Released into arcades in 1985, TwinBee is a cute, vertically-scrolling shooter that is much more challenging than it looks.
Tag Archives: difficult
Indianapolis 500: The Simulation, PC
Known affectionately as ‘Indy 500‘, this high octane race game broke new ground when it was first released in 1989.
Wanted: Monty Mole, Commodore 64
Wanted: Monty Mole on the Commodore 64 is somewhat different to the ZX Spectrum version, although it does try to follow the spirit of the original.
You play as Monty, a mole who must explore a huge mine in search of, well, coal.
Roland in the Caves, Amstrad CPC
Roland in the Caves is the Amstrad CPC conversion of the classic Bugaboo (The Flea).
Rather than it be a simple ‘rip-off’, Roland in the Caves was actually developed by Indescomp, the original developers of Bugaboo. So it is an ‘official’ conversion and plays pretty much the same as the original.
Booga-Boo, Commodore 64
Quicksilva again allowed their programmers to mess up the name of this great game, originally titled Bugaboo (The Flea), but for some reason called Booga-Boo in this C64 conversion (same in the MSX version too).
Doomsday Castle, ZX Spectrum
Doomsday Castle is the 1983 sequel to The Pyramid.
It again features ‘Ziggy’ – the guy in the floating gun turret – and again features simple, single-screen shooting action.
The Pyramid, ZX Spectrum
Fantasy Software released two games in 1983 featuring a character called ‘Ziggy’, and this game – The Pyramid – was the first of them.
The Pyramid is a simple, single-screen shooter, with you playing as Ziggy – inside a floating gun pod – who must escape from a gigantic pyramid.
Thrust, BBC Micro
The late Jeremy Smith‘s classic gravity game, Thrust, came out first on the BBC Micro in 1986, before being converted to every other platform on the planet.
The Sentinel, BBC Micro
Another timeless classic video game that originated on the BBC Micro in 1986.
Geoff Crammond‘s The Sentinel is a strategic game of ‘hide and seek’ – played-out on a chequerboard-like surface over which a being called The Sentinel watches.
Aleste, MSX
I’m not a hundred percent sure if the MSX2 version of Aleste was released before the Sega Master System version or not. There are conflicting reports.
What is almost certainly true, though, is that they were both developed side-by-side in 1987 and released in Japan in 1988.