Tony Crowther‘s 1988 tribute to Commando and Ikari Warriors, Fernandez Must Die is a scrolling shooter with military overtones.
Tag Archives: vertical scrolling
Bump ‘n’ Jump, Arcade
Data East‘s 1982 arcade release, Bump ‘n’ Jump (aka Burnin’ Rubber in its native Japan), is a jolly, vertically-scrolling driving game with a car that can jump up into the air for a few seconds to avoid gaps in the road.
Xenon 2: Megablast, Amiga
This 1989 shooter was designed by The Bitmap Brothers but programmed by The Assembly Line – a collaboration that resulted in one of the best-remembered Bitmap Brothers‘ games.
Super Mario Bros. 2, NES
The North American release of Super Mario Bros. 2 was controversial because it was not the same Super Mario Bros. 2 that was released in Japan – it was a re-skinned game; made into a Mario game, because the Nintendo bigwigs thought the original was too difficult for western gamers.
Salamander, Arcade
Konami‘s Salamander is a classic scrolling shooter first released into arcades in 1986. It is part of the Gradius/Nemesis series and features both side-scrolling and vertically-scrolling gameplay set over six different levels.
Galaga ’88, Arcade
Namco‘s classic arcade sequel was initially released in 1987 in Japan – 1988 everywhere else – and proved a big hit with shoot ’em up fans with its fast graphics and colourful, firework-like explosions.
Crazy Climber, Arcade
Crazy Climber is an early colour video game, released into arcades in 1980 by Nichibutsu. The basic premise is to climb up the face of a large building to reach the helicopter at the top.
Terra Cresta, ZX Spectrum
A conversion of the superb Nichibutsu arcade game, programmed by the late Jonathan Smith and published by Imagine Software in 1986.
10 Best Spy Hunter Conversions
LISTS: as decided by The King of Grabs, in order of greatness:
These are just an opinion, but please do feel free to comment with your opinions. Unless you’re a comment spammer. In which case: do feel free to f*ck off…
Bally Midway‘s classic Spy Hunter is a brilliant overhead race game with guns and bumping cars and speed boats and chasing helicopters, and general high-speed excitement. It is such a good game that it has been converted to pretty much every gaming system known to man.
Here’s our rundown of the top 10 Spy Hunter conversions…
1. Nintendo Entertainment System < Probably the most fun
2. Atari 800 << Better than most
3. Commodore 64 <<< Entertaining
4. ZX Spectrum <<<< A fun conversion
5. ColecoVision <<<<< Pretty good
6. Amstrad CPC <<<<<< Reasonable
7. Atari 2600 <<<<<<< Basic
8. BBC Micro <<<<<<<< Forgettable
9. Apple II <<<<<<<< Rubbish
10. PC MS-DOS <<<<<<<<< Utterly terrible
And, of course, not forgetting the utterly brilliant arcade original.
More: Spy Hunter on Wikipedia
Spy Hunter, Atari 2600
You’d expect the Atari 2600 version of Spy Hunter to be the runt of the litter, and… it’s actually not too bad.
The King of Grabs 