Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is the second SCUMM game from Lucasfilm Games (aka LucasArts), after Maniac Mansion, with game development led by David Fox, and with Matthew Alan Kane as co-designer and co-programmer. It was originally released for the Commodore 64 in 1988, and this enhanced FM Towns port was published in Japan in 1990 by Fujitsu. The game is playable in both English and Japanese.
Continue reading Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, FM Towns
Chaos Strikes Back is a continuation of the classic Role-Playing Game, Dungeon Master. It’s a sequel – but not the sequel – to the first game, and was originally released as a stand-alone expansion disk on the Atari ST. On the FM Towns it was published on CD-ROM by Victor Musical Industries in 1990, and there’s a bit of faffing around to do before you can actually start the game*. Thankfully you can at least do this in English as there’s an option to play in that language.
*= Before you can play Chaos Strikes Back you must either create a new party (by entering the prison and choosing from the available portraits), and then save it to a new 720Kb floppy disk; or load a set of characters from a pre-existing FM Towns Dungeon Master save. You then need to enter the CSB portrait editor utility program and then click on ‘Make New Adventure’ to activate and save a new Chaos Strikes Back file to the disk. Only then will you be able to load and start the game…
The FM Towns version of the classic Dungeon Master was ported by FTL Games (the game’s original developer) and published by Fujitsu in 1989 (two years after the original Atari ST version, and three years before the DOS version came out). This was a Japan-only release, on CD-ROM, but the game is playable in both English and Japanese, which is great.
SOS is an intriguing survival adventure game set on a sinking ship in The North Sea, in 1921. The game features four playable characters, each with a different story, although the ultimate aim is the same for all of them: to escape from the stricken Lady Crithania, which has been hit by a gigantic wave and has capsized off the coast of England. SOS was developed by Human Entertainment and published exclusively for the Super Famicom by Field Co. Ltd. in 1993 (1994 in North America; published by Vic Tokai). In Japan the game is known as “Septentrion“.
Set on an uninhabited spaceship, Chimera is an isometric adventure/puzzle game where you control a robot* that must destroy the ship before it crashes into Earth. The game was written by Shahid Ahmad and published by Firebird in 1985. The music is by Rob Hubbard.
*= The player character looks like a robot, but does in fact require food and water to survive, so there’s a bit of a contradiction going on in the story, as far as who or what the player actually is.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords is a two-game package developed by Nintendo EAD and Capcom and first released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002 in North America and 2003 in Japan and Europe. It features a slightly modified port of the 1991 SNES classic, A Link to the Past, plus an all-new, multiplayer-only adventure called Four Swords.
Continue reading The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords, Game Boy Advance
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.
Also known as “The Quest for Identity“, Flashback is a classic platform action game from Delphine Software International, set some time in the future, where you’re trying to piece together your memory after a recent trauma. The MS-DOS version was first published by US Gold in 1993.
Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of The Monster is a Myst-style point-and-click adventure game starring Tim Curry as Dr. Frankenstein. It was developed by Amazing Media and was first published for the PC by Interplay in 1995, and the Sega Saturn version – shown here – came out later, in 1997.
Continue reading Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of The Monster, Sega Saturn
The Megadrive/Genesis version of Bits Studios‘ Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein is a bit of a poor relation to the Super Nintendo version of the game. Mainly because the lack of colour in the visuals tends to make this version look a bit rough when compared to the SNES version. But it is what it is: a fairly bog standard platform game loosely based on Kenneth Branagh‘s 1994 film.
Continue reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Megadrive/Genesis
The King of Grabs 