***CANNED GAME***
The NES version of The Adventures of Dr. Franken was developed by Cygnus in 1993 and was cancelled before release. A prototype exists online, though, which is what these grabs are from.
***CANNED GAME***
The NES version of The Adventures of Dr. Franken was developed by Cygnus in 1993 and was cancelled before release. A prototype exists online, though, which is what these grabs are from.
Dr. Franken II is the sequel to the Game Boy platform game, Dr. Franken, and is once again a satirical take on Mary Shelley‘s classic horror story, Frankenstein. It was developed by Motivetime and published by Elite Systems in 1993 (some sources online say “1997”, but that doesn’t seem to be right; it doesn’t make sense that a sequel would be released five years after the original game, on a time-limited handheld console).
For some reason I prefer the Atari ST version of Zeppelin Games‘ Frankenstein over the Amiga version of this game, mostly because the sound effects aren’t as bad in the ST version as they are in the Amiga version…
Developed by Motivetime and published by KEMCO in 1992, Dr. Franken is a platform game based loosely on Mary Shelley‘s classic horror story, Frankenstein, but delivered in a satirical, humorous manner.
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.
The first game in the Ultima series was initially released for the Apple II in 1981 by California Pacific Computer and was later completely re-coded and re-named as “Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness” for a re-release through Origin Systems. The 1987 MS-DOS re-code – shown here – is still available to buy as part of an Ultima 1+2+3 package on GOG.com (at the time of writing).
Although the first Ultima game was an Apple II original, the Commodore 64 version of this early RPG is arguably the best-known. Re-made and released in 1986, the C64 version of Ultima [one] features colourful graphics and absorbing gameplay that is pretty much identical to the Apple II remake.
Continue reading Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, Commodore 64
This first game in Richard Garriott‘s Ultima series was initially released for the Apple II in 1981 by California Pacific Computer and was originally called just “Ultima“. It was later re-named as “Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness” when it was re-made and re-released by Origin Systems in 1986. This 1986 re-code features improved graphics and gameplay, with a number of significant changes made to bring the game up-to-date with market conditions in the mid 1980s, and that is the version I’m featuring here. If you want to see the original 1981 version (and an explanation of how to play the game), click here.
Continue reading Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, Apple II
Released in 1983 by Sierra On-Line, Ultima on the Atari 8-bit is more archaic and frustrating than the original Apple II version. And it looks pretty awful too, with a real lack of colour – especially in towns where the game is in monochrome unless you play on a machine (and monitor) that supports “artifacting“. In artifacting mode the dungeon and town graphics look similar to Apple II graphics, but they don’t really take advantage of the Atari‘s superior graphics capabilities.