Mercs is a classic arcade shooter from 1990. It was jointly developed by Sega and Capcom and features simultaneous three-player cooperative gameplay.
Tag Archives: Vertical Screen
Journey, Arcade
This infamous 1983 arcade game from Bally Midway is a bizarre multi-stage action game where you play members of the prog rock band, Journey, trying to retrieve their instruments “from the dangers of the five galaxies”.
Colony 7, Arcade
Taito‘s American division developed this vertical screen base defence game in 1981. Colony 7 owes quite a bit to Missile Command, if the truth be known, and was also probably the very first video game to feature “rip-off” micro-transactions too…
Pac-Mania, Arcade
Pac-Mania is the 1987 sequel to the classic Pac-Man, and it is generally very highly-rated by those who’ve played it.
Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani was involved in Pac-Mania‘s development for Namco, so the game is properly canon, totally authentic, and deviously subtle.
Chinese Hero, Arcade
Chinese Hero is an overhead fighting game that was developed by Nihon Game (later to become Culture Brain) and manufactured by Taiyo System in 1984.
It is the first game in the so-called “Super Chinese” series and features simultaneous two-player action set on a single screen play area.
Pooyan, Arcade
A relatively obscure arcade game from Konami, released into arcades in 1982. Pooyan is a simple, but hectic (and fun) shooting game where you play a mother pig, moving up and down a cliff in a basket, trying to rescue, then protect, her piglets from invading wolves with a bow and arrow. It’s a bizarre idea that works very well as a video game.
Jr. Pac-Man, Arcade
Manufactured by Bally Midway in 1983, Jr. Pac-Man is another sequel to the smash hit, dot-eating maze game, Pac-Man, created by Namco in 1980.
Super Pac-Man, Arcade
Unlike Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man was developed by Namco themselves in 1982, so could be considered the first ‘official’ sequel to Pac-Man.
The fact is: it is arguably inferior to both the aforementioned Midway Pac-Man games, which is a little embarrassing. That said: it is still a decent game in its own right; maybe not quite as ‘pure’ or ‘hardcore’ as Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, but good nonetheless.
Pac-Man Plus, Arcade
Another American Bally Midway variation of Namco‘s Pac-Man, shipped out into arcades in 1982 to take advantage of the PM craze sweeping the globe.
Ms. Pac-Man, Arcade
The 1982 sequel to the smash hit Pac-Man originally started out as a third party modification kit for Pac-Man machines, developed by General Computer Corporation, and called ‘Crazy Otto‘.
After legal action from Atari, GCC was forced to present Crazy Otto to Midway, the North American distributor of Pac-Man, who bought the game and developed it into Ms. Pac-Man.
Further complicating the story, apparently Midway did this without Pac-Man‘s original owner Namco‘s consent, which caused some licensing issues later. The truth is by no means clear, but in the murky world of video game licensing it is sometimes the case that people sell and exploit rights to products they have no right to.
