The 1987 conversion of Ikari Warriors is bit of an “auteur piece” on the ZX Spectrum. What I mean by that is: one guy made it on his own. He programmed the game; created the graphics, and did the sound. That man was David Shea, and the truth be told: he did an excellent job of it – managing to squeeze in most of the arcade game‘s features. Which is pretty impressive on a Spectrum.
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Ikari Warriors, Commodore 64
This Commodore 64 conversion of SNK‘s classic arcade game, Ikari Warriors, is considered to be one of the best vertically-scrolling shooters on the system. It was programmed by John Twiddy and published by Elite Systems in 1986.
Snake’s Revenge, NES
Snake’s Revenge is a sequel to Metal Gear that was developed specifically for the North American and European NES markets by Konami and Ultra Games. It first came out in North America in 1990, and in Europe in 1992. Why there was a two-year gap between those releases is anyone’s guess.
Hideo Koijima wasn’t involved in the making of Snake’s Revenge and it is considered ‘non-canonical’, but he did make Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX in response to it. I’m guessing that he wasn’t particularly enamoured with the idea of another team working on his signature series, but ultimately he (rather diplomatically) says that Snake’s Revenge is “not a bad game“.
Rambo: First Blood Part II, Commodore 64
Rambo: First Blood Part II, by Ocean Software, is a legendary Commodore 64 game without much substance. People revere the music (by Martin Galway), and also like the simple 360 shooter gameplay, but the truth is: this is an example of an early video game without much to do, and what there is is rather simplistic.
Mercs, Arcade
Mercs is a classic arcade shooter from 1990. It was jointly developed by Sega and Capcom and features simultaneous three-player cooperative gameplay.
Psycho-Nics Oscar, Arcade
This obscure 1987 arcade game from Data East was a big influence on many games that came after it, in particular Manfred Trenz‘s Turrican series. It is obviously itself influenced by Nintendo‘s 1986 game, Metroid.
It also displays some similarities to Karnov, another Data East arcade game released the same year.
And, while you may have never heard of this game, it’s safe to say that it’s a bit of a ‘hidden gem’ in terms of old arcade games still worth playing today.
Cannon Fodder, Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes conversion of the classic Cannon Fodder is pretty much identical to the Amiga original, even down the music, which is not always the case with Cannon Fodder conversions.
The Terminator, Megadrive/Genesis
This 1992 release from Virgin Games is one of a number of video game adaptations of James Cameron‘s famous 1984 sci-fi film, The Terminator.
This particular adaptation was developed by British company Probe Software and is a fairly standard – though fun and playable – run and gun game, flicking through all the major settings of the movie with cut scenes in-between.
Worms, Amiga CD32
Worms: The Director’s Cut on the CD32 is a beautifully smooth and playable conversion of the Amiga original, with the same highly compelling and ultra-competitive ‘versus’ gameplay.
Broforce, PC
Broforce is a satirical, side-scrolling run and gun shooter, with superb pixel graphics, and I can’t recommend it highly enough!
It’s a ‘modern retro’ game, in that: it’s a modern game (it came out in 2015), trying to look retro, and it works fantastically well. Broforce is so much fun to play…
The King of Grabs 