Tag Archives: spiders

Defenders of Oasis, Game Gear

Not to be confused with Beyond Oasis on the Sega Megadrive, Defenders of Oasis is a turn-based Role-Playing Game for the Game Gear that is based on the “One Thousand and One Nights” middle-eastern folk tales, also known as “Arabian Nights“. It was developed and published by Sega in 1992.

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Wonder Boy, Arcade

Developed by Escape (who would later become Westone), Wonder Boy is a straightforward run-and-jump-left-to-right-to-reach-the-goal platform game featuring a blonde-haired, semi-naked cave-boy who is trying to rescue his girlfriend, Tina, from the clutches of the “The Dark King”.

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Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands, Sega Saturn

Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands was coded by British developer Probe Entertainment and published by Acclaim in 1996. It was also released for the PlayStation, PC MS-DOS and Windows, but I’m just covering the Sega Saturn version here because they’re mostly identical.

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Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti, Famicom

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti is a spin-off from the infamous Splatterhouse series and was a Japan only release, published by Namco for the Nintendo Famicom in 1989.

Rather than take the gruesome approach of the original game, in Wanpaku Graffiti the characters are “super deformed” (and made cute) and the game takes a comical approach to the presentation and gameplay, which was obviously deemed to be more fitting to a Famicom audience.

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Wonderful Dizzy, ZX Spectrum

Wonderful Dizzy is the eighth ‘core’ Dizzy adventure and was released in 2020 for the 128K ZX Spectrum only. It was designed by The Oliver Twins and published by Team Yolkfolk.

The game’s development was tied to the Kickstarter campaign for the ZX Spectrum Next and was first announced in 2017. The Olivers said that they would only go ahead with development of the game if the Kickstarter campaign for the ZX Spectrum Next reached its target, which it eventually did.

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Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, ZX Spectrum

The seventh Dizzy adventure, Crystal Kingdom Dizzy was the final release in the core series – until Wonderful Dizzy in 2020. This one was developed by Visual Impact, with some input from Philip Oliver, and was published by Codemasters in 1992.

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Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, ZX Spectrum

The first Dizzy game, and featuring a walking, talking egg that would become synonymous with “cartoon adventures” on the ZX Spectrum, and also budget releases from British software house Codemasters.

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Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, PlayStation

The PlayStation version of the classic Blue Sky Productions (later Looking Glass Studios) first-person RPG is unfortunately only available in Japanese, so is not easy to play for English-speaking gamers. No one has yet translated the game into English even though fans have been crossing their fingers since the game was first released way back in 1997 (24 years ago).

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Nosferatu the Vampyre, Amstrad CPC

This Amstrad CPC conversion of the classic ZX Spectrum game definitely benefits from having better use of colour than the original. It also runs a little faster than the Speccy version, which makes it slightly more playable.

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Rapscallion, ZX Spectrum

Rapscallion is a bizarre and humorous action adventure written by Albert Ball and published by Bug-Byte for the ZX Spectrum in 1984.

You play an un-named king who has had his crown and castle seized by his arch enemy, Rapscallion the Rogue. Rapscallion has thrown you into the dungeon to rot, but you are saved by your friend, The Fairy Princess, who transforms you into a bird and grants you six lives. This allows you to begin your quest for revenge…

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