Robert and Trevor Figgins‘ isometric action/puzzle game, Bobby Bearing, originated on the ZX Spectrum but is arguably slightly better on the Amstrad CPC.
The game features the titular character, Bobby, who is a smiling ball bearing who can roll around, fit through holes, push things, and… erm, not much else. He does have character, though.
This Mastertronic Atari 8-bit budget release from 1987 feels like a budget game – and I don’t mean that as a compliment. It feels like an unfinished, un-polished game.
Panther is an isometric shoot ’em up in the style of Zaxxon, but with very little going on in the game itself.
The Game Gear has a surprisingly good conversion of the classic Atari arcade game, Marble Madness, in its library. It was coded by Steve Lamb and published by Tengen in 1992.
The game’s full North American title is Arena: Maze of Death, but it was released as just Arena in Europe so that’s what I’m going to call it. It’s an isometric shoot ’em up with you playing a “pro-democratic freedom fighter” called Guy Freelander who must fight his way through a variety of industrial locations in order to reach a television station to broadcast proof of an evil corporation’s wrongdoings.
Created by Jose Pereira, Miker, and Mariuszw in 2016, this Atari -8-bit homebrew conversion of Ultimate‘s Pentagram is not a bad effort overall. It seems to run slightly faster than the ZX Spectrum original, although it’s probably fair to say that it also inherits its shortcomings.
One of the better Atari 8-bit homebrew Ultimate conversions, Gunfright was ported by Mariusz, Jose Pereira, Emkay and Saul Cross in 2017. It plays pretty much the same as the ZX Spectrum original and looks similar to the Commodore 64 homebrew release of 2017. In fact there may be a connection between them since one of the people who worked on the C64 port also worked on this.
This conversion of the classic Knight Lore was ported to the 8-bit Atari by Krzysztof Dudek, Mario Krix, and Michal Radecki in 2008. And it’s another somewhat disappointing conversion, to be honest.
What I find frustrating about these homebrew conversions is how the programmers sometimes decide to change things to the detriment to the game, and don’t seem to realise that their choices are bad…
Altered Space is a somewhat obscure isometric platform puzzle game that was developed by British developer Software Creations and released exclusively for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1991.
Developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision in 2001, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on the Game Boy Advance is one of those games that you’d expect not to work that well – being a handheld conversion of a popular and successful 3D game – but it actually turns out to be a fantastic game in its own right.
I’m sorry to say this because I love what Retrospec tried to do with this 2008 remake of Ultimate Play the Game‘s classic Alien 8, but the end result is unplayable, infuriating and flawed.
The King of Grabs 