The Amstrad CPC conversion of Peter Liepa and Chris Gray‘s Boulder Dash is an almost perfect conversion of the classic Atari 8-bit game. The game was published by Mirrorsoft 1985, and converted by Dalali Software Ltd.
Tag Archives: maze
Legends, Amiga
Legends is a cutesy action adventure game developed for the Amiga by Yorkshire-based Krisalis Software and first published in 1996 by Guildhall Leisure Services. It takes many of its cues from Nintendo‘s early Zelda games, but unfortunately doesn’t come close to the greatness of those games.
Roland on the Ropes, Amstrad CPC
Just like Amsoft‘s Roland in the Caves was a re-titling of Indescomp‘s ZX Spectrum classic Bugaboo the Flea, Roland on the Ropes is a re-titling of Indescomp‘s ZX Spectrum game, Fred.
In Roland on the Ropes you play a cartoon-like tomb raider type character exploring a scrolling maze of platforms and ropes, looking for treasure and also trying to stop ghosts, mummies, and other creatures from killing you by shooting them with a gun. Your bullets are limited but you can find more ammo littering the cave to top up your gun. Ultimately your aim is to find the exit to the next level, as well as score as many points as possible.
Spindizzy, Amstrad CPC
I was always under the impression that Paul Shirley‘s classic Spindizzy originated on the Commodore 64 and was ported to other machines, but this interview with Shirley says that the game actually originated on the CPC and was ported to other systems. Since Paul Shirley coded the C64 version himself I had guessed that that was a logical assumption to make, but it now looks to be wrong.
The Amstrad version of Spindizzy – one of the best games ever made in my humble opinion – is pretty much perfect, with crisp, clean, detailed graphics and responsive controls.
Sorcery Plus, Amstrad CPC
Sorcery Plus is an expanded version of the best-selling Amstrad game Sorcery, catering for 128K disk-based machines and featuring new rooms and other enhancements. It was developed by Gang of Five and published by Virgin Games in 1985.
King’s Field IV, PlayStation 2
King’s Field IV was developed and published by FromSoftware in Japan in 2001 for the PlayStation 2. It was later released as King’s Field: The Ancient City in North America in 2002, and in Europe (as simply King’s Field IV) in 2003. It is another first-person RPG and is the fourth and final game in the King’s Field series.
King’s Field III, PlayStation
King’s Field III is the second sequel in FromSoftware‘s classic first-person RPG series and was first released in Japan in 1996. It was published in North America by ASCII Entertainment under the title of “King’s Field II” (because the original King’s Field was only released in Japan).
For my money, King’s Field III is the best of the three PlayStation King’s Field games, with larger, more interesting environments, and a bigger scope than the previous two games. The graphics are still borderline laughable, and the controls are still cumbersome, but the gameplay has evolved reasonably well in the space of a couple of years.
King’s Field II, PlayStation
FromSoftware‘s King’s Field II was initially released in Japan in 1995 and it is another first-person RPG with open world exploration, dodgy graphics and challenging combat. It was later published under the title “King’s Field” by ASCII Entertainment in North America and Sony in Europe in 1996, which does cause some confusion as the western titling ignores the actual first game in the series. For clarity: the official English language “King’s Field” is actually King’s Field II – the sequel.
King’s Field, PlayStation
With Elden Ring currently wowing gamers I thought I’d take a look at the series that began FromSoftware‘s journey into the action RPG genre, and that would be King’s Field – released in Japan only in 1994 for the Sony PlayStation – and, to be honest, it couldn’t be any further removed from Elden Ring in terms of presentation…
I’ve played a lot of RPGs in my time, and I would go so far as to say that it’s my favourite genre of video game, but King’s Field came as a bit of a shock to me. Yes, King’s Field was an early 3D RPG on the PlayStation, releasing the same year as the PS1 was launched, but it post-dates Ultima Underworld by two years and is archaic in comparison.
Fred, ZX Spectrum
Written by famous Spanish software house Indescomp, Fred is a scrolling platform/maze game where you control a cartoon Indiana Jones-type character plundering treasures from an Egyptian tomb, while avoiding contact with ghosts and mummies.
Fred was first released in 1984. In its native Spain the game was published by Investronica, while in the UK and other parts of Europe the game was published by Quicksilva.