The PC MS-DOS version of Tau Ceti was coded by Derek Baker at Comtec and published by CRL Group (Thunder Mountain in North America) in 1987.
It features gaudy, four-colour, CGA graphics, but is otherwise the Tau Ceti we know and love.
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Tau Ceti, Atari ST
The 1986 Atari ST conversion of Tau Ceti – by Ron De Santi of Comtec – is much faster than the 8-bit versions and therefore more challenging. And what a brilliant challenge it is!
Tau Ceti, Commodore 64
John Twiddy‘s C64 conversion of Pete Cooke‘s classic space shooter is arguably even better than the Spectrum original.
Graphically it’s a little chunkier, but the extra colours make a difference.
Star Fighter 3000, Archimedes
Also known as “Star Fighter” in some quarters, Star Fighter 3000 is a game from Fednet Software, published by Krisalis in 1994.
It’s a third-person shooter with relatively primitive 3D graphics, in a similar kind of style to Nintendo‘s Star Fox.
Raid Over Moscow, Commodore 64
Raid Over Moscow was a controversial release for Access Software in 1984. The game depicts a fictional nuclear war scenario between the USA and Russia and involves US forces fending off nuclear attacks, then flying into the Russian capital to attack what is supposed to be The Kremlin.
Eye of the Storm, PC
Eye of the Storm was the first game released by Rebellion Developments in 1993, and also the first video game designed by Jason Kingsley, co-founder of Rebellion and current owner of 2000AD comic.
Offendron Warrior, PC
Offendron Warrior is a superb retro gaming tribute to Eugene Jarvis‘s arcade classic Defender, using modern pixels and effects, by talented and prolific Korean Hijong Park. It’s currently available for free or donationware on Steam.
If you don’t know Defender – look it up, then go play it. Then come back and continue reading this.
Steel Alcimus, PC
Another excellent Hijong Park retro tribute game – this one possibly his best so far – Steel Alcimus is an overhead helicopter shooter with either twin-stick joypad, or keyboard and mouse controls. I played it with mouse and keys and found the control system to be really quite ingenious.
Earthlight, ZX Spectrum
Pete Cooke‘s Earthlight is an unusual side-scrolling shoot ’em up with extremely nice graphics. It was originally published for the ZX Spectrum by Firebird in 1988.
10 Best Spy Hunter Conversions
LISTS: as decided by The King of Grabs, in order of greatness:
These are just an opinion, but please do feel free to comment with your opinions. Unless you’re a comment spammer. In which case: do feel free to f*ck off…
Bally Midway‘s classic Spy Hunter is a brilliant overhead race game with guns and bumping cars and speed boats and chasing helicopters, and general high-speed excitement. It is such a good game that it has been converted to pretty much every gaming system known to man.
Here’s our rundown of the top 10 Spy Hunter conversions…
1. Nintendo Entertainment System < Probably the most fun
2. Atari 800 << Better than most
3. Commodore 64 <<< Entertaining
4. ZX Spectrum <<<< A fun conversion
5. ColecoVision <<<<< Pretty good
6. Amstrad CPC <<<<<< Reasonable
7. Atari 2600 <<<<<<< Basic
8. BBC Micro <<<<<<<< Forgettable
9. Apple II <<<<<<<< Rubbish
10. PC MS-DOS <<<<<<<<< Utterly terrible
And, of course, not forgetting the utterly brilliant arcade original.
More: Spy Hunter on Wikipedia
The King of Grabs 