Today’s game hails from the latter days of the 2600, and was actually an Atari 7800 launch title.
For one reason or another, Atari 7800 games rarely make it onto these compilations of old Atari stuff — though the Evercade, coming later this year, corrects this oversight somewhat — so we tend to be stuck with the technically inferior Atari 2600 versions.
That said, even the 2600 version of Desert Falcon is an unusual, interesting shoot ’em up with some peculiar mechanics — so it’s well worth checking out.
And so we come to Final Fantasy II’s endgame. Before we jump in to the final dungeons to take down the Emperor once and for all, it’s time to go ultimate weapon hunting!
In Final Fantasy II for PSP, this process involves running the Arcane Labyrinth’s three “keeps”, then heading to the Arcane Sanctuary and hoping you did everything correctly.
Today we get started on the first step of that process. Much like the bonus dungeons in Final Fantasy for PSP, this isn’t going to be an entirely straightforward ride!
In the navy, you can sail the seven seas! You can also blow seven shades of snot out of your friends, siblings and/or parents using nothing more than a pen and paper.
Or perhaps an Atari ST and a copy of Battleships by Elite, an adaptation of the classic tabletop game that aims to up the pace of things a bit by allowing you to fire “salvos” of shots all over the shop in the (usually vain) hope of actually hitting something.
It may look primitive today, but this was an enjoyable fun time in multiplayer back in the day!
Activision were a prolific developer back in the days of the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit computers, with many of their most well-regarded games making the jump from one platform to the other.
One particularly beloved example is H.E.R.O., a game that some see as a spiritual precursor to open-structure 2D platform games such as Metroid.
Whether or not you believe that, the adventures of Roderick “R.” Hero remain a jolly good time even today, so let’s go have some fun!
Today’s Atari Flashback Classic is a one- or two-player blastathon with a couple of twists: firstly, it’s paddle-controlled, and secondly, it involves firing an extendable “beam” rather than the more common shots.
Yes, it’s Demons to Diamonds, a simple but enjoyable shoot ’em up designed for younger players — but there’s still some fun to be had for a few minutes here if you give it a chance.
It may not be the most fondly regarded of all the Atari Flashback Classics, but it’s worth a blast or two — particularly if you bring a friend along for the ride!
With the Emperor defeated, what’s next? Take down the Dark Knight, of course, since he clearly reckons himself well-equipped to lead the world.
Naturally, it’s not quite that simple. A merry jaunt into the depths of Palamecia to track down said Dark Knight results in an unexpected reunion with an old friend… and the setup for the grand finale of Final Fantasy II.
That is, after we take care of some business in the Arcane Labyrinth next time around, of course…
Regular viewers and enthusiasts of ’80s microcomputers will doubtless be well familiar with Jeff Minter of Llamasoft by now.
Minter didn’t put out a ton of stuff for the 16-bit platforms, but when he did — gosh, he made that hardware well and truly sing.
A great example is Andes Attack for Atari ST which, as well as being incredibly difficult, is also a beautiful reimagining of one of Minter’s old Vic-20 games. Let’s enjoy the sight of me failing miserably at it!
Today, we manage to bang out quite a few missions, including recruiting everyone’s favourite mechanical marvel from Toukiden.
Horo also believes she has the answer to the widespread amnesia problem certain members of the party have been dealing with: surely a good old-fashioned bump to the head will quite literally knock some sense back into them.
And when that’s all over and done with, we have an important choice to make. Did I choose wisely? We’ll just have to find out next time!
Today we have a game that absolutely, definitely is not Super Sprint, so there.
Yes, it’s CodeMasters’ Grand Prix Simulator, a game that was unironically designed to be “BMX Simulator with cars” and a game that just happens to bear a passing resemblance to Atari Games’ classic top-down racer.
Featuring digitised speech, bricks on wheels and some of the slipperiest handling this side of Vanilla Lake in Super Mario Kart, this game is a good time — albeit one you’ll need a bit of practice to master!
It’s always interesting to look at a very old game and see the earliest glimmer of a subgenre that became well-established much later.
Mattel’s Dark Cavern, actually an Atari 2600 port of their Intellivision title Night Stalker, is a good example. On paper, it’s a simple maze game, but in practice, you can see just a hint of what would become stealth and survival horror gameplay in there.
We’ve got a fragile protagonist; we’ve got an emphasis on outwitting enemies; we’ve got limited resources. How long can Your Man survive in the Dark Cavern?
The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.
