Tag Archives: influential

Perfect Dark, Nintendo 64

The spiritual successor to Goldeneye, Perfect Dark is a brilliant, 3D, first-person shooter developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 2000.

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Portal, PC

Portal is a legendary first-person puzzle/gravity game developed and published by Valve in 2007.

I say “gravity game” because Portal combines basic physics (acceleration, velocity, gravity, and inertia), with the ability to open up entry and exit portals, to create a game so beautifully simple-yet-complex that it is almost beyond belief…

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The Hobbit, ZX Spectrum

Written by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler, The Hobbit is a legendary text adventure, with graphics, that was published by Melbourne House in 1982.

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Zig Zag, Commodore 64

Written by Tony Crowther and published by Mirrorsoft in 1987, Zig Zag is a weird and wonderful isometric shoot ’em up where you fly a wedge-shaped ship around a maze collecting crystals.

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Gryphon, Commodore 64

Tony Crowther‘s 1985 release through Quicksilva, Gryphon, is a much misunderstood game. Most people don’t even get past the first stage, because they don’t know what’s going on…

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Mercenary, Commodore 16/Plus4

Requiring 64K of RAM to run, and coded by Paul Woakes himself, Mercenary on the Plus4 is an almost perfect conversion of his classic 3D, C64 exploration game.

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Trailblazer, Commodore 16/Plus4

Shaun Southern‘s Trailblazer – I’m reliably informed – originated on the Commodore 16; not the Commodore 64 (on which it is probably better-known).

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Pikmin, GameCube

Pikmin was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2001 and was an instant hit with gamers.

Designed and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, the first game in the Pikmin series introduces Captain Oilmar, an alien who crash lands on a mysterious planet and where he befriends small creatures called Pikmin who help him rebuild his ship.

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Trailblazer, Commodore 64

Trailblazer is a well-regarded, ball-based racing game written and designed by the prolific Shaun Southern of Mr. Chip Software and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1986.

Trailblazer did apparently originate on the Commodore 16 and was expanded to take advantage of the Commodore 64‘s extra memory, and the result is a suped-up version of the original game.

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Kikstart, Commodore 64

Less successful than its sequel (and arguably less enjoyable too), Kikstart was written by Shaun Southern and published by Mastertonic in 1985.

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