Tag Archives: strategy

Sim Ant, PC

Initially released for PC MS-DOS in 1991, Sim Ant (aka SimAnt) is a video game that simulates the life of an ant colony. It’s a game that has fascinated me since I first played it, in the same way that watching a real ant nest – or documentaries about ants – fascinates me.

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Alien, ZX Spectrum

Developed by Concept Software and published by Argus Press in 1984, this adaptation of the classic 1979 film, Alien, is arguably the first serious video game based on the Alien series (I certainly wouldn’t describe the Atari 2600 version of Alien as ‘serious’).

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Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, Game Boy Advance

Developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in 2003, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising is the sequel to Advance Wars and is a turn-based tactical strategy war game with cartoony graphics and a variety of single and multiplayer game modes.

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Syndicate, PC

Syndicate is a classic isometric action game with point-and-click gameplay. It was developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts in 1993.

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Star Fox 2, Super Nintendo

The sequel to the classic Super Nintendo 3D shooter, Star Fox, Star Fox 2 is infamous because it was actually cancelled before it was completed, way back in 1995, but was finally finished and released in 2017 on the SNES Classic Edition retro console.

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Gemfire, Super Nintendo

Gemfire is a turn-based medieval strategy game developed and published by Koei. It was first released for the NES/Famicom in 1991 and given an updated Super Nintendo release in 1992.

The NES and Super Nintendo versions are essentially the same game, but the SNES version has updated graphics and sound.

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Gemfire, NES/Famicom

Gemfire is a fantasy, turn-based, conquest/strategy war game developed and published by Koei for the NES/Famicom and first released in 1991. It is known as Royal Blood in its native Japan and was called Gemfire for its North American English language release.

The game is similar to the classic Defender of the Crown, in that the aim is to dominate a map of territories that are occupied by opponent’s castles and armies.

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SimCity, Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad version of SimCity is arguably better than the Commodore 64 original. It was converted to the Amstrad by Probe Software and published by Infogrames in 1989.

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Military Madness, PC Engine

Military Madness is the Western title for the Japanese tactical war game, Nectaris, and it was first released for the PC Engine in 1989 by Hudson Soft. A North American TurboGrafx-16 release followed in 1990.

Nectaris, or Military Madness, or whatever you want to call it, is an early turn-based strategy game that involves moving units around a map and engaging in combat. When units clash it then cuts away to a confrontation scene to show how the opposing forces fared against each other. These action cut scenes would later greatly influence similar games such as those in the popular Advance Wars series.

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Football Manager, ZX Spectrum

It might look like an outdated pile of crap by today’s standards but Addictive Software‘s 1982 game, Football Manager, was a massive hit on the ZX Spectrum at the time.

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