Coleco‘s 1984 conversion of Bally Midway‘s classic Spy Hunter is a bit of a pale imitation of the arcade parent.
Graphically, it’s a little bland, but the scrolling is fast (I won’t say ‘smooth’, but it’s not jerky) and the sprites and backgrounds are colourful.
Bally Midway‘s classic Spy Hunter is a thrilling overhead racing game that set arcades alight back in 1983.
Another excellent Data East arcade conversion, Bump ‘n’ Jump was released for the Intellivision in 1983 to some success.
A 1990 release into arcades by Tecmo of Japan, Raiden is an action-packed shoot ’em up with a vertical screen and impressive 2D graphics.
Sidewinder – by Arcadia – is a well-respected, and quite exciting, vertically-scrolling shooter on the Amiga, first released in 1988 by Mastertronic.
What makes it exciting are the excellent graphics – in particular the explosions, which are beautifully animated – and the rapid fire Bullet Hell action, which is extremely challenging.
This 1992 sequel to the arcade classic Terra Cresta is a PC Engine exclusive – it did not appear in arcades first.
It’s more of a remake than a sequel, but is incredibly varied and a more than worthy successor to Terra Cresta. As far as mainstream ‘Bullet Hell’ shooters go there are few better.
Terra Cresta is the sequel to the classic Moon Cresta and is a beautifully-made, vertically-scrolling shooter with progressive weapons build-up, and challenging ‘Bullet Hell’ action.
It was developed by Nichibutsu and released into arcades in 1985.
A classic, original game on the Commodore VIC-20, Chariot Race is an exhilarating and fun recreation of Roman chariot races, viewed from an overhead perspective.
Electrician is a simple wire-connecting game originally made by Synapse Software for Atari 8-bit computers, and later converted to the Famicom Disk System by KEMCO in 1986.
The game is set in New York; the opening cut scene shows a beautiful and poignant pixel representation of the Twin Towers.
Released into arcades in 1985, TwinBee is a cute, vertically-scrolling shooter that is much more challenging than it looks.
