David Lubar‘s relatively obscure 1984 classic, Pastfinder, is a weird vertically-scrolling shooter in which you control a spider-like craft that can crawl, shoot and jump, and you must explore a radioactive landscape picking up artefacts from a mysterious planet.
Tag Archives: shooting
Mercenary, Commodore 64
Novagen‘s classic 3D exploration game, Mercenary, was first released for the Commodore 64 in 1985. It was designed and coded by Paul Woakes.
Iridis Alpha, Commodore 64
Jeff Minter‘s classic Iridis Alpha is a weird horizontal shoot ’em up first released in 1986 through Llamasoft and Hewson Consultants.
Rescue On Fractalus, Commodore 64
LucasFilm Games‘ classic space shooter, Rescue On Fractalus, was first released on Atari 8-bit computers in March 1984, and this Commodore 64 version came a year later, in 1985.
Spore, Commodore 64
Although it doesn’t look like much, Spore is in fact a high-tension, high-speed, single screen Gauntlet variant, with lots of shooting, shooting, shooting!
Morpheus, Commodore 64
Andrew Braybrook‘s 1987 release, Morpheus, is a strange mix of space shooter and resource management. Management of your ship’s shield’s mostly, which can be prolonged by adding extra generators, or by building up the size of the hull.
Alleykat, Commodore 64
Alleykat is a strange-but-enjoyable mix of vertical shooter and race game. Although – in this case – you ARE taking part in races, but not actually racing anyone.
Uridium Plus, Commodore 64
There isn’t a great deal of information around about Uridium Plus. Like: whether this version has any technical enhancements (like Heavy Metal Paradroid does), or not. I have vague recollections that this version was somehow technically better, although I could be wrong. It’d be nice to know…
Uridium, Commodore 64
Here are a set of grabs from the original Uridium, by Andrew Braybrook. It was first published by Hewson Consultants in 1986, for the Commodore 64.
Dropzone, Commodore 64
Archer MacLean‘s seminal Commodore 64 shooter, Dropzone is like a cross between Defender and, erm, Defender, but with more realistic graphics. And slightly different gameplay. But the principles are pretty much the same: super-fast, super-smooth, side-scrolling shooting. Avoid touching anything – or it’s instant death.
The King of Grabs 