Bounder Review

HISTORY Bounder popularity spans decades and has continued to be featured in many retro magazines, videos and on social media to this day. This little tennis ball of fun continues to be highly regarded and fondly remembered. Originally created by Christian Shrigley, Andrew Green, Robert Toone and Published by Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd in 1985, Bounder featured many ground-breaking features such as Parallax Scrolling first seen in Bounder. The game featured 12 levels, all as challenging as the first and at times is unforgiving but that’s what kept drawing people…

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Turrican 3

Published by Renegade Software Developed by Factor 5 GmbH Released 1993 Review by James Whelan Overview Turrican’s final outing on the Amiga in Turrican 3 (making Turrican 2’s sub-title, The Final Fight, less than accurate) is something of a mixed bag. Judged on its own merits it’s a perfectly serviceable and entertaining shoot-‘em-up, once again showcasing the Amiga’s strengths as the premier games platform of its time. But coming after the near flawless Turrican 2 and the ground-breaking original Turrican, the swansong of the trilogy always had a lot to live up to,…

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Andy Capp

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…

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Turrican II

Review by James Whelan Published by Rainbow Arts Software GmbH Developed by Factor 5 GmbH Released 1991   In 1990, German developers Rainbow Arts turned the Amiga gaming world on its head with the release of Turrican, a sprawling run-and-gun shoot-‘em-up which not only pushed the Amiga’s hardware to the limit but proved that beautiful looking games could actually be playable too. Critics heaped superlatives on Turrican which received numerous honors at various award shows. The bar had been set pretty high and it would take Rainbow Arts themselves, along…

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Rock ‘n Wrestle

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…

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Turrican

Review by James Whelan PROLOGUE A story of times long gone by, tells us of the three-headed Morgul, who lives a secluded life in his kingdom. This Morgul is the cause of all the fears and nightmares of mankind. It is furthermore said, that in ancient times he was banished to an unknown dimension by the hero Devolon. Fear and sleepless nights disappeared out of the people’s lives. For some time now people have again been tormented by nightmares and suffer from a serious state of dread and fear. Hardly…

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Street Fighter II (Commodore 64)

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.…

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Menace

Published by Psygnosis Limited Developed by DMA Design Limited Released 1988 Also For Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS Menace Remember Blood Money? Sure you do! We all remember Blood Money; the frustration, the broken joysticks, the swearing… Menace, while not a direct prequel to Blood Money, is something of a spiritual forerunner, though mercifully much much easier. Developed by the same team who brought you that torture-fest (in fact, Blood Money’s intro features a voice sample, intoning “First, there was Menace…”), Menace was Scottish developer DMA Design’s first Amiga release.…

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F/A-18 Interceptor

Published by Electronic Arts Ltd. Developed by Intellisoft, Inc. Released 1988 Platform Amiga F/A-18 Interceptor It’s hard to believe F/A-18 Interceptor is going on 30 years old. Developed by Bob Dinnerman and released by Electronic Arts (a company which had strongly supported the Amiga since its release in 1985), Interceptor retains a special place in the memories of Amiga owners from the late 1980s. Dinnerman had worked at the legendary Bally/Midway in the early ’80s, writing several arcade games including Discs of Tron. While attending SIGGRAPH, the annual computer graphics…

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Blood Money Amiga

Published by Psygnosis Limited Developed by DMA Design Limited Released 1989 Blood Money Have two words ever struck more terror into the heart of Amiga gamers? Released in 1989 by Psygnosis and developed by DMA Design, Blood Money is a colorful, addictive shooter which rapidly became known as one of the toughest games on the Amiga. We’re betting many a joystick has been broken in sheer frustration while trying to complete its tortuous levels. But more on that in a while. Let’s dive in at the beginning… DMA Design was…

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