Graftgold‘s Amiga conversion of the legendary Rainbow Islands is pretty much flawless… Well, if you discount the three secret hidden worlds the developers had to ditch when they discovered them… And the lower resolution, compared to the arcade original.
Tag Archives: vertical scrolling
Slam Tilt, Amiga
Slam Tilt is a pinball simulator published by 21st Century Entertainment in 1996. It was developed by Liquid Dezign HB for AGA-equipped Amigas (AGA being an enhanced graphical chipset) and features super-slick scrolling and amazingly fast gameplay.
Rainbow Islands, Atari ST
Thanks to British developer Graftgold the Atari ST has an almost perfect conversion of Taito‘s arcade classic, Rainbow Islands. To all intents and purposes the ST version of Rainbow Islands is identical to the arcade original. Well, kind of…
Xevious, Arcade
Namco‘s groundbreaking Xevious gave you a ship (the Solvalou) that could fire both a laser at flying targets and drop bombs on ground targets. Two fire buttons… Innovative in arcades in 1982.
Bedlam, ZX Spectrum
Another classic ZX Spectrum game from Beam Software, Bedlam is a straightforward vertical-scroller, but done in an incredibly finessed manner.
Twinkle Star Sprites, Neo Geo
SNK‘s Twinkle Star Sprites was released for the Neo Geo in 1996 and is an interesting mix of vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up and head-to-head puzzle game. Yes, I know that sounds weird, and this game IS weird, but weird in all the right ways…
ESP Ra.De., Arcade
Japanese developer Cave made a name for itself in the mid 1990s with a series of manic vertically scrolling shooters, including ESP Ra.De. from 1998.
Paradroid ’90, Amiga
Mmmm. Paradroid ’90 is one of those “classic” games that should have been great, but unfortunately was a big, fat missed opportunity.
Its parent – the Commodore 64 classic Paradroid, by Andrew Braybrook – is a perfect example of simple-but-amazingly-compelling gameplay.
This remake pretty much loses everything that made the original great, in spite of original author Braybrook‘s involvement.
Commando, Arcade
Commando is a classic vertically-scrolling run-and-gun game, first released by Capcom into arcades in 1985.
Pastfinder, Commodore 64
David Lubar‘s relatively obscure 1984 classic, Pastfinder, is a weird vertically-scrolling shooter in which you control a spider-like craft that can crawl, shoot and jump, and you must explore a radioactive landscape picking up artefacts from a mysterious planet.
The King of Grabs 