Tempest, by Dave Theurer, is one of the first ever ‘tube shooters’. It was released by Atari in 1981.
You control a spider-like yellow craft that walks along the edge of a 3D playfield, often taking the form of a cylindrical tube. You shoot bullets down the tube at enemies that are rising upwards to get you. Thus the name ‘tube shooter’.
Steve’s Bak‘s 1987 sequel to the hilarious Hercules, God and Heroes is just as difficult and frustrating as its predecessor. But just as much fun!
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was first released in 2011 by Polish developer CD Projekt Red.
It is the predecessor to the smash hit The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and also follows the exploits of Geralt of Rivia – a Witcher, or monster-hunter – on a series of open-world adventures.
A notch above “Monkey Tennis” in terms of great ideas, Ninja Golf was dreamt-up and released for the Atari 7800, way back in 1990.
Steve Bak‘s insane-but-fun platform game, Hercules, was first released on the Commodore 64 by Interdisc in 1984. By “insane” I mean: the game is deliberately deceptive to the point of driving the player to insanity! 🙂
The Firemen is an original overhead action game with you controlling a small team of intrepid fire fighters while out on duty.
Toilet Kids (PC Engine, 1992) isn’t a bad game in itself, although the idea behind it is unquestionably puerile.
Rings of Power is an isometric Role-Playing Game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Electronic Arts for the Sega Megadrive in 1991.
Unlike many RPGs of the time, Rings of Power is very open-ended.
Originally released in arcades in Japan in 1989, Quarth became a cult hit when it was released for the MSX2 in 1990.
Quarth is basically part vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up, and part Tetris.
I’ve played a number of different versions of Sim Ant and would have to say that the Super Nintendo version is probably my favourite.
The King of Grabs 