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.
Warlords is a classic four-player take on the Pong and 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.
Early ’80s arcade games were seriously tough to get to grips with — not necessarily from a mechanical perspective, but in terms of applying your knowledge of those mechanics effectively.
Namco’s Rally-X is a great example of this. The concept, on paper, is simple: drive a car around a maze and collect flags while not crashing into rocks or other cars. The execution, meanwhile, is the sort of thing that will have you flinging your controller out of a window before long — but you’ll still keep coming back for more.
Toaplan shoot ’em ups are pretty beloved by collectors of classic arcade and console titles — but they got a few ports to home computers, too.
Flying Shark for Atari ST is one such example. And while in some ways it demonstrates the ST’s weaknesses when compared to more dedicated gaming hardware, it’s actually a pretty competent version of the original game and certainly one that I enjoyed playing quite a bit back in the day.
One of the fun things about the modern retro community is its willingness to take on common criticisms of past classics and work on those things to make them better.
Such is the case with Moon Patrol Redux, a project which takes the already pretty good version of Irem’s classic Moon Patrol for Atari 8-bit and enhances it with a better player sprite, a colour palette that’s truer to the arcade original and a few other tweaks here and there. The result is the best version of Moon Patrol you can play on the good ol’ Atari!
Several games from the early years of the Atari 2600 were based on earlier dedicated video game hardware released by Atari — and Video Pinball is a good example.
Offering a simple but surprisingly enjoyable take on pinball — albeit one that only slightly resembles the real thing — Video Pinball is a fun game with which to while away a few minutes, especially if you don’t feel like working your brain too hard.
There’s a lot of early arcade games out there that don’t get the love and attention they deserve — but Hamster’s Arcade Archives series has been going a long way to bring a lot of these forgotten classics back from the dead.
Traverse USA from Irem is a great example. I’d never heard of it before, but it’s actually a lot of fun. Combining top-down racing with some simplistic vanishing point dodge ’em up action, it’s a delight to play — and surprisingly addictive!
Ever wanted to play a puzzle game that featured the smiling face of John Major? I thought not, but we’re going to anyway.
Ego is an interesting puzzle game based on a game that claims to be related to the classic Repton series, but which isn’t really. You control an elephant-like thing as he attempts to reassemble digitised photos of minor celebrities and public figures from the mid-’90s. And it’s surprisingly fun!
There are some people out there who, if you tell them that it’s “impossible” to do something, will do their best to do it anyway — and often prove that original naysayer completely wrong.
Such was the case with Livewire, a type-in machine code listing for Atari 8-bit that came about when ANALOG magazine’s Tom Hudson overheard someone saying that it would be possible to do a good version of Tempest on the Atari 8-bit. Challenge, as they say, accepted — and overcome with aplomb.
After my woeful performance at Video Checkers, I must confess I was kind of dreading Video Chess a bit. But things ended up going rather better than I imagined.
Turns out the special “Beginner” level available in the game is perfectly attuned to a strategically challenged moron like me — and I think I might have actually learned a thing or two about how to play more effectively along the way, too.
Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64 is my favourite Mario Tennis game. Subsequent installments have, to me, overcomplicated things somewhat — so it’s been a pleasure to return to this one thanks to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack.
Providing straightforward but mechanically interesting arcadey thrills, Mario Tennis for Nintendo 64 is Virtua Tennis with an added layer of cartoony accessibility atop it. Even those who aren’t into sports — like me — can have a good time with this one, particularly if you bring some friends along to join the fun!
