Innholdsfortegnelse for Videogames Hardware Handbook Volume 1 2nd Revised Edition i Videogames Hardware Handbook

With retro gaming now more popular than ever, it’s never been easier to play your favourite classic game. Online services like Virtual Console and Good Old Games grant us access to a wealth of releases that you once had to scour car boot sales to find, while developers like Square Enix seem intent on remaking all their greatest hits on modern consoles. However, there really is nothing quite like playing an old game on the hardware it was intended for, which is where the book you see before you will come in handy. Charting the history of videogames hardware from 1977 to 1999, this handbook inspects many of the greatest games machines ever made, retelling their fascinating behind-the-scenes stories and detailing the best games you should look out for once…

After the Odyssey and due to the popularity of Pong in the arcade, Magnavox released a set of Pong-only consoles in 1975 at the same time that Atari’s home Pong debuted. Establishing the Odyssey as a brand name for all its consoles in the US (parent Philips used Videopac), it continued releasing a series of Pong related consoles until 1978’s followup to the original Odyssey, the Odyssey 2 (called the G7000 by Philips). The followup to the O2 never materialised in the US due to the industry crash, however it was released under Philips as the G7400 – its last console until the CD-i.…

The Channel F’s cartridges, or Videocarts as they’re called, are what the system is most known for. They look like eight-track tapes, and in fact the way the cartridges insert into the front of the console is very much like eight-track tape cartridges. This similarity is not a coincidence, and Fairchild leveraged people’s familiarity with the audio medium when designing the first cartridge format. In fact, the system’s manual even draws on this by stating the carts are inserted in “much the same way an eight-track audio cartridge is into a cartridge tape player.” Ron Smith did the mechanical design of the cartridge and cartridge bay on the system, designing a unique locking mechanism that not only secures the cartridge and flips open the protective cartridge contact cover, but grounds…

■ Although David Braben is perhaps the best-known gaming ‘celebrity’ for the BBC Micro, his sterling work on Elite with Ian Bell proving to be of real lasting value, Steve Furber and David Braben did not meet for a long time, and certainly not prior to the game’s launch. “I think we have been in the same room at some point, but my first knowledge of David Braben was when Elite came out on the BBC Micro, which was the most spectacular game we’ve ever seen.” Not that Steve rates the space trading game – which some claim to be the best slice of interactive entertainment ever made – as the one title he would prefer to play on the system. “My favourite game is actually Aviator because my profession…

QUEDEX Stavros Fasoulas had wowed the crowds with shoot-’em-ups Sanxion and Delta. But his third game would prove somewhat different. In their ‘Quest For Ultimate Dexterity’, the player had to guide a large grey sphere around puzzling environments. Each of the ten levels had different rules and reasoning required to complete them, from smashing down blocks to colouring in all the squares. An impressive Matt Gray title tune and sharp sound effects complemented the shiny graphics. HUNTER’S MOON Martin Walker’s C64 output contains some unsung classics, including Citadel and Chameleon. Hunter’s Moon mixed puzzle elements with a shoot-’em-up, the player having to work hard to find the four starcells needed to complete each level. Indeed, each level map ‘draws’ itself at the start of play. Unusual sound effects that many…

When was it that you first got to play on a Commodore 64? Did you own one yourself? I was invited to a videogame tournament at Personal Computer Games magazine in 1984. I hadn’t seen one before, although I owned an Atari 400 at the time, which had a lot of the same games. When I started working at Zzap!, I still didn’t own one, but Newsfield eventually gave me one I could use at home, since I was at the office late most nights reviewing games. What was it about the Commodore 64 that you think made it a good machine for games? It definitely packed some serious technology for its day, but for me it was all about the development community. The people who made games were all…

MASTERTRONIC Targeting many outlets, including garages, newsagents and corner shops, Mastertronic built a large business on the back of its budget output. The Ricochet label was home to many great re-releases, including the David Crane classic Ghostbusters with an added ‘Invade-a-load’ game to play while loading. One of the biggest sellers was Kikstart 2, Shaun Southern’s superb scramble simulator inspired by the BBC TV show Kick Start. A fantastic two-player game enhanced with an easy-to-use construction kit. CODEMASTERS The Darlings brought us cheap and cheerful packaging, often with personal quotes about how good the game was. BMX Simulator was their first hit, drawing on arcade game Super Sprint. The Dizzy series was a big seller, along with the value-for-money Quattro compilations, which put four games on a single tape. New…

Year released: 1983 (MSX) 1986 (MSX2) 1988 (MSX2+) 1990 (MSX Turbo R) Original price: Various. Example - ¥16,500 (Toshiba HX10) Buy it now for: £10-£80/$16-129 depending on model Associated magazines: What MSX?, MSX Computing, MSX User, MSX Fan, MSX Ouendan Why the MSX was great… Though it failed to make a splash in the UK, the MSX was an important machine elsewhere around the world. It was the first taste of home computing for many in Japan, Holland and Brazil, was Microsoft’s first real investment in videogames, nearly two decades before the Xbox, and the first computing ‘standard’. It is remembered now for its weird and wonderful hardware variations and its catalogue of Japanese games that spawned several evergreen franchises. One of the greatest things about the 8-bit micro age was…

One of the strengths of the Philips Videopac G7000 was the Master Strategy series, which was created in 1981. It brought together board and videogames and the first release, Quest Of The Rings, was particularly well-received. Designed by Stephen Lehner and Ronald Bradford, the games not only made great use of the keyboard but they came complete with plastic and metal playing pieces, instruction manuals and game boards. Quest Of The Rings was a two-player co-op game which pitted players in a dungeon packed with monsters. It was influenced, obviously, by the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Two more games in the series were released – Conquest Of The World and The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt – but another, Sherlock Holmes, was shelved. But how did they come about?…

MEGA MAN YEAR: 1987 ■ With franchise sales of almost 30 million copies, Mega Man is one of Capcom’s most enduring characters, whose life started on Nintendo’s 8-bit hardware. Devilishly hard, Mega Man is a game which demands skill, memory and unlimited reserves of patience. The character has since starred in over 50 different titles since the release of the Famicom original. BIONIC COMMANDO YEAR: 1988 ■ A platform game where the lead character cannot jump might sound like a disaster, but Bionic Commando’s unique swinging ability made it stand out from the crowd. The Japanese version of the game was rife with Nazi imagery and even featured a reanimated Adolf Hitler as the final boss – needless to say, these elements were altered for the Western release. DUCKTALES YEAR:…

As a developer, what was it like working on the NES hardware? Initially, it was a nightmare! We’d just come from working on the Amiga and Atari ST, and the NES felt like a relic. As well as the low resolution and tiny flickery sprites, it was bodgy hardware with things like panels on the screen only possible with very shonky cludges. Then, when we got into the swing of it we realised it was, despite its age, a much better videogame platform than the Amiga or ST. You see, even though it didn’t do very much, what it did do was allow you to scroll a screen around and move some sprites around at 60hz, which is what most games really needed. The more ‘advanced’ graphics of the 16-bit…

CASTLE OF ILLUSION With Mario leading the charge for Nintendo, it was obvious that Sega was going to need a pretty big platform star to pull in the kids; and who bigger than Mickey Mouse? The first in a series of surprisingly brilliant Disney-licensed games to appear on the Mega Drive, Castle Of Illusion was a sugary platformer with jaw-dropping cartoon graphics and slick animation. It proved an early warning shot to the commercial pull and technical prowess of Sega’s machine. QUACKSHOT Another Disney classic, this time starring Donald. With an Indy theme, Quackshot wasn’t your typical platformer. While its gameplay still involved lots of running and jumping, progression through the game’s stages rested on Donald finding the correct items and using them in the right instances. While it might…

STRIDER Strider is by far one of the most popular arcade conversions to ever appear on the Mega Drive, and at a colossal 8MB, it was also one of the largest earlier Sega carts, too. As a result, the acrobatic wall-affixing Strider Hiryu helped shift plenty of Mega Drive units for Sega on its release. Sadly, though, US Gold’s Mega Drive sequel, Strider Returns, failed to live up the brilliance of its predecessor – although it hasn’t affected Darran’s worrying love for the ninja. GHOULS ‘N GHOSTS For a time Ghouls ‘N Ghosts stood as the quintessential platform game for Sega’s machine – not surprising when you consider it was programmed by Yuji Naka; the programming talent behind Sonic The Hedgehog. While the game is terribly unforgiving, Naka did at…

SUPER FAMICOM ■ Sleek, playful and undeniably classy, the Super Famicom boasted a design which was far removed from the plain and boxy Famicom. The controllers were revolutionary and the four-colour logo has become a cult icon – Nintendo even resurrected the colours for its recent New Nintendo 3DS handheld. On the base of the console an expansion port exists which allows it to connect to the Japan-only Satellaview addon. The PAL version (shown here) looks identical, but sports SNES branding. SNES JR/SNES MINI ■ Launched in 1997 – a time when most players had moved onto more powerful hardware – the SNES Jr was marketed as a cheap, entry-level proposition for younger players. Smaller in size and cheaper to produce, this revised system lacks RGB output as standard but…

STRYKER’S RUN ■ Designed by Chris Roberts and Philip Mellor, this colourful 2D side-scroller was released for the BBC Micro and BBC Master. It was part of a prolific run by Superior Software on the Beeb machines and this was arguably one of its biggest hits as players took control of Commander John Stryker, blasting enemies on a mission to deliver vital intelligence. MAGIC MUSHROOMS ■ As a single-screen platformer with nine levels, Magic Mushrooms wasn’t quite as trippy as the name would suggest but still a fine, sanitised clone of Manic Miner. The difficulty level was quite high, though – it was hard not to mistime jumps, get frustrated by moving platforms or be forever climbing the same ladders on the way to collect lots of mushrooms. FELIX MEETS…

PARALLAX After working for other people, school friends Jon Hare and Chris Yates set up Sensible Software with a government enterprise grant. Ocean signed up Parallax, a hybrid of multidirectional scrolling shoot-’em-up and arcade adventure. Stranded on a planet run by a giant computer, the spaceship Ibis and its plucky pilot must find the codes to explore the five levels and eventually shut down the machine to escape. The sense of humour is evident, with the player drugging scientists to make them reveal a code letter, and it is technically very smooth, with polished graphics topped off with Martin Galway’s epic and psychedelic title tune. WIZBALL Zzap!64 voted it the game of the decade, and deservedly so. The story tells of Zark draining the colour from the land, and the…

When was it that you first used a Commodore 64? I started working at Beam Software in 1983 as their first 6502 programmer and my initial task was converting Hungry Horace to the C64. Was the C64 an important format for Beam Software? Initially, the Commodore 64 lagged behind the already established Sinclair Spectrum but because it was a global format, whereas the Spectrum was predominantly UK, it quickly became the lead format from a sales perspective. It shared lead development format with the Spectrum dependent upon whether the lead programmer was a 6502 or Z80 programmer! Was the C64 a big player in the Australian market? It was probably the biggest home computer of its era and almost certainly the biggest game machine up until the release of the…

When did you get a Commodore 64? First time I saw a C64 was about 1983 when a mate of mine from university wrote a perfect version of arcade classic Qix for the C64, cunningly called Stix, published by Supersoft. I was a die-hard Atari evangelist and we’d have vigorous discussions down the pub about which was better, which only ever ended if one of us fell over drunk. We’d also play arcade games, including Stargate and Defender. I bragged that the Atari 800 could do a Defender clone without breaking into a sweat, and he bet me a grand I couldn’t prove it let alone get it published successfully. I did, it became Dropzone, and he still owes me the money! The Atari version was published under licence to…

QUEST 1983 ■ This game is a good example of how programmers sought to get the most out of the Electron. Tony Oakden used the Electron’s detailed Mode 1 for this arcade-adventure but to get more than four colours on the screen, he used the dithering technique. It mixed two or more colours in a chequered pattern to give the clever illusion of extra colours. ELITE 1984 ■ David Braben did not like the video restrictions of the Electron hardware yet he and Ian Bell still managed to get Elite working on Acorn’s cut-down machine. Some elements were chopped (it only had five ships compared to the BBC Micro’s six on tape and 18 on disc) and it was also black and white, but it was still out of this…

1 Dragon Quest III 2 Super Mario Bros 3 Super Mario Bros 3 4 Final Fantasy III 5 Dragon Quest IV 6 Dragon Quest II 7 Dragon Quest 8 The Legend Of Zelda 9 Mother 10 Mario Bros 11 Final Fantasy 12 Kirby 13 Kunio In Feudal Japan 14 Kunio Sports 15 Spartan X 16 Super Mario Bros 2 17 Kunio Dodgeball 18 Final Fantasy II 19 Fire Emblem 20 Sanma No Meitantei 21 Xevious 22 Ice Climber 23 Spelunker 24 Castlevania 25 Gradius 26 Goonies 27 Captain Tsubasa 28 Konami Wai Wai World 29 Metroid 30 Takeshi No Chousenjou 31 Final Fantasy I + II 32 Portpia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken 33 Nekketsu Kouha Kunio Kun 34 Bomberman 35 Ganbare Goemon 36 Wizardry 37 Donkey Kong 38 Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin…

PHILIPS VIDEOPAC G7000 CPU: Intel 8048 8-bit microcontroller running at 1.79 MHz RAM: 64 bytes + 128 bytes ROM: 1 kb DISPLAY: 154x100, powered by Intel 8244 (NTSC) or 8245 (PAL) COLOURS: 12 FORMAT: Cartridge AUDIO: 1 channel ATARI VCS 2600 CPU: MOS Technology 6507 at 1.19 MHz RAM: 128 bytes ROM: 4 kb DISPLAY: 160x192, powered by TIA chip COLOURS: 128 FORMAT: Cartridge AUDIO: 2 channels INTELLIVISION CPU: General Instrument CP1610 at 1MH RAM: 1352 bytes ROM: 7168 bytes DISPLAY: 160x196 COLOURS: 16 FORMAT: Cartridge AUDIO: 3 channels…

Of course, as with many consoles, the story of the G700 continued following its official death. The homebrew scene for the console has exploded in recent years with one coder, René van den Enden, developing an intricate knowledge of the system. “The first-ever homebrew was John Dondzila’s Berzerk clone Amok in 1998,” says G7000/Odyssey 2 expert William Cassidy. “But René has been mentoring and advising just about all of the recent homebrew developers. The most prolific developers of recent years have been Marijn Wenting of Revival Studios, Chris Read, and Rafael Cardoso of Brazil. “Just about all homebrews support The Voice, and many of them even support high-resolution mode when played on a Videopac+ G7400 machine.” Check out the forums over at at videopac.nl to find out more.…

THE ZAPPER ■ Bundled with the NES at launch, this iconic light gun was made famous by titles Duck Hunt and Wild Gunman. Originally coloured grey, it was relaunched in grey and orange. The Famicom version of the gun was based on the design of a revolver. POWER GLOVE ■ Before the Wii came around and taught everyone how to waggle, Nintendo tried its hand at motion control with the Power Glove peripheral. Created by Grant Goddard and Samuel Cooper Davis for Abrams Gentile Entertainment and licensed to Nintendo, the controller was a commercial disaster. NES ADVANTAGE ■ This arcade-style controller is notable for getting screentime in the 1989 movie Ghostbusters II, where it was used by the spookcatching protagonists to manipulate the movements of the Statue of Liberty. Its…

BOMBERMAN YEAR: 1985 ■ Hudson’s explosive-loving mascot may have done his best work on the PC Engine, but his first console outing was on Nintendo’s 8-bit NES hardware in 1985. With its maze-like structure and addictive gameplay, the series would go on to become one of the medium’s most enduring classics. To date, the character has starred in over 70 different games on a wide range of platforms and systems. MILON’S SECRET CASTLE YEAR: 1986 ■ Regarded by some players as overly difficult, Milon’s Secret Castle is nevertheless a cult classic among many NES devotees. Despite the cute visuals and jolly protagonist, this platformer is brutal at times – there are no save points and losing your life results in a game over. It has since been re-released on Nintendo’s…

Many people feel that EA was instrumental in the Mega Drive’s Western success. There’s no question about it, considering that EA had about 50 per cent of the software business for the Mega Drive and expanded the market with EA Sports, Populous and Road Rash. What was your relationship with Sega like? To this day, there is a high degree of mutual respect and class in my relationships with David Rosen, the founder of Sega; Nakayama, who acquired and modernised Sega in the digital era; and Tom Kalinske, who was president of Sega of America during its heyday. That said, we did go toe-to-toe when we negotiated deals and it was no holds barred. In hindsight, I imagine for all of us that we consider each other among the more…

STREETS OF RAGE After Nintendo had secured the licence for Final Fight for the Super Nintendo, Sega set to work on its own brawler. And while Final Fight clearly had the graphical edge over its scruffy rival, in terms of gameplay, depth of moves and enjoyment, Streets Of Rage knocked Capcom’s game out cold. Sega quickly followed up its efforts with Streets Of Rage II, a game that ramped up the moves, the graphics, the bosses and the soundtrack of the original, and a third game that rounded off the trilogy brilliantly – although we advise you to get the Japanese version as it has a better story, skimpier outfits, better colour palettes and a difficulty level that wasn’t set by a masochist. SONIC THE HEDGEHOG In terms of gameplay…

Can you recall the first time you ever saw a Mega Drive running, and what was your first impression of the video game machine? Me and a mate went halves on an import Japanese Mega Drive in 1989. We had no idea what it was capable of other than seeing a couple of screenshots in a Mean Machines guide to consoles. We bought it with Altered Beast and Ghouls ’N Ghosts. We played them both to death! Ghouls ’N Ghosts became an obsession. The first game I ever played until 4am without realising what had happened! What is your all-time favourite Mega Drive game and why? Ghouls ’N Ghosts, because it was so tough but full of great special effects and lots of detail to reward playing through it over,…

GUNSTAR HEROES Few companies have debuted with a game as spectacular as Gunstar Heroes. Made up of disgruntled Konami employees, Treasure’s first game set an impossibly high standard of innovative gameplay and astonishing visuals that became a standard for the company for years to come. Mixing the hardcore blasting of the Contra series with a wicked dose of humour, Gunstar Heroes is a frantic, rollercoaster ride of a game that stills plays brilliantly today. Little wonder then that it had a compilation named after it in Japan. DYNAMITE HEADDY If McDonald’s Treasure Land Adventure showed us the business side of Treasure, then this utterly nutty platformer released a year later proved that its surreal sense of humour was still well and truly intact. With its gaudy visuals, huge bosses and…

Roughly how many SNES and Super Famicom games do you have in your collection? I have just under 400 now. Around a quarter of my games are stored away. I sold off quite a few games last year, mostly games I never play. They were taking over my games room and filling my wardrobe and I was running out space to store my clothes so I sold some off! What single item has cost you the most? Spider-Man: Lethal Foes. It was around £280. That was a recent purchase. All the other games I have which are worth thousands (according to ebay sellers) were never that price when I bought them. I have always tried to not overspend and I enjoy hunting down a bargain. What item do you treasure…

CASTLEVANIA: VAMPIRE’S KISS / DRACULA X £200 .US. / £90 .JPN. / £225 .PAL. / .VC. £5.49 ■ While it’s not a patch on the PC Engine CD title from which it is derived, Vampire’s Kiss is insanely collectable in its physical form, and demands a steep price for the most committed Castlevania fan. As such, this download is a much better choice for anyone interested in playing it. FINAL FIGHT 3 £130 .US. £120 .PAL. / .VC. £5.49 ■ The third Final Fight outing on the SNES may not be as refined as Streets Of Rage 2, but it’s the finest example of the genre on Nintendo’s console. Haggar returns with new allies and Street Fighter-style moves. Its pricey secondhand but this digital release is infinitely better value. DEMON’S…

TENNIS ■ The game that started it all. Nolan Bushnell saw this game at a demo of the Odyssey and gave Al Alcorn the challenge to create a version of it as a warm-up. Al created a simplified version known as Pong. The original used the Odyssey’s controls to provide horizontal and vertical motion, too. CAT & MOUSE ■ The first maze chase videogame. One player is a cat and the other a mouse. Cat chases mouse. Cat catches mouse. Cat easts mouse. There’s not much more to it than that. The maze itself only exists on the overlay, so you’re really on the honour system to try and keep your blocks in the lines. HAUNTED HOUSE ■ One of the more fun two-player games on the Odyssey, it’s basically…

VIDEO BLACKJACK 1976 DEVELOPER: Fairchild ■ This was a launch title for the Fairchild and was certainly impressive for 1976, with presentation and details that wouldn’t look out of place on the later Intellivision. It’s a stronger effort than the later Atari release and is only let down by cryptic command options. TIC-TAC-TOE 1976 DEVELOPER: Fairchild ■ While the graphics for this release are nothing special, it was unusual at the time for taunting you with “You lose turkey!” whenever you lost. It was released on Videocart-1, which also included Shooting Gallery, Doodle and (if one doodle program wasn’t enough) Quadra-Doodle. DESERT FOX 1976 DEVELOPER: Fairchild ■ Fairchild managed to release a version of Atari’s arcade game Tank a year before Atari managed to include it as part of its…

Planet Sinclair www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/ Not only a great place to learn more about the ZX series of computers, their peripherals and localised alternatives, Planet Sinclair is also a well-presented repository of all things to do with Uncle Clive; from calculators and mini-TVs to electric bikes and the man himself. A Profound Journey www.apj.co.uk/zx81/zx81.asp Although not specifically a Sinclair website, a reprint of a 1981 article from Personal Computing World can be found here. The magazine article features an in-depth test and review of Clive’s new machine that provides a superb window to what people expected of the ZX81 on its release. Open Directory Project www.dmoz.org/Computers/Systems/Sinclair/ZX81/ Although it’s tempting to make more specific mention of the websites here, it’d be a lot more useful to post this links list for anyone wanting…

MODEL A ■ Costing £299, which was a whopping amount in 1981, the BBC’s Model A machine may have been the cheapest version but was firmly in the territory of rich parents (or at least those who were inspired by seeing the machine in schools). It has a 6502A processor, 2MHz speed, 16KB RAM expandable to 32, 32K ROM and three-channel sound. MODEL B ■ With Model A having seen off competition from the likes of Sinclair Research to bag the BBC Micro contract, Model B was a small enhancement, allowing its 32KB of RAM to expand to 64K. Whereas Model A was made to run with a tape recorder, however, B could use a 5.25-inch floppy drive and it could also use software made to run on the disk…

DRAGON DISCOURSE A sure-fire way of pulling computer users together and creating a community is with a dedicated magazine, and for Dragon users there was, well, Dragon User. Published by Sunshine Publications and launched in April 1983, the monthly magazine featured a healthy mix of news, product reviews, regular columns, features, technical help and – that publishing phenomenon – type-in listings. The magazine also interviewed key people, including Dragon managing directors Tony Clarke and Brian Moore, but being an independent title it never felt the need to pay lip service to the company. With no direct competition, Dragon User was a popular magazine with average monthly sales of 36,000 during its first two years. Not surprisingly, however, the readership slipped and in June 1986 Sunshine announced that the magazine would…

When did you first get your Commodore 64? I actually got my first C64 in 2006. The fact that the machine still sees new releases on a near-daily basis was the main appeal. It was Aleksi Eeben’s Greenrunner with amazing sampled speech and frantic gameplay that finally enticed me to make the brave move from PC-based emulation to actual hardware. Why publish cartridges? When I was a kid I just thought of them as magic little boxes and had no idea how they worked. Unlike unreliable floppy disk and tape media, you know that you’ll be able to pull out a game from a box, plug it in and away you go, no additional peripherals required and instant loading. Cartridges are cute and quirky little chunks of plastic that, for…

ELITE Firebird won the rights to convert the BBC classic to other 8-bit micros, and produced the Gold Edition box with a sci-finovella and spaceship chart. David Braben and Ian Bell worked on the C64 conversion. This was an homage to Star Trek, featuring cute creatures known as Trumbles that threatened to overrun the ship. Although the wireframe graphics were slower, it retained the depth and playability of the original. THE SENTINEL Geoff Crammond was a master at programming 3D on an 8-bit machine; the sci-fisetting of The Sentinel was superb. 10,000 mathematically generated landscapes awaited, with the Sentinel standing atop the highest point. A game of nerves saw the player’s robot accrue the necessary energy to climb its way to the top. The slow movement didn’t hamper the atmosphere…

Noobish hat Back in about 1990, I was spending Christmas at my great gran’s house. I remember late one evening my dad came through the front door carrying a cardboard box. Inside there was a C64, some joysticks, and a whole bunch of tapes. To the best of my recollection, they were the first games I ever played. My dad, my brother, and I stayed up playing 1942, Commando, Fast Food, Chase HQ, you name it. A night I’ll never forget. gman72 My first memory of the C64 was the very first time I saw International Soccer at my friend’s house. I was amazed at how great it looked and played and was blown away by the fact that you could head the ball up the pitch from one end…

PARADROID The fleet of dreadnoughts are out of control, the robot crews no longer responding to command. The Influence Device has been beamed onto the first ship, allowing the player to take over other robots and regain control. Paradroid was a clever mix of exploration and shooting, with the added challenge of the transfer sub-game where players had to activate circuits to influence a new robot. Best sampled as the enhanced Metal Edition, but watch out for the Dalek-shaped 883… INTENSITY A forgotten gem, released by Firebird after Graftgold had split with publisher Hewson. Colonists had to be rescued from invading aliens, but there was no shooting. Instead the player controlled two separate ships with one following the other, the skimmer destroying enemies on contact and the trailing drone picking…

Takeshi No Chousenjou The worst game ever designed or a twisted work of genius? Takeshi No Chousenjou was the first and only game that film director Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano ever created. Despite the fact that the player has to perform near-impossible tasks such as singing karaoke – leaving the control pad untouched for an hour – and hitting an enemy 20,000 times to kill it, the Japanese public still voted it into the top 50 Famicom games of all time. Designed with the intention of breaking as many gaming rules as possible and by someone who claims to hate videogames, it’s an example of the experimental design techniques that no longer exist in today’s climate of risk aversion. Utsurun Desu Kawauso Hawaii E Iku Another game that tries to break…

K.C. MUNCHKIN ■ Created to tap into the Pac-Man craze sweeping the arcades, K.C. Munchkin came to the attention of Atari which promptly sued. The game plays in a similar fashion to Pac-Man with the action taking place within multiple mazes. As such, K.C. is pursued by monsters as he tries to gobble a handful of moving pellets but there were some neat additions such as being able to produce your own maze. The fact it was pulled makes it one to be played via emulation. TURTLES ■ As one of the earliest licensed coin-op ports for the G7000 (and an exclusive one at that), Turtles is an addictive maze game starring a wellanimated turtle. Players are tasked with picking up baby turtles one at a time and returning them…

INSTANT EXPERT Recording artists that have used the ST include Fatboy Slim, Mike Oldfield, UK one-hit wonder White Town and French knobtwiddler Jean Michel Jarre. The machine was amazingly popular in Germany, where it was used predominantly for desktop publishing and CAD. The ST was the first home computer to feature built-in MIDI ports. Released in 1986, the 1040 ST variant was the first personal computer to include 1MB of RAM. When the price dropped to $999 it famously became the first computer to break the $1,000/megabyte price barrier. One early tagline for Atari’s ST range was ‘Power without the price’. Jack Tramiel included the Hebrew alphabet with ST’s ROM character set to respectfully acknowledge his Jewish heritage. Because the Atari ST hardware does not support scrolling, many games used…

What was it like publishing and developing games on the NES? It was really good fun making games for the NES. We had been publishing on home computers, then we went to a trade show in America and some Japanese company we’d never heard of brought out a game machine – a little grey box. People were quite negative about it. Technical people were quite negative because they saw the Amiga as being better, and retailers were also down on it because Atari had crashed the console market previously. Retailers didn’t want to hear about another console as long as they lived. But then, after the show, Nintendo worked wonders. Over the next two years they gained traction and amazing market share, much bigger than the computers of the time.…

WIZARDS AND WARRIORS YEAR: 1987 ■ Rare’s second outing on the NES, Wizards & Warriors received praise for its impressive presentation and stern challenge. Although it boasted action platforming elements, the game also expected players to use their brains to overcome various puzzles and roadblocks. Sequels followed, one of which (Fortress Of Fear) graced the portable Game Boy console. WWF WRESTLEMANIA YEAR: 1987 ■ Boasting digital representations of all your favourite grapplers – including Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant and ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage – WWF Wrestlemania was a smash hit for Rare and publisher Acclaim, the latter of which would oversee the WWF videogame licence for the next decade. Simplistic by today’s standards, but still immense fun. SNAKE, RATTLE ‘N ROLL YEAR: 1990 ■ One of Rare’s most critically…

GRADIUS YEAR: 1986 ■ Konami’s near-legendary shooter got one of its first domestic ports on the NES, and the game more than lived up to its arcade parent. Crude visuals hide a tricky experience that is harsh but always fair, and boasts a weapons upgrade system that was revolutionary for the time. Controlling the Vic Viper ship, your mission is to eradicate various aliens – some of which resemble ‘Moai’ statues. Don’t ask. CASTLEVANIA YEAR: 1987 ■ Although Castlevania appeared on the Famicom Disk System first, under the title Akumajo Dracula, it was the American NES port that transformed the series into a household name. Famous for its fantastic music, creepy visuals and punishing challenge, it would be followed by two equally beloved sequels. The series continues to attract a…

ROAD RASH Sometimes the clumping together of two game genres can have less than desirable results; you often end up with a game of two halves with neither feeling strong enough. Not so with Road Rash; a game that mixed the brutal dust-ups of Streets Of Rage with the exhilarating driving of Super Hang-On with astonishing aplomb. Spanning a series of three games for the Mega Drive, Road Rash proved a popular racing series on Sega’s machine and a hugely successful franchise for EA. JOHN MADDEN FOOTBALL To say John Madden Football was as important to the Mega Drive’s Western dominance as Sonic The Hedgehog is no understatement. With American football the most popular thing in the US since the hamburger, this game’s success was secure. Rushed through development at…

Zerocool All hell breaking loose on Level 3 of Strider, and changing into a werewolf for the first time in Altered Beast. Mike Haggar Booting up Sonic for the first time and hearing ‘Seeee-gaaa’. DPrinny Playing Master System games on it. Or seeing it getting all its holes filled with useless add-ons and things. It was like some strange kinda orgy. Havantgottaclue Buying one in Gamestation in Poole about three years ago and kick-starting my retro-consolecollecting fetish. Lorfarius The awesome moment while playing Altered Beast when you first realise you can change into the werewolf. psj3809 Beating my best mate on John Madden Football! It was the last play of the game, I just threw the ball up and hoped for a bit of luck and somehow my player caught…

MARIO VS SONIC ■ While the Sonic games arguably lacked the deep playability of Super Mario, the blue hedgehog was marketed perfectly and stole a lot of the Italian plumber’s thunder in the early-Nineties. The simultaneous worldwide launch of Sonic 2 was an event which eclipsed even Nintendo’s amazing efforts. SUPER FX VS SVP ■ As the SNES and Mega Drive grew older and the industry’s focus on 3D gaming became ever more apparent, Nintendo decided to enlist the help of UK developer Argonaut to create a chip to bolster the console’s polygon-pushing prowess. Sega countered with the Sega Virtua Processor (SVP for short). FINAL FIGHT VS STREETS OF RAGE ■ When Nintendo secured the port of Final Fight it was a massive blow to Mega Drive owners. In typical…

AXELAY 1992 ■ Konami’s superlative shooter was not only the perfect advertisement for the console’s amazing graphical capabilities, it also played like a dream – no small feat when you consider how unsuited the SNES was to this kind of game. Amazing music, gripping gameplay and timelessly attractive visuals make for a true classic – a sequel was hinted in the end credits, but never came. ARCANA 1992 ■ Unkind observers might brand this little more than a shameless clone of Sega’s Shining In The Darkness, but it’s actually a much better game that doesn’t get near enough credit. Turn-based battles and dungeon-crawling make for a stern challenge, while the gorgeous visuals and a painfully beautiful soundtrack ensure it looks and sounds as good as it plays. SOUL BLAZER 1992…

AMSTRAD GX4000 RELEASED: 1990 ■ The GX4000 lasted only around a year. Despite being a relatively powerful 8-bit machine, it simply couldn’t compete with the SNES and Mega Drive. With neither the games, the stamina or money to do so and plagued by a myriad problems, it failed, selling only 15,000 units. While some of its games showed off the console’s capabilities, many were simple CPC ports with better loading and little else. PHILIPS CD-i RELEASED: 1991 ■ ‘Poorly executed plan’ sums up the CD-i. Vision-wise it shared 3DO’s hopes of being a global platform, but never achieved it. Failing to capture the public’s imagination, and with a small collection of lacklustre games, CD-i eventually bowed out. In the machine’s defence it’s worth noting that it wasn’t marketed first and…

DOCTOR HAUZER ■ 1994 ■ RIVER HILL SOFTWARE A 3DO exclusive and import-only title that can be picked up relatively cheaply and easily. It’s often derided as merely an Alone In The Dark clone. but it’s much more than just that. For 3DO fans it demonstrates, probably better than any other game, the 3D power of 3DO. The Doctor Hauzer world is fully texture-mapped and can be played entirely from a first-person perspective. It lacks some of the subtle genius of Resident Evil in its puzzles, but there are walkthroughs out there to help you through. NOVASTORM ■ 1994 ■ PSYGNOSIS Novastorm is Psygnosis’s sequel to the disappointing Microcosm, and known as Scavenger 4 on other platforms. It’s an essential because it is very much a product of its generation…