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.
Quarth is a brilliant mixture of Tetris and shoot ’em up and was first played in arcades in Japan in 1989. Outside of Japan it is known as “Block Hole“, which – let’s face it – is a stupid name, so I’m sticking with the original name, Quarth.
Ocean Software‘s 1983 release, Pogo, is arguably the best Q*Bert clone on the ZX Spectrum. And there were a lot of Q*Bert clones around at the time.
It was one of the very first Spectrum games I ever bought and it kept teenage me occupied for a few days, before I eventually grew tired of it.
Pi-Balled was published by Automata UK in 1984 and is basically a Q*Bert clone. And it’s not a bad one at that.
The Eternal Castle is a stunning platform/action indie game from Leonard Menchiari, Daniele Vicinanzo, and Giulio Perrone, and published by Playsaurus in 2019.
It is a tribute to games such as Another World, Flashback, Limbo, and INSIDE, and features a lone character, running from left to right, moving from puzzle to puzzle, trying to survive in a weird, dark world full of technology, destruction, mystery and death.
I, of the Mask is a strange 3D action game written by Ant Attack author, Sandy White. It was published in 1985 by Electric Dreams Software, and it still confuses games-players to this day…
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.
This obscure 1984 release from Ocean Software is basically a clone of Sega‘s classic arcade game, Pengo, but with an extra level tacked-on at the beginning. Similar in many ways to Ocean‘s Mr. Wimpy, which was BurgerTime with an extra level tacked on at the start. As if it would confuse the copyright police… “These are not the clones you are looking for… It is a completely different game… Look… [waves hand like Obi Wan]”
This 2003 release from Nintendo is the first game in the WarioWare series. The WarioWare series is all about playing short minigames, that the player must complete in sequence, with the speed of the challenges increasing as the game progresses.
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! is known as “Minigame Mania” in PAL regions, but I’m sticking to the original title here.
Continue reading WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!, Game Boy Advance
Published by Square Enix in 2007, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is a Sony PSP exclusive that pays tribute to the classic Final Fantasy VII, but with a different style of combat. It was released for the 10th anniversary of FF7.
