Tag Archives: weird

Mikie, Arcade

Konami‘s classic 1984 arcade game, Mikie, is a strange one. You play a schoolkid who must collect hearts across a series of five different stages and to ultimately deliver them to his girlfriend, Mandy, who is waiting for him outside school.

Continue reading Mikie, Arcade

The Sentinel, Amstrad CPC

Geoff Crammond‘s classic The Sentinel was first released for the Amstrad CPC by Firebird in 1987, and it is one of the best 8-bit versions of this weird and wonderful game.

Continue reading The Sentinel, Amstrad CPC

The Irritating Maze, Neo Geo

Developed by Saurus and first distributed into arcades on the Neo Geo MVS system by SNK in 1997, The Irritating Maze might seem like an innocently humorous title for a video game, but it is in fact one of the mostly aptly-named video games of all-time…

Continue reading The Irritating Maze, Neo Geo

Pu-Li-Ru-La, Arcade

I don’t really know if Taito‘s 1991 arcade game, Pu-Li-Ru-La, is obscure, or if it’s a ‘cult game’, or if it’s based on an existing anime or not, because I’d never even heard of it until recently. It’s a cartoony, one or simultaneous two-player beat ’em up featuring a boy and a girl who are given magical sticks to fight enemies in order to restore the flow of time in a place called “Radishland“…

Continue reading Pu-Li-Ru-La, Arcade

The Eidolon, Atari 8-Bit

Using an enhanced version of the fractal engine created for Rescue On Fractalus, The Eidolon is a first-person action game – developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by Epyx in North America in 1985 and Activision in Europe in 1986 – that divided critics when it was first released. While Zzap!64 magazine gave it 97% and a gold medal; raved about the game, and said that it was “not to be missed“, the reviewers of Computer Gaming World disliked it, describing it as “one of the worst games of 1986“… There’s no accounting for taste…

Continue reading The Eidolon, Atari 8-Bit

Marble Madness II, Arcade

***CANNED GAME***

Marble Madness II is the unreleased sequel to the classic Marble Madness. It was developed in 1991 by Atari Games and underwent market testing in a variety of locations, but these were deemed a failure so the game was cancelled and never released.

Continue reading Marble Madness II, Arcade

Marble Madness, FM Towns

The FM Towns version of Marble Madness is pretty damn special. Not only does it have a unique symphonic rendition of the game’s famous soundtrack, but it also has a Time Trial mode, and you can also choose the colour of your marble! It was only ever released in Japan, and – like the excellent X68000 version – it was ported by Tengen and published by Home Data Corporation in 1991.

Continue reading Marble Madness, FM Towns

Marble Madness, Game Boy Advance

The Game Boy Advance conversion of Marble Madness was released as part of a double pack with another classic Atari Games arcade game, Klax, in 2005 by DSI Games. It was developed by Italian Frame Studios Interactive, and the truth be told: they did a utterly dismal job of porting the game to Nintendo‘s capable handheld.

Continue reading Marble Madness, Game Boy Advance

Marble Madness, Game Boy Color

The Game Boy Color version of Marble Madness was developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Midway in 1999. It’s an okay port, but it does have a few flaws…

Continue reading Marble Madness, Game Boy Color