Phoenix is another great vertical shoot ’em up from the golden age of video gaming. It was developed by Amstar Electronics of Arizona and manufactured by Centuri in 1980, and featured even more progressive gameplay than Space Invaders and Galaxian.
Tag Archives: early
Galaxian, Arcade
Galaxian is an iconic video game from the golden age of gaming history.
In fact, Galaxian was Namco‘s response to Space Invaders. It came out in 1979 and enthralled gamers with its hypnotic but brutal gameplay. Which it still does, to this day.
Berzerk, Arcade
Released into arcades in 1980, Stern Electronics‘ Berzerk is a simple multi-directional shooter where the aim is to rack up as many points as possible by shooting robots in a maze.
Space Invaders, Arcade
Space Invaders, owned and manufactured by Taito, is the best-selling video game and highest-grossing entertainment product of all time.
Old Arcade Shooters Special
I have a fondness for old arcade shoot ’em ups. Particularly the first colour arcade shooters of the early Eighties. Just hearing the sound effects takes me back to my childhood… Playing Space Invaders at the local leisure centre. Galaxian at the video lending library. Phoenix at the seaside…
I’ve covered a few old arcade shooters already on here, but this ‘special’ is meant to fill in a few gaps. Particularly with regards to pioneering video games of the early ‘colour era’ of arcade machines.
Lode Runner, Atari Lynx
***CANNED GAME***
Lode Runner on the Atari Lynx was developed but never officially released. A prototype version was leaked onto the internet in 2008.
It’s pretty much complete in terms of gameplay – all 150 original levels have been verified as being in there and the game plays as it should, without any real problems.
Lode Runner, Amstrad CPC
Lode Runner on the Amstrad CPC is a strange one: it’s like a monochromatic version of the Atari ST version.
Lode Runner, Atari ST
Lode Runner on the 16-bit Atari ST is an interesting European take on this classic American platform game. It was developed by French company Loriciel in 1989 and may only have been released in France. Well, the only version I could find was in French.
Lode Runner, MSX
There isn’t a great deal of information available about Lode Runner on the MSX. From what I can tell, Broderbund themselves developed it, with some Japanese help. Sony published it in Japan in 1984.
Lode Runner, BBC Micro
Lode Runner on the BBC Micro was part of the Software Projects conversion releases of 1984 and is another fine release on the Lode Runner franchise train.
The King of Grabs 