Amberstar is a huge, sprawling Role-Playing Game that was first released by German developer Thalion in 1992. It’s a game that certainly does owe a debt or two to Richard Garriott‘s famous Ultima series, although Amberstar is unique (and good) enough to stand on its proverbial own two feet.
Tag Archives: Obscure
Pengy, Atari ST
Pengy is a clone of the arcade game Pengo (by Sega) and – to be honest – it is not a very good one.
Simulcra, Atari ST
Simulcra is a cool third-person 3D shooter set on a complex series of colourful courses. The game was developed by legendary coding team Graftgold and is one of their least well-known releases, but also one of their best.
Gorf, Arcade
Gorf is an early arcade shooter that feels like a poor relative to many of its peers of the time.
It borrows most of its features from other games (one wave is actually called “Galaxians” although I do believe that the developers properly licensed it from Namco) and doesn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of gameplay, but it did pioneer one thing. And that is: in the use of synthesised speech. Gorf was one of the earliest video games to use it (and although clear, it is quite robotic).
Nox, PC
Nox is an excellent isometric action/RPG created by Westwood Studios and first released in 2000.
Nightshade, NES
NOT the infamous 1985 Ultimate game, but an obscure action/adventure classic from Aussie developer Beam Software, first released on the NES in 1992.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto, PC
This obscure 2000 release from Planet Moon Studios and Interplay pretty much sank without a trace on first release – in spite of being a great game. Thankfully, Giants: Citizen Kabuto has been given a new lease of life, thanks to GOG.com (and other outlets) giving it a re-release, and it seems to have found a new audience. Looking at the reviews on GOG.com in particular it seems that this game is receiving a lot of love.
Sinbad and the Golden Ship, ZX Spectrum
This obscure budget text adventure, with graphics, was released on the ZX Spectrum by Mastertronic in 1986.
The Firemen, Super Nintendo
The Firemen is an original overhead action game with you controlling a small team of intrepid fire fighters while out on duty.
Ultra Vortek, Atari Jaguar
My goodness, Ultra Vortek must rate as one of the worst beat ’em ups of all time!
The King of Grabs 