John Van Ryzin‘s classic cave rescue game, H.E.R.O., was ported to Atari 8-bit computers by The Softworks and first published by Activision in 1984.
Tag Archives: spiders
Vradark’s Sphere, ZX Spectrum
Vradark’s Sphere is a Roguelike fantasy role-playing game that was created by Aleksander Udotov, for 128K Spectrums, and first released in 2018. To me it is the epitome of what I would call “Modern Retro” (ie. a modern game, made to look old or be played on old hardware), and it looks and plays fantastically well.
Forbidden Forest, Commodore 64
Created by Paul Norman for Cosmi Corporation, Forbidden Forest is a legendary survival horror game from 1983 in which you play an archer trying to avoid attacks from a variety of hostile creatures inside a sprawling forest.
Wiz, ZX Spectrum
Created by Silhouette Software and published for the ZX Spectrum by Melbourne House in 1987, Wiz is an obscure scrolling action game where you control a wizard who must climb levels to gain magical powers so that he can break the link that joins the dark world to the light world. Whatever that means…
Ghoul Panic, Arcade
First released into arcades in 1999, Ghoul Panic by Namco is a spooky Halloween-style lightgun shooter for one or two players that is heavily inspired by Namco‘s Point Blank series. The game was developed by Eighting/Raizing and features colourful, well-animated 3D graphics throughout.
Montezuma’s Revenge, ColecoVision
Originating on Atari 8-bit home computers in 1983, this ColecoVision port of the pioneering platform game, Montezuma’s Revenge, was developed and published by Parker Brothers in 1984.
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, FM Towns
Origin/Blue Sky Productions‘ classic MS-DOS RPG, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, was released for the FM Towns in 1993 by Electronic Arts Victor, Inc.*
*= Electronic Arts Victor was a joint venture between Electronic Arts and the Victor Musical Industries subsidiary of JVC, established in September 1992 in Tokyo. Electronic Arts Victor‘s mission was to translate Electronic Arts‘ library of games to Japanese language and to distribute them in Japan, as well as to create original titles for the Japanese market.
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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Sega Saturn
Konami‘s brilliant PlayStation game, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, was released for the Sega Saturn in 1998, but it was only ever released in Japan (under the title “Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku“). Thankfully, an English translation patch is available to make the game playable to those who can’t read Japanese. The patch – created by ‘Knight of Dragon’ – also features numerous bug fixes and improvements.
For those who’ve never played Symphony of the Night before: it is a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood and is rightly regarded as one of the best Castlevania games in the long-running series (if not THE best).
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Shadow of the Beast, Atari Lynx
The Atari Lynx port of Shadow of the Beast was developed by Digital Developments and first published by Psygnosis in 1992. And it is surprisingly good.
Shadow of the Beast, PC Engine
The PC Engine CD version of Shadow of the Beast is – in my opinion – the best version of the game available. For two reasons: it has the most responsive controls of any version of Shadow of the Beast I’ve played (even compared to the Amiga original), and it’s also the best-looking and best-sounding version of the game too. It was developed by DMA Design and first published in 1992. In Japan it was released by Victor Interactive Software as “Mashou no Okite“, and in North America it was released for the TurboGrafx CD by Psygnosis/Turbo Technologies.
The King of Grabs 