Bitmasters‘ 1993 title Championship Pool for the SNES is – I think – arguably the best pool game of all time. On any system.
Tag Archives: Non-violent
Track & Field, Arcade
Konami‘s 1983 arcade hit Track & Field broke new ground with its button-bashing gameplay.
It also broke a fair few cabinets along the way, with arcade machine operators having to repair the buttons on machines quite often, to keep them operative (and therefore earning money). A broken Track & Field machine was no good to anyone, and people tend to get carried away and hit too hard when playing this game.
Lock ‘n’ Chase, Arcade
Yes, Data East‘s classic 1981 arcade game does feature a policeman called “Stiffy”. The other three are called “Scaredy”, “Smarty” and “Silly”. And together the four of them chase you – a thief – whose mission it is to collect the coins in the maze, and any other treasure that appears, before escaping.
Luigi’s Mansion, GameCube
Luigi’s Mansion was first released in 2001 on the Nintendo GameCube, and was a launch title if I remember correctly (meaning: it was available when the GameCube was first released).
Match Point, ZX Spectrum
Way back to 1984 and tennis on the ZX Spectrum.
Match Point, by Psion, was about as good as computer tennis got in the early Eighties.
Super Tennis, Super Nintendo
Still my favourite tennis game of all time. On any system.
Super Tennis on the SNES is so good; so much fun to bend shots around the net; such a good balance between cartoony-ness and realism, that it is always a joy to revisit.
Top Spin, XBox
PAM Development‘s 2003 release, Top Spin, was the moment when tennis games came of age and went full 3D.
From Match Point on the ZX Spectrum, via Super Tennis on the Super Nintendo, to this… Arguably the pinnacle of all modern tennis games.
Cookie, ZX Spectrum
Another of Ultimate‘s early ZX Spectrum classics, Cookie – from 1983 – is a simple arcade-style action game where you are a little chef sprite shooting bags of flour at ingredients to knock them into a mixing bowl.
The Sentinel, Amiga
Geoff Crammond‘s The Sentinel (aka The Sentry in North America) is a strange chess-like game where you have to sneak up on an overseeing watcher, who is perched high on a platform, overlooking the play area, and absorb him before he does the same to you.
Sensible Golf, PC
Relatively obscure follow-up to Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder.
Sensible Golf was first released in 1994 for the PC and Amiga, and didn’t really make much of an impact on the market, although it’s not a bad game at all.
