The Sharp X68000 version of Atari‘s classic Marble Madness is pretty much arcade perfect – barring, of course, the trackball controls of the original arcade game. In fact: if you compare the graphics to the arcade game you might notice that they’re crisper and slightly higher resolution.
Tag Archives: Retro Gaming
Astronut, ZX Spectrum
Not to be confused with the animated TV series The Astronut Show, this is a 1984 release for the ZX Spectrum, written by Patrick Richmond and published by Software Projects.
Barbarian, Atari ST
Palace Software‘s notorious Barbarian is a ‘sword and sandal’ beat ’em up with a knockout gimmick: you can decapitate your opponent with a well-placed sword stroke!
Granted: you have to time it correctly, and get the distance between you and your opponent right, but when you pull it off the head bounces off in hilarious fashion, before being finally getting booted off the screen by a gremlin.
Delta, Commodore 64
Designed and programmed by Stavros Fasoulas in 1987, Delta is a classic side-scrolling shooter with spaceships, sprites, and fast, furious action.
And: like Fasoulas‘s previous game, Sanxion, it’s also immensely challenging.
Sanxion, Commodore 64
Designed and programmed by Stavros Fasoulas in 1986, Sanxion is a classic side-scrolling C64 shoot ’em that is remembered for being challenging, and for also being a slick piece of coding.
It was also the very first game released by Thalamus, who went on to publish some of the best games in C64 history.
Stargate, Arcade
Also known as Defender II, Stargate is the 1981 sequel to Williams Electronics‘ Defender, which was released earlier the same year.
Stargate was designed and programmed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz, for Williams, and it features the same superfast blasting action as Defender, but with subtle differences.
Flicky, Arcade
Originating in arcades in 1984, Flicky is a super cute bird-collecting platform game by Sega that relies heavily on gravity, inertia, and jumping to provide the challenge.
The aim of the game is simple: you play a blue bird who must collect up the small, yellow chicks (the “PioPio“), and avoid contact with the cats (the “Nyannyan“) on your way to taking the chicks home (the door you came in through). The quicker you do this, the more bonus points you get.
Simple. Or at least you might have thought so…
Mercs, Arcade
Mercs is a classic arcade shooter from 1990. It was jointly developed by Sega and Capcom and features simultaneous three-player cooperative gameplay.
Salamander 2, Arcade
Released ten years after the original Salamander, Konami‘s 1996 sequel – Salamander 2 – is more of the same horizontal/vertical scrolling blasting action, but with a different style of graphics, bigger, better weapons, and more spectacular events.
Bubble Memories, Arcade
Bubble Memories: The Story of Bubble Bobble III was released into arcades by Taito in 1996, and – as the subtitle makes clear – this is a canonical Bubble Bobble sequel. It has been described as “Bubble Bobble on steroids”…
The King of Grabs 