What can be said about Sega‘s fabulous Super Monkey Ball that hasn’t already been said before? It is a riot of colour and sound that has been bringing joy to games-players for over two decades now. The GameCube version was developed by Amusement Vision (an internal Sega dev team) and first came out in 2001. And it was a smash hit!
Tag Archives: Retro Gaming History
Super Smash Bros., Nintendo 64
Developed by HAL Laboratory and released exclusively for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, Super Smash Bros. is a ground-breaking cross-over fighting game featuring many of Nintendo‘s most famous characters, duelling it out to the death!
The Revenge of Shinobi, Megadrive/Genesis
The Revenge of Shinobi (known in Japan as “The Super Shinobi“) is the 1989 Megadrive/Genesis sequel to the classic Sega arcade game. It once again features Joe Musashi, and takes place three years after the events of the first game. The criminal organization “Zeed” have reformed and have renamed themselves “Neo Zeed“, and they have decided to exact their revenge on the Oboro Ninja Clan by killing Joe’s master and kidnapping his bride, Naoko. So you must rescue your fiancée, and get revenge for the death of your master.
Space Invaders, Super Game Boy
The 1994 Game Boy version of Taito‘s classic Space Invaders is legendary for its Super Game Boy enhancements. It not only features a variety of well-designed borders and enhanced colour palettes, but it also includes an exclusive, separate ‘arcade’ port that is only accessible when using a Super Game Boy on a SNES.
La Pulga, ZX81
Released by Indescomp in 1983, La Pulga is the ZX81 prototype of the classic ZX Spectrum game, Bugaboo (The Flea), aka Boogaboo, aka La Pulga in Spain.
Bomberman, PC Engine
The PC Engine version of Bomberman was where this famous video game series really began to take off. It features enhanced graphics, sound and gameplay, further refining Bomberman into the more familiar ‘modern’ incarnation that most games-players know and love. Bomberman was released in Japan in 1990; in North America, for the TurboGrafx-16, by NEC Technologies in 1991, and in Europe by Ubisoft in 1992.
Bomberman, NES/Famicom
The first NES/Famicom version of Hudson Soft‘s Bomberman was a significant enhancement of the Bomberman concept, and was the first game in the series to feature the famous Bomberman player character, with the white helmet (actually an enemy graphic taken and adapted from Hudson‘s 1984 Famicom port of Brøderbund‘s Lode Runner). Bomberman was released in 1985 in Japan, but wasn’t released in North America until 1989.
Bomberman, MSX
The very first release in the famous Bomberman series was this game – aka “Bomber Man” – which was developed and published by Hudson Soft, for the MSX, in 1983. This is basically a prototype of the Bomberman we know and love, that was to come some years later.
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.
Diablo, PC
Developed by Blizzard North and first published by Blizzard Entertainment in 1997, Diablo is a classic point-and-click action/RPG that features quests, monsters, real-time combat, magic, and dungeon-delving, in a way that is meant to appeal to those who prefer a more immediate style of gameplay, than the more ‘hardcore’, turn-based style of many RPGs. And – as a result – Diablo was a smash hit, and spawned a series that still (infamously) persists to this day.
The King of Grabs 