Tag Archives: pioneering

Windjammers, Neo Geo

Windjammers is a legendary two-player sports game from Data East, published on the Neo Geo in 1994. It can of course be played single-player, against the AI, too.

It is kind of a cross between tennis and Frisbee-throwing. Or maybe even table hockey and Frisbee-throwing… The intro screen describes itself as “the flying disc game“. It’s weird but fun, and instantly playable, whatever it is.

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Waku Waku 7, Neo Geo

Sunsoft‘s Waku Waku 7 is one of the craziest, most colourful, and most over-the-top beat ’em ups I’ve ever played. It first appeared in arcades in 1996, was later released for the Neo Geo AES, and later also re-released for modern consoles. Such is its popularity.

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Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods, Amiga

Bullfrog Productions1991 sequel to Populous, Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods is a beautifully-crafted follow-up, retaining – and even improving on – the genius of the original.

I always rated Populous very highly, and Populous II is even better.

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Alien 8, MSX

The MSX version of Ultimate‘s classic isometric action adventure, Alien 8, is almost identical to the ZX Spectrum original – including slowdown caused by sound effects playing and lots of on-screen movement.

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Castle Master, PC

The PC DOS version of Castle Master was released in 1990. And, while the EGA 16-colour graphics are not quite a nice as those seen in the Amiga version, they are colourful enough, and move at a fast pace.

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Descent, PC

Descent is a famous PC DOS shoot ’em up developed by Parallax Software and published by Interplay in 1995.

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Yars’ Revenge, Atari 2600

Written by Howard Scott Warshaw and published by Atari, Inc. in 1982, Yars’ Revenge is one of those old video games that plays a lot better than it looks, and is much more subtle that you might think upon first inspection.

In fact, it took me decades to actually ‘click’ with the game and finally be bothered to learn how to play it properly.

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Archer Maclean’s Pool, Atari ST

Following on from Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker, Archer Maclean’s Pool was published in 1992 by Virgin Games. It was of course designed and programmed by Archer MacLean.

And, because pool is much more simple to play than snooker, and because this game uses the same engine as the previous game, Pool is arguably more immediately playable and more fun overall than its predecessor.

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Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker, Amiga

Programmed and designed by Archer MacLean and published by Virgin Games in 1991, Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker was one of the first ever billiards simulations to use 3D graphics to represent the table, and it worked very well.

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