Threads

Just in time for the spookiest time of year, a game that features not just ghouls, but also ghosts as well. And spooky haunted turtles....

I’m not normally one for themed, seasonal gaming… but Halloween seems to lend itself particularly well to playing a particular type of game....

(Saw this question asked on another popular link aggregation website and it got me thinking)...

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/4790038...

Commando (released as Senjō no Ōkami in Japan, Wolf of the Battlefield) is a 1985 Capcom arcade shooter. Word to the wise: Commando isn’t based on the Schwarzenegger movie of the same name - that’s some false knowledge I’ve carried round with me for close to forty years… oh, how I’ve embarrassed myself at dinner...

I feel as if I’ve been hanging out at the arse-end of the 80s a lot recently, comparing ports on computers that had no business running them. I’ve long suspected that if you want to see 8-bit micros at their best, you’re better served hanging around in 1986 rather than 1989. Things were so much more achievable back then…...

Everyone knows about Final Fight, right? This 1989 Capcom beat 'em up feels almost genre defining, even though it was not the first beat 'em up of its type. Nevertheless, it cast a long shadow over games that came after it, especially those released by Capcom....

Vigilante was a 1988 Irem coin-op, a kind of spiritual successor to 1984’s Kung Fu Master/Spartan X. Like the 1984 title, Vigilante had a simple premise - you walk to the right and beat up fools in front of you and behind you. There’s no pseudo-third-dimension, no in and out, it’s just straight up single plane brawling,...

If fur loincloths and large axes are your thing, then the eighties was a hell of a time to be alive. It seemed like barbarians were everywhere. In movies, there was Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja and Beastmaster; on TV we had He-man and the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon (Bobby was technically a barbarian!); and in videogames you...

What videogame jumps into your mind when you think of couch multiplayer?...

Some games arrive right on time, while some games arrive later than they should… but some, a rare few, arrive way too early. Like Micronaut One....

In the UK, we have a peculiar turn of phrase: “to make a good fist of” something. It means to put up a good show, to make the best of what you have, to succeed despite your challenges. And if you ever need to demonstrate to a non-English speaker what this means in practice, you can show them the 8-bit micro ports of Golden...

The first album I ever truly connected to… found when rummaging through my Dad’s vinyl collection. I put it on on the strength of the cover alone, then listened to it endlessly for the next few year.

Ivan ‘Ironman’ Stewart’s Super Off Road is a 1989 arcade release that plays kind of like a fancy Super Sprint. It’s a single screen game where three players race their trucks over a number of courses, picking up nitro and money, and upgrading their vehicles between races. It’s fast, goofy, chaotic and a lot of fun. The...

R-Type is the greatest game ever made, right? Right? No? Then get off my land, you pervert. It just is....

Buggy Boy (Speed Buggy in the US) feels like a game that deserves to be remembered more fondly. Sadly, it always seems to fall through the cracks between the likes of Outrun, Power Drift and Chase HQ....

My first love was the ZX Spectrum, but my first salacious affair was with the Sega Master System, many years later....