Starion is a classic space combat game, written by David Webb and published by Melbourne House in 1985.
Tag Archives: pioneering
Pac-Mania, Arcade
Pac-Mania is the 1987 sequel to the classic Pac-Man, and it is generally very highly-rated by those who’ve played it.
Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani was involved in Pac-Mania‘s development for Namco, so the game is properly canon, totally authentic, and deviously subtle.
Tau Ceti, PC
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.
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.
Defender of the Crown, ZX Spectrum
A very good 1989 homebrew conversion of Cinemaware‘s classic Defender of the Crown, programmed by The Cat, from Hungary.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Super Nintendo
The follow-up to one of the best platform games of all time (Super Mario World), is – unsurprisingly – also one of the best platform games of all time!
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island was released by Nintendo in 1995 to much anticipation, and it didn’t disappoint.
Continue reading Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Super Nintendo
Power Drift, Arcade
Power Drift is a superfast racing game designed by Yu Suzuki and first released into arcades by Sega in 1988.
The game uses high speed scaling effects (similar to After Burner and Out Run) to generate the tracks and the cars on the road, and the speed at which you race is pretty startling.
Conqueror, Archimedes
Conqueror is a 1988 release from Superior Software, designed and programmed by Jonathan Griffiths. It’s a 3D tank game that was released as a sequel to Zarch – and it uses the same game engine.
Pilotwings, Super Nintendo
Nintendo‘s famous flying game, Pilotwings, first came out in Japan in 1990, then the following year was a launch title for the North American and European releases of the Super Nintendo.
Pilotwings uses scaling and rotation effects (known as ‘Mode 7’ in some circles) to give a visual representation of the ground, with regular 2D sprites making up everything else, and it works extremely well.
The King of Grabs 