Written by Mike Richardson and released by Durell Software in 1983, Harrier Attack is a side-scrolling Scramble ‘tribute’, but with VTOL (Vertical Take-Off & Landing) military Harrier ‘jump jet’ aircraft instead of spaceships.
Tag Archives: shooting
Halls of the Things, Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 has a version of Design Design‘s classic Halls of the Things and it looks and plays very similarly to the original Spectrum version. Which is no bad thing, because this is a challenging and fun little action game.
Descent, PC
Descent is a famous PC DOS shoot ’em up developed by Parallax Software and published by Interplay in 1995.
Sunset Riders, Arcade
This 1991 arcade classic from Konami is a simultaneous four-player, horizontally-scrolling run-and-gun game with a colourful, cartoony, wild western theme.
Yars’ Revenge, Atari 2600
Written by Howard Scott Warshaw and published by Atari, Inc. in 1982, Yars’ Revenge is one of those old video games that plays a lot better than it looks, and is much more subtle that you might think upon first inspection.
In fact, it took me decades to actually ‘click’ with the game and finally be bothered to learn how to play it properly.
Colony 7, Arcade
Taito‘s American division developed this vertical screen base defence game in 1981. Colony 7 owes quite a bit to Missile Command, if the truth be known, and was also probably the very first video game to feature “rip-off” micro-transactions too…
River Raid, Atari 2600
Written by Carol Shaw for Activision and published initially for the Atari 2600 in 1982, River Raid is an early vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up with simple graphics, challenging gameplay, and its own unique set of rules.
Death Star Interceptor, ZX Spectrum
Looking at Death Star Interceptor now you might be surprised to discover that it was a “number one” game when it first came out in 1985.
And – while it did make it to the top of the games charts back then – the charts were not very reliable, and the game actually wasn’t that good, even though it does officially license use of the Star Wars theme, for a warbly Speccy interpretation of John Williams‘ classic music.
Death Star Interceptor was a case of style over content, and also maybe a touch of Star Wars fever as well. These are thoughts I had about the game when I first played it back in 1985.
Total Eclipse 2: The Sphinx Jinx, ZX Spectrum
Published by Incentive Software in 1991, Total Eclipse 2: The Sphinx Jinx is a direct follow-up to the 1988 Freescape classic, Total Eclipse.
Continue reading Total Eclipse 2: The Sphinx Jinx, ZX Spectrum
Total Eclipse, ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum version of Total Eclipse was the first version of the game released.
Using the legendary Freescape Engine, Total Eclipse is an Egyptian-themed exploration/puzzle game set in a primitive 3D world. Primitive because it was one of the first ever games to allow games-players to explore a 3D world in this way, and it worked quite well, in spite of the low frame rate and slowdown.
The King of Grabs 