Tag Archives: Monsters

Pentagram, ZX Spectrum

By the time Pentagram came out in 1986, famous development and publishing house – Ultimate Play The Game – had been sold off to US Gold. How much of Pentagram was therefore down to Ultimate‘s designers, and how much was down to US Gold‘s programmers, is still a matter for debate. Most likely, Pentagram was a construct of US Gold, with Ultimate providing only the initial ideas, graphics and game engine (the famous Filmation Engine).

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Fallout 3, PC

After a gap of some ten years – between the release of Fallout 2 and “the void” of there being no other Fallout games – came Fallout 3 from Bethesda. Like a bolt from the blue: Fallout was back, and this time it was in 3D.

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Fallout 2, PC

Released in 1998, Fallout 2 is a sequel developed by Black Isle Studios, for Interplay, and using mostly the same post-apocalypse setting, graphical style, and game mechanics, of the first game.

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Fallout, PC

Interplay‘s 1997 release, Fallout, began its existence as a post-apocalyptic Role-Playing Game based on the Steve Jackson “GURPs” ruleset, and also as the ‘spiritual successor’ to the classic 8-bit RPG, Wasteland.

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Alien Rampage, PC

Alien Rampage is an old-school run-and-gun shooter from 1996 with all the ingredients required to make an entertaining game. Smooth scrolling; cool explosions; lots of different weapons; plenty of different monsters; gory gibs; an agile central character.

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Halls of the Things, ZX Spectrum

Halls of the Things is a 1983 release from Design Design and Crystal Computing. On the surface it looks like an RPG, but it’s more of an action game than anything.

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Ecstatica II, PC

This sequel to Andrew Spencer Studios‘ brilliant Ecstatica is a worthy survival horror game in its own right. In it you play a knight trapped inside a gigantic castle full of monsters and must fight your way out to freedom.

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Crystals of Arborea, Amiga

Trees, trees, and more trees! That’s what you get when you explore the ancient island kingdom of Arborea. And with a name like that it is no surprise.

Crystals of Arborea is a real-time, first-person, tile-based, party-driven RPG with combat, exploration, and day/night scenes where the colours cycle to give you a nice atmospheric setting.

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Crystals of Arborea, PC

Crystals of Arborea is the predecessor to the Ishar series of games. It’s a first-person, tile-based RPG, with a character-based party system and turn-based combat.

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Ishar 3: The Seven Gates of Infinity, Atari ST

The third and final instalment in the Ishar series, Ishar 3: The Seven Gates of Infinity was released by Silmarils in 1994.

It plays similarly to the previous two games (ie. first-person, real-time RPG), but with further refinement and a somewhat different setting – at least initially.

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