Tag Archives: early

Ghostbusters, Commodore 64

David Crane‘s 1984 adaptation of the hit film Ghostsbusters was also a big hit on the video game scene too. It hit number one on the sales charts for most home systems and is still talked about to this day.

The Commodore 64 version was the first one released.

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Stonkers, ZX Spectrum

This 1983 release from Imagine Software is one of the earliest examples of a Real-Time Strategy game ever made.

It might not look like much, but Stonkers is an important game, and designer/programmer John Gibson probably never even realised it at the time.

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Cosmic Avenger, Arcade

Cosmic Avenger is a groundbreaking arcade shooter first released in 1981 by Universal. It was one of the first ever side-scrolling shoot ’em ups, and was released the same year as Konami‘s Scramble.

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Stargate, Arcade

Also known as Defender II, Stargate is the 1981 sequel to Williams ElectronicsDefender, which was released earlier the same year.

Stargate was designed and programmed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz, for Williams, and it features the same superfast blasting action as Defender, but with subtle differences.

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Flicky, Arcade

Originating in arcades in 1984, Flicky is a super cute bird-collecting platform game by Sega that relies heavily on gravity, inertia, and jumping to provide the challenge.

The aim of the game is simple: you play a blue bird who must collect up the small, yellow chicks (the “PioPio“), and avoid contact with the cats (the “Nyannyan“) on your way to taking the chicks home (the door you came in through). The quicker you do this, the more bonus points you get.

Simple. Or at least you might have thought so…

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Mario Bros., Arcade

Released into arcades by Nintendo in 1983, Mario Bros. is a one or two-player platform game featuring Mario and Luigi as the main characters. Incidentally, this was the first time Luigi ever appeared in a video game.

Mario Bros. was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi – two of the lead creators of Donkey Kong, of which this game is a follow-up.

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