retrorussell

GALAGA '88 ITAZURA TENSHI SPACE RACE all arcade

From Intellivision's DRACULA to something infinitely cooler!

Cat 'N Mouse Avalanche Pool Shark all arcade

Nope.. too new. These look too advanced for the game I played. It was a simple 2D smaller-sprite game.. looked more like FLASHBACK than OOTW/ANOTHER WORLD (smoother character movement). This was on the regular Amiga, before the Amiga CD came around. I've looked through a ton of Amiga game videos to try to find it but no dice. Thanks for the suggestions, though-- those are interesting games!

No, the third one isn't Another World but it seemed like it. You actually can die from being strangled (not just part of a scene the computer plays out for you). I've played through Another World/OOTW, so I know that wasn't it. It seemed to be a pretty crappy game. You had a sort of life bar, and your kick attack was fairly goofy looking IIRC. But thanks for the answer on Artillery. That seems right.

Just came up with another: A game for the Amiga that felt a little perhaps like the later FLASHBACK. It seemed to have the same type of smaller sprite fixed screen action, taking place on an alien world. I did not know what the hell I was doing on that game, but I had some lame kick at my disposal at least. I ran into an alien, who picked me up and strangled me with one hand. I didn't know how to fight my way out of it so I died. I remember we had one of the Dark Castle games, Bionic Commando and Babar The Barbarian for the Amiga, but I couldn't remember the alien planet one. This was probably 1990 or 1991 that I played it.

There was an Apple II game around 1982 or 1983 I saw that was an single character RPG. When you were approached by an enemy the action switched to a side-view battle. You both had life bars and would swing your sword/mace/whatever weapon you chose (or you could raise your shield). A weird grunting noise was played when the weapons struck. Whichever character ran out of life flashed different colors and made a "beep boop" sound that continued to lower in pitch. The game would then return to the overworld scenario. I remember wights being enemies. There was also a game that I'd seen on multiple different computers back in the 80s, where you fire a rocket at the enemy launcher on the same screen as you. You must determine the height and distance of the blast (inputting in the numbers for each) and hope you hit it. What was the name of it?

My newest NEO GEO game review: OVER TOP (1996 ADK) Kind of cool overhead racing game usually at a 3/4 perspective. Pick from 8 different cars (some certainly better suited for the really tight turns in the game) and multiple different colors for each vehicle! You can even use the horn or headlights (not really important for gameplay). Multiple side roads you can take (you'll often see traffic cones or something in the way of them) can be taken that may let you save a little time in your quest to complete the whole course.

OVER TOP PIGSKIN 621 AD COSMIC GUERILLA all arcade

Here's a weird one: JACK THE GIANTKILLER, 1982 Cinematronics Videogame iteration of the classic children's story JACK AND THE BEANSTALK-- and the story of JACK THE GIANTKILLER dates back to the Middle Ages and is a good deal different, so the game's title is misleading-- and it is a bit of a Crazy Climber/Donkey Kong hybrid. In multiple different stages you climb a beanstalk avoiding gaps (which make you fall to your death) and birds/bees/whatever that try to knock you off. Touching beans on the way up allows you to chuck them at foes. Jump off a limb to catch other limbs. Other stages include a VERY Donkey Kong-like stage where you try to reach the top to get a treasure from the sleeping giant, which is followed by descending the beanstalk as he seems to follow you (though he never actually descends) as rocks drop down from the sky. VERY frustrating controls immediately doom this rather bland game. Especially the stage where you navigate clouds to get to the giant's house. You swear you're at a safe patch to stand on and WHOOP-- down you go! Total b.s.! I saw this at Wunderland (nickel arcade) in NE Portland OR, probably a year or less after it came out. It underwhelmed me then and certainly doesn't interest me today.

That's great to see these pics/videos of Anthony's great gift-- I will have to show at least a pic later of mine leaning against my (unfortunately currently not working) NEO cabinet.

Next game: EYES (1982, Digitrex Techstar/Rock-Ola) Weird maze game in which you and the antagonists are eyeballs! You can shoot the enemies and dots. Eliminate all dots to advance to the next maze; enemies respawn from certain areas of the maze and can easily surprise you (they can also shoot you, and get very adept and fast at it as you progress in the game). Creepy music and sound effects. Pretty generous scoring system! I first saw this at the Tigard/Beaverton Malibu Gran Prix about 5 or so miles from where I lived, when this game was new. My sister and I somehow enjoyed this one; it is weird but playable.

I would say it deserves to be called one of the bottom 10 to 20 or so for the system, but Karate and Pac-Kong are way worse.

Yeah, it's one of those "discrete logic" games. MAME has had it on their list for a long, long time under NOT WORKING. They unearthed a whole batch of discrete logic games a long while back and I was hoping they'd get to them someday, since the emulator DICE (discrete integrated circuit emulator) doesn't have it and hasn't been updated in forever.