Retro Gaming Australia

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys was a reasonably enjoyable TV show, for what it was. The same cannot be said for the similarly titled video game, which was developed by Player 1 and published by Titus.

They just don’t make games like this anymore. Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball takes the center of the Detroit Pistons “Bad Boys” team of the early 90s and puts him on the box of this futuristic, full contact basketball game. The gameplay is kind of clunky, but the sheer absurdity makes the game hard to forget.

Activision Classics is a compilation of 30 of the company’s biggest 2600 hits. It’s not quite as fully featured as later Activision collections, but it was one of the biggest compilation titles when it was released.

Frontier: Elite II takes the mechanics of the original game and beefs them up with fancier graphics, upgradeable ships and the ability to land on planets. It’s a shame that the publisher GameTek rushed Elite II out ahead of schedule, leaving some rather large bugs in the game.

The NES version of 1943 expands upon the original 1943: The Battle of Midway by adding a really neat upgrade system, which was incorporated into the arcade game’s sequels.

Dig Dug is one of the most influential arcade games from the early 1980s. Players control Dig Dug, who must drill his way through the ground and eliminate any enemies occupying the area by sticking them with his hose and filling them with air until they explode.

Core Design’s Fighting Force is a classic example of how the 2D brawler didn’t really make the graceful transition to 3D that many had hoped. It’s fun at first, but the novelty quickly wears off, and you’re left with a clunky, unattractive mess.

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was a 3D platformer that drew heavy influence from the likes of Super Mario 64. While not particularly remarkable compared to what was being offered on the Nintendo 64, Croc struck a cord with the PlayStation audience, selling more than 4 million copies.

Marko’s Magic Football is a rather lighthearted little romp mixing soccer tricks with platforming action. Didn’t realise that the Oliver Twins had worked on this one until just recently.

Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold is the oft-overlooked sequel to the so-bad-its-good FMV-based light gun shooter Mad Dog McCree. It’s a much more fully featured package than the original, but it’s still pretty crappy. The most recent release was on the Wii, where it was bundled with the first game and The Last Bounty Hunter.