Tag Archives: lasers

Nemesis/Gradius, Arcade

Known as Gradius in Japan – but Nemesis everywhere else – Konami‘s classic 1985 shoot ’em up is one of the earliest progressive weapons blasters, with distinct levels and boss battles.

The game is somewhat reminiscent of the classic side-scrolling Scramble (also by Konami), but in Nemesis you fly a ship called the “Vic Viper”, and which has a variety of different weapons which can be powered-up by collecting capsules left by destroyed enemies.

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Jet Pac, ZX Spectrum

Ultimate Play The Game‘s amazing Jet Pac is an early ZX Spectrum classic, first released onto an unsuspecting world in 1983.

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Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, GameCube

Throughout history, man has always striven to recreate the original Star Wars battles on video-gaming hardware, to enable grown men to act like children…

And 2003‘s Rebel Strike is a veritable ORGY of Star Wars-related combat, from run-and-gun style, third-person shooter sections, to piloting virtually every craft in the Star Wars universe (including an enemy scout walker).

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Half-Life 2, PC

Half-Life 2 was first released by Valve Corporation in 2004. It was such a giant leap forward for games in general – not just first-person shooters – that its reverberations are still being felt today.

Half-Life (one) is a brilliant game, but Half-Life 2 completely blows it out of the water.

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Paradroid Metal Edition, Commodore 64

Arguably the best version of Andrew Braybrook‘s timeless Commodore 64 classic, Paradroid.

Paradroid Metal Edition (aka Heavy Metal Paradroid) is a suped-up version of Paradroid with faster scrolling and more responsive controls.

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Elite Plus, PC

There were many versions of the classic space combat/trading game, Elite. The best, though, is arguably Elite Plus on the PC in VGA. Made by Chris Sawyer of Realtime Software in 1991.

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Frontier: Elite II, PC

David Braben‘s long-awaited 1993 follow-up to the classic space trading game Elite unfortunately doesn’t involve Ian Bell.

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