In the late 90’s I got hooked on MAME, having found it to be a great way of playing old arcade titles that were no longer available in the flesh. Like many people who start out playing using a PC and keyboard, I soon longed for the feel of a real arcade cabinet. I wanted…
Frak! By Aardvark Software (1984) Back before the word Frak! became a swear word on the most recent incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, or a controversial form of mining, it was a 1986 platform game on the BBC Micro. My friend had a BBC Model B and a Sony colour monitor, and we would play Frak!…
My first introduction to the classic arcade shooter GORF was on a school trip in 1981. As we piled out of the coach and into the service station on the M1 motorway, I could hear a robotic voice calling from the arcade…. The voice was the alien from the GORF arcade cabinet, mocking the player…
Pengo was an arcade game released by Sega in 1982. Kind of a cross between Pac Man and Space Panic, Pengo was a maze game with a twist. Rather than being constrained by the maze, you could use the blocks of the maze walls to flatten the chasing monsters. Your hero Pengo was pitted against…
The first survival horror game? 3D Monster Maze was a 1982 computer game for the Sinclair ZX81, one of the first home computers to be launched in the UK. At this time the closest thing to a “scary” video game was Atari’s Hunted House (also 1982), on the 2600 console. Haunted House was however very…
In the same way that Operation Wolf blew away the arcade competition with it’s 2D light gun game in 1987, Time Crisis did the same but in full 3D in 1996. Released after Virtua Cop, the first real 3D light gun game, Time Crisis featured vastly superior graphics, an engaging storyline and a killer feature…
