There have been quite a lot of excellent 2D Mario games over history, which makes the Game Boy Super Mario Land series easy to overlook. All three Super Mario Land games, however, are stunning and unique ‘best-in-class’ examples of what the Game Boy is actually capable of – ie. shifting lots of sprites around the screen, smooth scrolling, great sounds and perfectly responsive controls.
Continue reading Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Game Boy
Monster Max on the Game Boy is a direct descendant of the classic isometric platform game Head Over Heels, it having been created by Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond – the same team who made Head Over Heels, and a string of other hits on the ZX Spectrum.
And Monster Max is a brilliant little game! The movement, jumping and inertia are slightly more refined than in some of their other games, which makes Monster Max a joy to play.
Liquid Kids is a bizarre-but-fun platform game by Taito, first released into video game arcades in 1990.
Android 2 is a great little maze shooter for the 48K Spectrum, designed and programmed by Salford University graduate Costa Panayi and published by Vortex Software in 1983.
Costa Panayi‘s 1983 release, Android 1: The Reactor Run, definitely showed the potential of the young games designer, even if the game overall is a little too short.
Crystalis was SNK‘s response to Nintendo‘s Zelda games back in 1990, it being an action adventure with real-time combat, just like Zelda. But Crystalis is definitely something more than simply a Zelda clone – it is one of the best games on the system and a great game in its own right.
Another Julian Gollop classic – Laser Squad was one of the earliest squad-based tactical combat video games, released in 1988, and was originally developed for the ZX Spectrum (and later converted to various other systems).
Bitmasters‘ 1993 title Championship Pool for the SNES is – I think – arguably the best pool game of all time. On any system.
Sid Meier‘s Civilization is a classic turn-based strategy game first released by MicroProse in 1991.
Since then it has been re-made and re-released many times, such is the allure of its classic gameplay.
Automania – developed by Chris Hinsley for Mikro-Gen in 1984 – is the first ever appearance of the character Wally Week.
