10 Games
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'10 Games', not 'top 10 games'. This list contains games which I think
have qualities that make them unique and interesting. There are many others,
but these are the ones I thought of first. Games like The Settlers, Railroad
Tycoon, Starglider 1 and 2, Populous, Diablo and Elite should perhaps be in
there too. Notable games companies are:
Cinemaware for It came from the Desert,
Rocket Ranger, Lords of the Rising Sun, Wings
Bitmap Brothers for
The Chaos Engine, Xenon1 and 2, Speedball1 and 2, Gods
Argonaut for Starglider 1 and 2
You may also want to see these sites:
Amiga games
database for reviews of old Amiga games
Your Sinclair Rock n Roll years for reviews
of old Spectrum games
And now, my list of 10 games, in alphabetical order:
Atic Atac
Spectrum, by
Ultimate Play the Game (now Rare)
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Atic Atac is a fast paced action/exploration game, you can read
more about it at the site listed above. As you can see from this screen,
it is viewed from above, though the sprites are drawn from the side.
Despite its irritating controls (the QWERT keys) it is very playable
which is why it is in this list. There are lots of nice touches, like
different character types that can use different secret shortcuts, and
pits which let you fall down to a lower level (you have to do this in
one instance to get a key).
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Buggy Boy
Amiga/ST, by Elite
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This arcade style race against the clock has nice cutesy graphics,
good plinky sound effects and music (Amiga) and, of course, is great to play.
There is no two player, but there are lots of interesting bits during play,
such as logs that bounce the buggy into the air, bonus gates and flags, and
45 degree banked bends. Lots of people got this game in the '10 star' games
bundle with their machine. The only gripe is that you can't really make
any mistakes if you want to complete a track (there are five) within the
tight time limit.
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Head over Heels
Spectrum, by Ocean
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I have chosen Head over Heels to represent the best of the Isometric
games, as it had lots of good features, as the character 'Head' you move
slowly, but can jump high and guide your decsent with your wings. As 'Heels'
you run fast and can pick things up. You can join Head to Heels and get
the benefits of both. Head also has a jam doughnut launcher. To learn
more, why not try this
Head over Heels review.
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Heroes of Might and Magic 3
PC, by 3DO and
New World Computing
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Not to be confused with the Might and Magic games, The third of the
Heroes series just improves on its predecessors by having higher resolution
graphics (800*600*16), more units, more... everything. Also, the levels are
smaller which removes a lot of the tedium, though it can still sometimes
be a chore to play. The object is to recruit heroes and armies to achieve
the level objective, this is not done in 'real time', each player (which
can also be a computer controlled player) can do a certain amount each
turn, then the next player has their turn. This is good as you can ponder
your move in your own time.
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Lords of Chaos
Amiga/ST/C64/Amstrad/Spectrum, by Blade (now
Mythos Games)
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Although it has a complicated interface, LOC is near perfect.
It is turn based, and you control a wizard (which you can design) who
can summon creatures and cast spells to help defeat the opponent on
each of the 3 scenarios. Nice features are line of sight, fog of war,
invisibility and the ability for some creatures (eg a dwarf) to ride
others (like a unicorn). As with other games of this type, the action
is slow paced. This game is similar to Laser Squad.
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Salamander
Arcade, by Konami
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This is a 'scrolling space shootemup', a genre that includes
Gradius (the prequel to Salamander), R-Type (which was made a year later),
and countless others. None of them are as good as Salamander though. The
gameplay is perfect, music and sound effects/speech are superb, words
cannot describe this game. There is a good review of this game
here.
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Star Wars
Arcade, by Atari
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This is a vector graphic 3D game, which meant the monitor beam
drew lines from point to point rather than top to bottom, clever. There
are 3 stages which repeat over and over getting more difficult. The first
is in space where you must battle tie-fighter craft, you then fly to the
surface of the deathstar shooting towertops (why?), then the trench run,
avoiding the catwalks to hit the exhaust port. The Star Wars music and
speech from the film add atmosphere, but I don't really know why its so
playable.
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Turrican
Amiga, by Rainbow Arts/Factor 5
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At first glance, this is a rather standard platformer, however it
contains a lot of surprises, excellent music and effects, and good gameplay.
One of the best bits is World 3 where the game turns into an upwards
scrolling shooter. Bad bits are the 'platform ladders' and finding your
way round Worlds 4 and 5. Turrican 2 is like a rehash of Turrican rather
than a sequel, Turrican 3 is horrible. Factor 5 also did the Amiga conversion
of R-Type.
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Virus/Zarch
Archimedes(Zarch) Amiga/ST(Virus), by David Braben
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From the guy who co-wrote Elite, this is possibly a genre defining
game and two separate companies licensed the code to make separate games
(Conqueror and Zeewolf1 and 2). What makes this game great is the mouse
control system, which is beyond simple explanation, suffice it to say
your first 10 goes will be over very quickly as you crash into the ground.
After a lot more practice it becomes intuitive and lets you have absolutely
fantastic control of the craft. Of course, this was wrecked when the sequel,
V2000 was made. Shame.
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Wicked
Amiga/ST, by Electric Dreams/Binary Vision
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You are 'good' and must defend the good portals (red) whilst
destroying the evil portals (blue). Each portal emits growth which
can engulf an enemy portal, you can destroy evil growth by shooting it,
but it can grow back. An evil guardian tries to stop you, and it can
only be hit by day. To help you, various powers fly out of a door in
the middle of the screen some good, but some are bad. This game is
legally downloadable from Back
to the Roots but that version is slightly bugged (only one life).
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