Major Havoc has one task: to destroy a series of space stations. That task has been divided into three parts for each station. Part one: defeat the robots that are protecting it. Part two: safely land on the space station. And part three: go into the space station, activate the self-destruct, then get back to your ship and escape. Do that four times and you just might save humanity from enslavement…
Tag Archives: Retro Gaming History
Osman, Arcade
Atlus/Mitchell Corporation‘s 1996 arcade game, Osman, is something of a ‘tribute’ to Capcom‘s Strider. It features a lone protagonist who can clamber all over the landscape and has multiple attacks and abilities at his disposal.
Some of the development team on this worked on the Strider arcade game, so Osman could be seen as a spiritual successor to Strider.
Elevator Action, Arcade
Elevator Action is a classic platform/action game, first released into arcades in 1983 by Taito. The game was a critical and commercial success and has been converted to a wide range of home systems.
Ridge Racer, Arcade
Ridge Racer is a classic arcade racing game, developed and distributed by Namco in 1993. It uses the Namco System 22 arcade board and is notable for being the first arcade videogame to use texture-mapped 3D graphics.
Vectorman, Megadrive/Genesis
Developed by BlueSky Software of California and published exclusively for the Megadrive/Genesis by Sega in 1995, Vectorman is an extremely well-regarded platform/action game with outstanding presentation and a humorous backstory.
The year is 2049 and the Earth has been overwhelmed with pollution. It’s so bad that humans have left, to live in space, sending automated robots down to Earth to try to reverse the out-of-control climate change. After interfacing with a nuclear warhead one of the robots becomes self-aware and declares itself to be “WarHead – The Destroyer of Humanity“. WarHead reprograms all the other robots and turns them against the humans, taking over Earth. You, as Vectorman, are a weird-looking robot that is returning from a dumping mission to the sun, and has inadvertently stumbled upon this bad situation. Since Vectorman is immune to WarHead‘s mind control, he sets out to save the Earth by destroying him.
Batman, MSX
Published by Ocean Software in 1986, the MSX version of Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond‘s classic isometric platform game is just as good as the original Spectrum version, if not better.
The Addams Family, Amiga
The Amiga version of Ocean‘s classic platform game, The Addams Family, was created by an internal team at Ocean Software in Manchester in 1992, working on multiple ports simultaneously, and trying their best to make great games under pressure.
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter Remastered, PC
Remastered by Nightdive Studios and published by Atari in 2015, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter Remastered is a good example of nostalgia versus reality.
Gradius II, PC Engine
Gradius II on the PC Engine pushes the concept of this horizontally-scrolling shooter to new limits, with stunning new levels and an insane amount of challenge.
Gradius, PC Engine
The PC Engine version of Konami‘s classic arcade shooter, Gradius (aka Nemesis), is pretty exceptional. It was first released in Japan in 1991.
