Namco’s classic vertical space shooter At the time of writing, summer is here, and I am reminded of hot days spent in the arcades in Southen-on-Sea playing games like space shooter Galaga. In the early 80’s my holidays would be spent camping with my family, and many of the campsites we visited would have a…
What was the Snow Bros arcade game all about? There are some games which I hesitate to write about, as they are so good I just don’t feel I will do justice to them, and I put them off to another day. On this list would be the original Star Wars arcade game, as well…
Strider Hiryu – Capcom’s Arcade Hero My first introduction to Capcom’s Strider was not through the arcade cabinet, but the excellent Megadrive port, which was like nothing I had seen before, with it’s huge sprites and fantastically varied levels and incredible bosses – it was an arcade revelation. At it’s heart, Strider is a side scrolling…
The best trackball arcade game? In the early 80’s we were at the height of the nuclear arms race, and the Doomsday clock representing our proximity to a nuclear war between the west and the Soviet Union was at 11:57. Released at the start of the escalation in 1980, Missile Command was a game that…
Battlezone: The Original Tank Game Battlezone was a truly unforgettable game from the early days of the arcades, that saw you in control of a tank in a 3D battle against enemy vehicles and space ships, set in a dali-esque landscape of cubes and pyramids. Battlezone used wireframe vector graphics technology, the same technology that…
Gradius Origins The local arcade near the station where I grew up had a Gradius machine (aka Nemesis), and it was my first experience of a shooter which I had to “learn”. My previous favourites, Galaxians, Galaga, Phoenix etc. all had simple patterns and no power ups, and so were very easy to pick up…
