By the time Pentagram came out in 1986, famous development and publishing house – Ultimate Play The Game – had been sold off to US Gold. How much of Pentagram was therefore down to Ultimate‘s designers, and how much was down to US Gold‘s programmers, is still a matter for debate. Most likely, Pentagram was a construct of US Gold, with Ultimate providing only the initial ideas, graphics and game engine (the famous Filmation Engine).
Tag Archives: difficult
Crazy Climber, Arcade
Crazy Climber is an early colour video game, released into arcades in 1980 by Nichibutsu. The basic premise is to climb up the face of a large building to reach the helicopter at the top.
Hyper Sports, Arcade
Hyper Sports is the iconic 1984 sequel to Konami‘s arcade hit Track & Field.
Looping, ColecoVision
The ColecoVision conversion of Venture Line‘s Looping is much easier than the arcade original, which is a relief because the original is mind-bendingly hard.
Donkey Kong, ColecoVision
This ColecoVision conversion of Nintendo‘s classic Donkey Kong is famous for a number of reasons.
Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, PC
Westwood Studios‘ 1993 RPG Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos is a Dungeon Master-like first-person, real-time action game with spells and combat and plenty of monsters out to end your life.
Las Vegas-based Westwood, coincidentally, were developers of the first two Eye of the Beholder games, but dropped the franchise in favour of developing Lands of Lore, their own IP.
Sokoban, Commodore 64
Originally released in 1982 for the PC-8801, Sokoban is an ingenious overhead puzzle game about a guy pushing boxes around a warehouse.
That might sound as dull as dishwater to some people, but the fact is: Sokoban is extremely clever and very challenging, and is one of those games that really gets the brain muscles flexing in order to beat it.
10 Best Prince of Persia Conversions
LISTS: as decided by His Majesty The King of Grabs, in order of greatness:
1. Super Nintendo (1992)
2. PC Engine/Turbografx-16 (1991)
3. Commodore 64 (2011)
4. PC MS-DOS (1990)
5. Atari ST (1990)
6. Amiga (1990)
7. Sega CD (1992)
8. Sharp X68000 (1991)
9. ZX Spectrum (1996)
10. Megadrive/Genesis (1993)
And of course there’s always the Apple II original, which is ‘The Daddy’ of them all.
All Hail The Prince of Persia, and all hail Jordan Mechner!
More: Prince of Persia on Wikipedia
All versions of Prince of Persia on The King of Grabs:
Apple II, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, PC MS-DOS, SAM Coupé, Sharp X68000, PC Engine/Turbografx-16, Sega Master System, Sega CD, Game Boy, Super Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, Megadrive/Genesis, Game Boy Color, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum
Prince of Persia, ZX Spectrum
Since I’ve included one ‘unofficial’ port in our Prince of Persia Special (the Commodore 64 version), I’ve also got to include this 1996 ZX Spectrum conversion by Nicodim (because it’s so good).
Prince of Persia, Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 version of Prince of Persia is not an official release, but a 2011 ‘homebrew’ game created by Nostalgia (not the perfume – the team). And it is quite astounding!
The King of Grabs 