Sibling rivalry is a terrible thing, particularly when the siblings in question have access to a fire-breathing dragon and flame-reflecting shields. You better hope those builders you hired did a good job on the walls this time around, otherwise you’re in for a fiery evening.
WarlordsΒ is a classic four-player take on theΒ Pong andΒ Breakout formula that challenges players to bat a ball back and forth between four corners of a play area, knock one another’s walls down and eventually be the last one standing. It’s a beloved classic in both its arcade and 2600 incarnations — and supposedly the 2600 version was actually developed first, despite releasing later.
Star Raiders is one of my favourite games of all time, and with good reason — it is one of the greatest games of all time. At least it is in its Atari 8-bit incarnation, where it was quickly regarded as the platform’s “killer app”, despite its early release.
Star RaidersΒ for the Atari 2600, meanwhile… hmm. Well, they tried — though, judging by the masterpiece that isΒ Solaris, developed by the creator of the originalΒ Star RaidersΒ on home computers, they could have perhaps tried a bit harder. Stick to that original and best version, I’d say!
The dot-eating maze game formula is most readily associated with Namco’s Pac-Man — but the genre had actually been around for a while already by the time our hungry hero had made his first appearance!
Atari’sΒ Dodge ‘EmΒ released for Atari 2600 in 1980, providing a peculiar combination of racing, dodging and dot-eating — but this wasn’t the first one, either!Β Dodge ‘EmΒ was actually a clone of a 1979 Sega arcade title calledΒ Head On.
The reasons for the Sega game’s title will become apparent very, very quickly…
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The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today
MoeGamer 