Retro Gaming Australia

Everybody’s favourite pink blob turned 20 today, so we’ve rolled out a classic Kirby ad in celebration. Kirby’s Avalanche and Kirby’s Dream Course are just two of a multitude of Kirby spin-offs, but they’re still fantastic games. Heck, Avalanche (or Ghost Trap) is just a reskinned version of Puyo Puyo, developed by Compile.

The Game Boy Advance release of Sabre Wulf was a reimagining of the classic ZX Spectrum game, published by THQ following Microsoft’s purchase of Rare. The game is a platformer that draws reasonable influence from Donkey Kong Country, but each stage involves players stealing loot from under the nose of the titular wolf and running back to the start without getting caught.

An early entry into Activision’s plan to establish themselves as a major force in Windows gaming, HyperBlade was an ultraviolent future sport not unlike that seen in the film Rollerball combined with ice hockey. One particularly amusing part of the game was that the rok (the ball) could be replaced with decapitated heads if one were to execute their opponent mid-match.

Flight of the Amazon Queen was Brisbane-based Interactive Binary Illusions’ attempt to produce a LucasArts quality adventure game on a shoestring budget. It’s a bit of a love letter back to old pulp comics and Indiana Jones – and is freely (and legally) available for download and use with SCUMMVM, or you can get it for two bucks from the App Store.

Killer Instinct was one of the most stunning looking arcade games upon release in 1994, and the fact Rare managed to get it running on the SNES is a testament to the skill of the company at that stage. It’s a shame the underlying game just isn’t that good – though it’s way better than its sequel.

River Raid is one of Activision’s most popular releases for the Atari 2600. It was also the first game to be indexed by the BPjM in Germany, due to the game’s war theme being considered harmful to minors. Creator Carol Shaw is believed to be the first female video game programmer.

Dune 2000 was a partial remake, partial reimagining of Westwood’s classic Dune II. It was an attempt by Westwood to modernise Dune II, by adding features like unit balance and full motion video cutscenes (starring John Rhys-Davies among others) to the formula, but it was not well received.

Disney’s 1982 cult classic TRON inspired a couple of video games around the time of release. The Adventures of TRON and TRON: Deadly Discs both made their way to the Atari 2600 courtesy of Mattel.

Taito’s arcade classic Chase H.Q. made the journey home to a myriad of platforms. This particular ad is for the Game Gear release, which was for all intents and purposes identical to the Master System version.

Like many popular games of the day, Konami’s 1981 classic Frogger was released on every damn system imaginable. This particular ad was for the Intellivision version, which was published by board game manufacturer Parker Bros.