Tag Archives: shooting

Parallax, Commodore 64

First released by Ocean Software in 1986, Parallax is a wild overhead shooter from legendary UK gamedev company Sensible Software.

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Academy, ZX Spectrum

Sub-titled “Tau Ceti II“, Pete Cooke’s stunning Academy is a brilliant mission-based surface shooter that combines great presentation and atmosphere, with interesting use of light – quite radical for a humble ZX Spectrum.

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Starstrike II, ZX Spectrum

The sequel to Realtime Software‘s brilliant Starstrike 3D, Starstrike II is another excellent and groundbreaking first-person space shooter, only this time with impressive “filled” polygons, instead of the simpler wireframe graphics of the original.

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Starstrike 3D, ZX Spectrum

More than just a clone of Atari‘s arcade classic Star Wars, Starstrike 3D (or 3D Starstrike, whatever you prefer) is a wireframe, shooter masterpiece on the humble ZX Spectrum that really set the gaming world alight, back in the early Eighties.

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Dark Side, ZX Spectrum

Dark Side is the 1988 sequel to Driller is a very early example of a first-person, full 3D, explorable world, that can be viewed from almost any angle.

The game engine – Freescape – has gone on to become famous as one of the earliest examples of its type, and one that was hugely influential on every 3D exploration game that followed.

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Wizard’s Lair, ZX Spectrum

Steve Crow‘s colourful and fun Wizard’s Lair is clearly a tribute to the brilliant Ultimate Play The Game title Atic Atac. It has the same overhead viewpoint, similar gameplay and graphics and sound effects.

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Zynaps, ZX Spectrum

Zynaps is a smart side-scrolling shoot ’em up, developed by Dominic Robinson, John Cumming and Stephen Crow (with music by Steve Turner), and published by Hewson Consultants for the ZX Spectrum in 1987.

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Star Fox, Super Nintendo

I’m going to use the Japanese and North American name for this game – Star Fox – rather than the European name (Star Wing, which was chosen because the name “Star Fox” was apparently too similar to a German company called “StarVox”!).

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