Tag: Video gamesPage 4 of 39

Beach-Head – “Battle Stations”

From the point in 1983 where the Spectrum got firmly established as the UK’s most popular computer (so… my second post), the games I’ve written about have had…

Jack and the Beanstalk – “Magic bag of beans”

In 1902, cinema was still in its infancy, and people were still working out what they could do with it. One big breakthrough of the year was the…

Mugsy – “Da boys in the mob”

After the massive success of The Hobbit, the wait was on for Melbourne House’s successor. Before they’d even finished it, Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler had decided on…

Twin Kingdom Valley – “In The Hall Of The Forest King”

Twin Kingdom Valley is a graphic adventure game, set in a fantasy valley with two rival kingdoms, headed by a Forest King and a Desert King. It doesn’t…

Jet Set Willy – “Entrance to Hades”

Manic Miner wowed reviewers and players with its sheer scale. Its solo developer Matthew Smith aimed to create sixteen rooms for it, and successfully landed at twenty, four…

Valhalla – “You are in an icy waste in Hell”

One popular repeating story in games history is that of technical advances powering improved experiences. Being able to do more technically allows you to make better games, the…

Lunar Jetman – “8 laser hits will be required”

The selection of Ultimate games included in the 2015 compilation Rare Replay almost completely lines up with their list of UK #1 hits. This is not surprising as…

Kong – “Today’s highest”

In April 1983, UK magazines Home Computing Weekly and Personal Computer News each carried an advert for “the world’s greatest arcade games”. It was from the company Spectrum…

Flight Simulation – “Hills 1000 feet”

By the time Psion published Horace and the Spiders, they were a well-established success story. Sinclair had struck a deal with Psion to get first option on co-publishing…

Horace and the Spiders – “From thread to thread”

In 1984, Home Computing Weekly and games chart compilers ASP would split their charts into two categories: ‘arcade’ and ‘non-arcade’. Not all of the games in the arcade…