Tag Archives: planets

Phantasy Star II, Megadrive/Genesis

Released in 1989 for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, Phantasy Star II is a pioneering RPG for its time. It’s a sequel, obviously; to the classic Sega Master System release of 1987, Phantasy Star.

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Earthlight, ZX Spectrum

Pete Cooke‘s Earthlight is an unusual side-scrolling shoot ’em up with extremely nice graphics. It was originally published for the ZX Spectrum by Firebird in 1988.

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Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, PC

Looking Glass Technologies are probably best known for their Ultima Underworld series of games, but this 1996 tactical shooter from them is also a retro-gaming classic.

Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri is a first-person, futuristic ‘combat suit’ type action game with an interesting mix of styles.

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Elite, BBC Micro

The classic Elite originated on the BBC MicroDavid Braben and Ian Bell‘s classic space combat/trading game was first released by Acornsoft in 1984.

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Albion, PC

Blue Byte‘s 1996 PC release, Albion, is a classic science fiction role-playing game.

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Star Raiders II, Atari 8-bit

Released by Atari in 1986, Star Raiders II was initially designed as a video game based on the film The Last Starfighter. When that idea was eventually dropped the game was re-modelled into Star Raiders II.

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Rescue On Fractalus, Atari 8-bit

The Atari 800 version of Rescue On Fractalus was released in 1984 and was the first version available. It was a critical success and drew quite a lot of attention to Atari 8-bit home computers (jealous Commodore 64 owners had to wait almost a year before they got a conversion).

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Codename MAT, ZX Spectrum

Derek Brewster‘s Codename MAT (Mission: Alien Termination) is what I would call a ‘Star Trek’ game, with a liberal ‘borrowing’ of elements from Star Raiders. It was published in 1984 by Micromega.

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Braxx Bluff, ZX Spectrum

Braxx Bluff was released by Micromega for the ZX Spectrum in 1984. It was written by Tony Poulter.

It’s a weird game – of space exploration – well, the exploration of a planet and its surface.

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Battlecruiser 3000AD, PC

A controversial release from Gametek in 1996, this complex space sim is notorious for having a long and troubled development history.

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