Tag Archives: futuristic

Mercenary: The Second City, Commodore 64

Not a sequel, but a ‘data disk’ add-on that you load through the original MercenaryThe Second City starts off pretty much the same as Mercenary – crashing on a planet (this time the other side of the one you explored in Mercenary, and also a different colour) and having to explore to get on and eventually escape.

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Mercenary: The Second City, Atari ST

A 16-bit conversion of Paul Woakesclassic 8-bit exploration sequel to Mercenary. Well, not really a sequel – more a continuation… The real sequel came later.

The Atari ST‘s power (relative to the Commodore 64) means smoother, faster 3D graphics; more colours (useful, when colours are used to identify rooms and places underground); and more sensitive controls.

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Mercenary, Atari ST

A fine 16-bit conversion of the classic Mercenary by Paul Woakes, written by Woakes himself it seems. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s a great game and deserves doing right, so who better to code it than the original creator?

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Beneath A Steel Sky, PC

Revolution Software‘s second point-and-click adventure (after Lure of the Temptress); first released in 1994; Beneath A Steel Sky is a humorous, futuristic, dystopian, “film noir” mystery, co-designed by legendary comic artist Dave Gibbons.

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Laser Squad, Atari ST

Laser Squad was a great strategy game on early 8-bit home computers. This Atari ST 16-bit conversion retains the same excellent turn-based gameplay, but updates the graphics with extra colours and frame rates.

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Dark Side, Atari ST

Dark Side is the second Freescape game from Major Developments and was published by Incentive Software (Microprose in the US).

Freescape was one of the earliest (if not THE earliest) 3D game engine and was used to make a series of significant games in the mid Eighties.

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Highway Encounter, Atari ST

This 1990 Atari ST conversion of the ZX Spectrum classic Highway Encounter I don’t think was ever commercially released, even though it was co-created by Costa Panayi, the guy who made the original.

Costa created some wonderful games for the Spectrum, and Highway Encounter was one of them. And it has been brilliantly converted to the ST (by Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, with graphics by Costa). This is no farmed-out-to-a-third-party hack job. This is the real thing.

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Tron, Arcade

The 1982 arcade version of Tron is well-remembered by many gamers. It was developed by ENCOM International and manufactured and distributed by Bally Midway.

It features a four-stage video-gaming challenge via some of the scenes from the famous film (ironically, about video games).

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Rise of the Robots, PC

Mirage‘s infamous 1994 beat ’em up, Rise of the Robots, was hyped massively before, during and after its initial release, but never managed to break free from criticism that it was nothing more than a steaming pile of donkey muck.

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