Konami’s Ping Pong was the first video game to accurately reflect the gameplay of table tennis, rather than earlier simplifications like Pong. It was first released into arcades in 1985.
Tag Archives: Two-Player
Games that two people can play simultaneously.
Marble Madness, Game Boy
The original black and white Game Boy version of the classic Marble Madness was published by Mindscape in 1991. I’m not a hundred percent sure who developed it, but it could be Tengen as they are mentioned in the copyright small print on the back of the box and on the title screen.
The Simpsons, Arcade
Developed by Konami and first distributed into arcades in 1991, The Simpsons is a scrolling multiplayer beat ’em up based on the award-winning animated series of the same name. You can play as either Marge, Homer, Bart or Lisa and must rescue Maggie, who’s been kidnapped by Mr. Burns and Smithers after a diamond heist gone wrong. The game features the show’s original voice actors: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith, reprising their roles as the Simpsons family.
Marble Madness, Apple II
The Apple II port of Atari Games‘ classic Marble Madness was first published by Electronic Arts in 1986. It was converted by Will Harvey of Sandcastle Productions, who also made the Commodore 64 version, of which this is basically a copy. Lack of colour aside, this conversion does have some playability issues that make it frustrating to play.
Marble Madness, PC
The PC version of Marble Madness runs under MS-DOS and was developed by Will Harvey (and a small team of other people at Sandcastle), and was published by Electronic Arts in 1987.
Since they were all coded by the same person, the Commodore 64, Atari ST, Apple II, Apple IIgs and PC versions are all very similar. This one also contains the hidden secret level accessible from the first course, although don’t get too excited about it because it’s not very good.
Bay Route, Arcade
This terrible pun of a title (meant to ‘parody’ the word Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon) was developed by Sunsoft and distributed into arcades by Sega in 1989. It’s a one or simultaneous two-player Contra clone scrolling through a futuristic warzone.
Marble Madness, Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 version of Marble Madness was developed by Will Harvey and published by Electronic Arts in 1986. It has something unique that most other Marble Madness conversions don’t have, which is: a secret extra level that is accessible from the first stage. It also has the two player mode from the arcade original, where both marbles can race to the goal simultaneously.
Marble Madness, Megadrive
The Japanese Megadrive release of Marble Madness is completely different to the North American and European release of the game and was developed and published by Tengen in 1993. It is far superior to the Western Megadrive/Genesis release and is more authentic to the arcade original. In fact: it is very, very close to the arcade game, in terms of graphics, sound and gameplay. If you didn’t know that the Japanese version of the game was different, I’d recommend checking it out as it may shock you to find out how good it is…
Don Doko Don, Arcade
Don Doko Don is an arcade game developed and distributed by Taito in 1989. It was only ever released in Japan – as were ports of the game that appeared on the Famicom and PC Engine – although the small amount of text in the game appears to be in English so is easy to understand.
Marble Madness, NES
The NES conversion of Marble Madness was developed by Rare and published by Milton Bradley, in North America and Europe, in 1989. I don’t think the game was ever released in Japan, though. And it’s a very good port, with some small enhancements and decent controls and playability.
The King of Grabs 