Hudson Soft‘s infamous 1987 platformer, Kato & Ken, is known by a variety of different names, depending on where it was released.
In its native Japan it is known as Kato-chan & Ken-chan and is loosely based on a television show called Fun TV, and the madcap antics of its two hosts, Kato-chan and Ken-chan. In North America the game is known as J.J. & Jeff and features a couple of bungling detectives out to solve a kidnapping case…
Never officially released in English-speaking territories (but translated by fans as “Psychic Killer Taromaru“) this side-scrolling action game is one of the rarest Sega Saturn titles in existence.
Rare because publisher Time Warner Interactive only produced a very limited number of copies of the game in 1997, before pulling out of the games market altogether. So actual copies of Shinrei Jusatsushi Tarōmaru have changed hands for silly money over the decades.
Developed by Hidden Treasures and published by Logotron in 1988, StarRay is a decent 16-bit side-scrolling shooter for the Amiga.
Another conversion, but a very good one. Andrew Braybrook‘s classic horizontally-scrolling shooter, Uridium.
The original Amiga version of Cinemaware‘s The Three Stooges was released in 1987.
With ‘mini games’ inspired by classic Three Stooges films, it features Larry, Moe and Curly on a quest to save an orphanage from an evil landlord.
The Commodore 64 version of Cinemaware‘s Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon is the version to play in my opinion – the earlier Amiga version of this excellent fantasy adventure game is uncharacteristically poor in terms of presentation.
Continue reading Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon, Commodore 64
A British platform game that came quite late in the life of the Atari 8-bit computers (released by Zeppelin Games in 1990), Cavernia is a fairly simple left to right run-and-jump-a-thon but with nice presentation and decent controls.
Archer MacLean‘s Dropzone was initially released on the Atari 8-bit machines in 1984, before it later appeared on the Commodore 64 and became a smash hit.
Codemasters released this Derek Brewster game in 1987 under the title of Mission Jupiter (also known as Jupiter Mission in some territories).
It’s a simple side-scrolling shooter with a guy wearing a jet pack.
Firebird Software released BMX Kidz for the Commodore 64 in 1987.
The King of Grabs 