This terrible pun of a title (meant to ‘parody’ the word Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon) was developed by Sunsoft and distributed into arcades by Sega in 1989. It’s a one or simultaneous two-player Contra clone scrolling through a futuristic warzone.
Tag Archives: Obscure
Don Doko Don, Arcade
Don Doko Don is an arcade game developed and distributed by Taito in 1989. It was only ever released in Japan – as were ports of the game that appeared on the Famicom and PC Engine – although the small amount of text in the game appears to be in English so is easy to understand.
Out of Gas, Game Boy
Out of Gas is a top-down action/puzzle game developed by Realtime Associates and published exclusively for the Game Boy, in North America only, by FCI (Fujisankei Communications International) in 1992. And it is generally derided by those who’ve played it.
Avenging Spirit, Arcade
Avenging Spirit was developed by C.P. Brain and distributed into arcades by Jaleco in 1991. It is an obscure platform/action game about the ghost of a dead man avenging the abduction of his girlfriend.
A Whole New Ball Game, ZX Spectrum
Written by Pete Cooke [Tau Ceti, Academy, Micronaut One, Earthlight, Stunt Car Racer], A Whole New Ball Game is the 1989 sequel to the puzzle game, Brainstorm, and was only made available on the covertape of Crash magazine issue 66 (July 1989). It was basically given away, as a full game, with the magazine.
Last Resort, Neo Geo
Last Resort is a scrolling ‘bullet hell‘ shooter developed by SNK and first released as an arcade game, on Neo Geo MVS hardware, in 1992. From what I can ascertain it doesn’t seem to have been released on cartridge for Neo Geo AES home systems, but it was later released on the Neo Geo CD.
Radar Lock, Atari 2600
Radar Lock is an air combat shoot ’em up written by Doug Neubauer and published by Atari Corporation in 1989. The game is basically an After Burner derivative that uses a modified version of the engine used in Neubauer‘s previous Atari 2600 game, Solaris.
Shatterhand, NES/Famicom
Shatterhand is a scrolling action game in which you play a young police officer – called Steve Hermann – who has lost his arms and has had them replaced with enhanced, cybernetic limbs, and is in pursuit of a group of military renegades called “Metal Command“.
Shatterhand was developed by Natsume and originally published for the Nintendo Famicom by Angel under the title of “Tokkyū Shirei Soruburein” in 1991. That version of the game is based on the Japanese TV series “Super Rescue Solbrain“. The US and European versions, published by Jaleco, removed the licensed elements, changed the backstory, and re-titled the game as “Shatterhand” for Western audiences. One level was also completely changed – from a carnival level in the Japanese version, to a submarine level in the American version. The gameplay in both versions is identical, though.
Golden Axe: The Duel, Arcade
Golden Axe: The Duel is the third arcade game in the Golden Axe series (after Golden Axe and The Revenge of Death Adder) and is a two-player versus fighting game based on characters from the popular side-scrolling hack and slash games. It was first released into arcades in February 1995.
Lunar: Walking School, Game Gear
Lunar: Walking School (aka Lunar: Sanposuru Gakuen) is a Game Gear exclusive handheld RPG first released in 1996. It is a spin-off/side story from the main Lunar series published by Game Arts. This ‘Walking School‘ edition was developed by Ehrgeiz and written by Studio Alex.
Again: thanks to the efforts of fans a number of translation patches exist to make the game playable to non-Japanese speakers/readers.
The King of Grabs 