Tag Archives: influential

Nightshade, BBC Micro

The BBC version of Ultimate‘s classic Nightshade is very good. It runs pretty quickly (most of the time) and the controls are responsive, which is all you can hope for in the game like this.

Continue reading Nightshade, BBC Micro

Alien 8 MSX2 Remake, MSX

This 2009 homebrew remake of Ultimate Play the Game‘s classic Alien 8 was created for the MSX2 by Manuel Pazos and Daniel Celemin. The graphics have obviously had a serious make-over and look beautiful, but the gameplay seems to be the same as the original, with noticeable (some might say “game-crippling”) slowdown.

Continue reading Alien 8 MSX2 Remake, MSX

Alien 8, Atari 8-bit

This Atari 8-bit homebrew conversion of Ultimate Play the Game‘s Alien 8 was created by Fandal, Miker, and Emkay in 2013. It wasn’t written from scratch, though; it was ported from the BBC Micro version (according to various sources online), but unfortunately it doesn’t play as well as the Beeb version. It has a fundamental flaw that completely ruins the game…

Continue reading Alien 8, Atari 8-bit

Alien 8, Commodore 64

This homebrew conversion of Ultimate‘s classic Alien 8 was released for the Commodore 64 in 2020. The original game was only ever officially released for the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, MSX, and Amstrad CPC, but never for the C64. And the ironic thing is that this conversion is arguably the best version of Alien 8 out there.

Continue reading Alien 8, Commodore 64

Alien 8, BBC Micro

Alien 8 is a classic isometric platform puzzle game that was released by Ultimate Play the Game on four formats – ZX Spectrum (the original), BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, and MSX.

The BBC Micro conversion of Alien 8 has responsive controls and runs slightly faster than the original Spectrum version. It still suffers from slowdown when there are a number of moving objects on screen at once.

Continue reading Alien 8, BBC Micro

Underwurlde, Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 version of Ultimate‘s classic Underwurlde was developed by Softstone and published by Firebird in 1985. It is a faithful recreation of the Spectrum original.

Continue reading Underwurlde, Commodore 64

Pokémon Gold Version, Game Boy Color

Pokémon Gold and Silver Versions were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in 1999 in Japan and 2000 everywhere else. They are ‘second generation’ Pokémon games and were released simultaneously as twin titles, as has become the norm with Pokémon games.

These were the first proper, full-colour Pokémon games, with graphics that have been created to take advantage of the Game Boy Color‘s extended palette (Pokémon Yellow, which preceded this game, didn’t really do that; the graphics were simply colourised from the black and white originals). And you can tell from the very beginning that the visuals in Gold/Silver are a step-up from what we saw previously.

Continue reading Pokémon Gold Version, Game Boy Color

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap, Sega Master System

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap is a platform adventure with RPG elements and it is considered to be one of the best games on the Master System. It was developed by Westone and published by Sega in 1989.

Continue reading Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap, Sega Master System

Project Firestart, Commodore 64

Developed by Dynamix and published by Electronic Arts in 1988, Project Firestart is a science fiction survival horror game set on a research station orbiting Saturn’s moon, Titan, in 2061. It is considered to be one of the first survival horror games ever made, and is often cited as pioneering many conventions of the genre.

Continue reading Project Firestart, Commodore 64

Populous, Archimedes

The Archimedes has a flawless version of PopulousBullfrog‘s seminal God sim – that was programmed by Richard Walker and published by Krisalis Software in 1992.

Continue reading Populous, Archimedes