The Double Dynamites is an excellent cooperative two-player shooter. It was developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and first released into arcades in 1989. Fabtek released the game in North America.
The Double Dynamites is a bit like a third-person Operation Wolf, with continual scrolling, lots of shooting, lots of carnage, and lots of explosions. Each player is represented as a see-through torso, with guns blazing, visible only from behind and from the waist up.
A.B. Cop is an arcade game developed by Aicom and released by Sega in 1990. The “A.B.” stands for Air Bike. So it’s “Air Bike Cop“. A.B. Cop uses the “Sega X Board“, which originated with 1987’s After Burner.
The Electric Yo-Yo is an obscure arcade game released by Taito in 1982. And, by the looks of it, it uses the same hardware as Qix, because there are similarities to that game.
The sequel to the smash-hit Vectorman was once again developed by the talented team at BlueSky Software, and again published by Sega – this time in 1996.
Vectorman 2 expands upon the first game with more levels and more features. Graphically, it’s moodier too, with bold and very subtle use of light and dark at certain times, and even more impressive lighting effects on Vectorman himself.
Together, Vectorman 1 and 2 make a great duo. A smash hit, followed by a hit sequel. Both are still well worth playing today.
Developed by BlueSky Software of California and published exclusively for the Megadrive/Genesis by Sega in 1995, Vectorman is an extremely well-regarded platform/action game with outstanding presentation and a humorous backstory.
The year is 2049 and the Earth has been overwhelmed with pollution. It’s so bad that humans have left, to live in space, sending automated robots down to Earth to try to reverse the out-of-control climate change. After interfacing with a nuclear warhead one of the robots becomes self-aware and declares itself to be “WarHead – The Destroyer of Humanity“. WarHead reprograms all the other robots and turns them against the humans, taking over Earth. You, as Vectorman, are a weird-looking robot that is returning from a dumping mission to the sun, and has inadvertently stumbled upon this bad situation. Since Vectorman is immune to WarHead‘s mind control, he sets out to save the Earth by destroying him.
Published by Ocean Software in 1986, the MSX version of Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond‘s classic isometric platform game is just as good as the original Spectrum version, if not better.
Developed by Realtime Associates and published by Sega in 1993, Quest for the Shaven Yak is a Game Gear platform game based on The Ren & Stimpy Show.
Continue reading Quest for the Shaven Yak Starring Ren Hoëk and Stimpy, Game Gear
The Amstrad version of Steve Turner‘s Ranarama is every bit as good as the Spectrum original, although it is probably fair to say that it isn’t quite as colourful. It still looks good, though. And – even more importantly – it plays just as good, if not better, than the original.
Zaxxon’s Motherbase 2000 was an attempt by Sega to update one of its most famous IPs onto the Sega 32X (a hardware add-on for the Megadrive/Genesis). In the process I think Sega forgot one of the main reasons why Zaxxon was rated so highly…
I would have to say that David Lubar‘s Pastfinder is one of my favourite games of all-time. Not only does it have an interesting player craft, but there’s also a compelling game buried within this seemingly impenetrable shooter.
