Tag Archives: portals

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Nintendo 64

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a first-person shooter, developed by Iguana Entertainment and published by Acclaim for the Nintendo 64 console and Microsoft Windows. It was initially released in 1997 in North America and Europe.

Continue reading Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Nintendo 64

Dragon Slayer, Game Boy

A Game Boy port of Falcom‘s maze-based fantasy action game, Dragon Slayer, was developed by Epoch Co., Ltd. and published by Falcom – in Japan only – in 1990. While Dragon Slayer is an ideal match for Nintendo‘s monochrome handheld marvel, this conversion does leave a bit to be desired.

Continue reading Dragon Slayer, Game Boy

Dragon Slayer, MSX

Although it may look extremely basic, Dragon Slayer is an important game in the development of Japanese Role-Playing Games. It is a real-time action/exploration game where you control a fighter who must collect gold, orbs, potions, and various other useful items, inside a scrolling maze that is crawling with deadly monsters.

Dragon Slayer was initially released in 1984 for the PC-8801, PC-9801, X1 and FM-7, and the MSX version followed in 1985, being ported and published by Square. It was, in fact, one of the earliest releases from Square.

Continue reading Dragon Slayer, MSX

Shadowcaster, PC

Shadowcaster is a first-person fantasy-based action game developed by Raven Software and published by Origin Systems in 1993 for MS-DOS (Electronic Arts published it in Europe). The game uses a modified version of the 3D engine used in Wolfenstein 3D, with icons and point-and-click adventure and RPG elements.

Continue reading Shadowcaster, PC

Ultima IX: Ascension, PC

Ultima IX: Ascension is the ninth and final instalment of the core Ultima series and was developed by Origin Systems and published for Windows-based PCs by Electronic Arts in 1999. It was the first Ultima game to use polygonal rendering in a full 3D environment.

Continue reading Ultima IX: Ascension, PC

Silent Hill 4: The Room, PlayStation 2

Silent Hill 4: The Room was once again developed by Team Silent (an internal dev team at Konami Tokyo), and was first published by Konami in 2004. The word on the street is that Silent Hill 4 initially began life as a concept outside of the Silent Hill series and was later made canon when the devs decided to incorporate it. It plays differently to the previous three Silent Hill games, but does have the same DNA, mixing first-person exploration with the familiar third-person survival horror gameplay.

Continue reading Silent Hill 4: The Room, PlayStation 2

Hexen: Beyond Heretic, PC

Hexen is the 1995 MS-DOS-based sequel to Heretic and is another fantasy-themed first-person shooter utilising the Doom engine. Or at least: a modified version of the Doom engine. It was again developed by Raven Software and published by id Software, and John Romero once again acted as producer of the game.

Continue reading Hexen: Beyond Heretic, PC

Dun Darach, ZX Spectrum

Dun Darach is the 1985 sequel (actually prequel) to Tir Na Nog, written by Greg Follis and Roy Carter and again featuring the expressive Cuchulainn – the long-haired man who is not afraid to walk around with his shirt off…

Continue reading Dun Darach, ZX Spectrum

Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds, Amiga CD32

The sequel to the quirky Amiga adventure Heimdall, Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds was developed by The 8th Day and published by Core Design in 1994. In my opinion: it is more enjoyable than the first game, although not without its faults.

Continue reading Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds, Amiga CD32

Portal, PC

Portal is a legendary first-person puzzle/gravity game developed and published by Valve in 2007.

I say “gravity game” because Portal combines basic physics (acceleration, velocity, gravity, and inertia), with the ability to open up entry and exit portals, to create a game so beautifully simple-yet-complex that it is almost beyond belief…

Continue reading Portal, PC