Author: Dan Tootill

Published by: Mirrorsoft Developed by: Blitter Animations Released: 1987 Also for: Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum In case you didn’t know, Andy Capp is a notoriously un-PC British cartoon strip. It’s eponymous main character is an unemployed, beer-swilling, wife-beating layabout. He is strangely popular in the United States, even earning a mention in The Simpsons and an appearance in Family Guy. Andy Capp – The Game is an arcade adventure where the the player spends a week in the life of Andy. He must find his missing benefits cheque, scrape…

Read More

Published by: Melbourne House Developed by: Beam Software Released: 1985 Also for: Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum There has never been a shortage of wrestling-themed video games, just look at the number of WWE titles released since the PlayStation 2 era. But a fair few were made for the old 8-bit systems and Rock ‘n Wrestle (known in the U.S. as Bop ‘n Wrestle) is a fairly early example. Popular opinion would suggest that it wasn’t a great game, but it had a sophisticated grapple system, rope physics, digitised sound…

Read More

Published by: U.S. Gold Developed by: Creative Materials Released: 1992 Also for: Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Game Boy, Master System, Mobile, MS-DOS, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Sega Saturn, Super NES, X-Box, ZX Spectrum Having set a new standard for scrolling beat-’em-up games with Final Fight, Capcom went and made a sequel to their rather forgettable one-on-one fighting game Street Fighter (1987); the rest is history. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior burst into the arcades in 1992, leaving crowds of gamers awestruck and noticeably short on change.…

Read More

Published by: System 3 Developer: System 3 Released: 1987 Also for: Acorn Electron, Apple II, BBC Micro, MS-DOS The Last Ninja is a seminal action adventure game for the Commodore 64, released in 1987. It is set on the fictional island of Lin Fen in the Yellow Sea. The evil Shogun Kunitoki has all but destroyed the Ninjutsu and is set to acquire their knowledge and powers, the key to which is held within the ancient and sacred Koga scrolls. Believing there are no ninjas left alive to threaten him, Kunitoki is set to become…

Read More

Published by: U.S. Gold Developer: Epyx / Dennis Caswell Released: 1984 Also for: Acorn Electron, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 7800, BBC Micro, Oric Atmos, Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum When we first got our Commodore 64 back in 1986 I knew we’d chosen well, if the size of the rack of games for the system in Boots was anything to go by. I got to know a few of the other kids at school who also had 64s, one of whom invited me to his house one afternoon and…

Read More

Published by: Mindscape Developed by: Rob Anderson Released: 1991 Also for: MS-DOS Knights, dragons and druids you say? Sounds like a good old-fashioned medieval fantasy adventure game. Fun for all the family, right? In 1991, before the days of Mortal Kombat video games weren’t particularly bloodthirsty. This was partly due to Nintendo’s aversion to any form of violence in their games and the rise of Sonic, Mario and the many similarly cartoonish franchises that followed. Unlike consoles, games made for home computers didn’t have their content restricted by the hardware vendor…

Read More