Tag Archives: tactical

Mass Effect, PC

Developed by Canadian company BioWare and released in 2007, Mass Effect is the first part in a trilogy of futuristic RPGs featuring an elite human solder called Commander Shepard.

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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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Rogue Trooper Redux, PC

Rebellion‘s Rogue Trooper was originally released in 2006 for Windows, PlayStation 2 and XBox, and it was remastered in HD by Tick Tock Games and re-released in 2017. It is the remastered “Redux” version that we’re looking at here.

For those who don’t know: Rogue Trooper is based on the character made famous in the British comic, 2000AD. Famous enough for him to have appeared in a ZX Spectrum game in 1986, and an Amiga/Atari ST game in 1991. And also slated to appear in a forthcoming film by Duncan Jones, who directed Moon (2009), and Warcraft: The Beginning (2016), among others. So Rogue Trooper does have some pedigree.

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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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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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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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Royal Stone, Game Gear

Royal Stone is a tactical, turn-based fantasy RPG with combat and magic that was released for the Game Gear – in Japan only – by Sega in 1995. Thankfully, an English fan translation does exist, so that we – non-Japanese-speakers – can now understand the storyline and enjoy the game in full.

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Populous, Archimedes

The Archimedes has a flawless version of PopulousBullfrog‘s seminal God sim – that was programmed by Richard Walker and published by Krisalis Software in 1992.

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