Descent is a famous PC DOS shoot ’em up developed by Parallax Software and published by Interplay in 1995.
Tag Archives: spaceships
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…
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.
Tribble Trubble, ZX Spectrum
Written by Jim Scarlett and published by Software Projects in 1984, Tribble Trubble was a minor hit at the time of release, garnering some critical acclaim (I remember it getting a Smash in an early issue of Crash magazine, which was a big deal) and doing okay sales-wise.
Looking at it now: it still has charm, and some appeal, and is still worth playing – if you like tearing your hair out trying to beat insignificant tasks… 🙂
Metroid: Zero Mission, Game Boy Advance
There are two Metroid games on the Game Boy Advance. One is an original game, called Metroid Fusion, and there’s also this one: Metroid: Zero Mission, which is a remake of the original Metroid.
It was first released in 2004 and features modernised graphics and gameplay, but the same core gameplay as the 1986 original.
Psytron, ZX Spectrum
Psytron is an early shoot ’em up released for the ZX Spectrum by Beyond Software, who published it in 1984.
It’s a futuristic “base defence” game in essence, with you playing through six different levels trying to fend off alien invaders on a 10-screen landscape – the “Betula 5 Installation”.
Starion, ZX Spectrum
Starion is a classic space combat game, written by David Webb and published by Melbourne House in 1985.
Tau Ceti, PC
The PC MS-DOS version of Tau Ceti was coded by Derek Baker at Comtec and published by CRL Group (Thunder Mountain in North America) in 1987.
It features gaudy, four-colour, CGA graphics, but is otherwise the Tau Ceti we know and love.
Tau Ceti, Atari ST
The 1986 Atari ST conversion of Tau Ceti – by Ron De Santi of Comtec – is much faster than the 8-bit versions and therefore more challenging. And what a brilliant challenge it is!
Tau Ceti, Commodore 64
John Twiddy‘s C64 conversion of Pete Cooke‘s classic space shooter is arguably even better than the Spectrum original.
Graphically it’s a little chunkier, but the extra colours make a difference.
