Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: GN Team - Published: 8 February 2020, 3:50 pm
The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight is the second chapter of the popular RPG series created by Interplay. It was published by Electronic Arts starting in 1985.
The game was designed and programmed by Michael Cranford, who also designed the first game (but not the third one). It was released in 1986 for the Commodore 64, then in 1987 for the Apple II and in 1988 for the Amiga and MS-DOS.
The Bard's Tale, released in 1985, was already a revolutionary game. For the first time, it introduced a massive ecosystem of races and classes, animated monsters and enemies on screen, visible magical effects, and a complex spell system. Interestingly, spells could be used not only for combat but also for solving puzzles. Funnily, you could even import a party of characters for other games such as Ultima III: Exodus or Wizardry. Last but not least, music and bards, generally ignored by computer RPGs, were a fundamental element.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 2 February 2020, 11:42 pm
Gettysburg is a wargame created by Turcan Research and published for Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS in 1990 by Atari.
As you can imagine, it's set during the American Civil War, particularly the battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest of the entire war. The battle took place from the 1st until the 3rd of June, 1863. You can choose to control either the Union forces or the Confederate forces, led by famous general Robert E. Lee.
The game engine is the same one used in other wargames developed by Peter Turcan, such as Austerlitz and Waterloo. The player gives orders from a top-down 3D view of the battlefield.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 1 February 2020, 6:45 pm
Ghouls 'N Ghosts, aka Daimakaimura (Great Demon World Village), is a famous arcade created by Capcom as a sequel to Ghosts 'N Goblins. It was initially released in 1988.
It was ported to many home platforms, computers, and consoles. The porting to Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, made by Software Creations, was not exactly perfect. Many elements were missing, which could be understandable for the 8-bit versions but not for the others. The Amiga version of Ghosts 'N Goblins made by Elite (strangely published some months after the release of the sequel) is far superior. However, the Commodore 64 and Amiga versions of Ghouls 'N Ghosts deserve to be played at least for one reason: the fantastic soundtrack composed by Tim Follin. The arrangements and new songs written by this legendary musician are considered among the best videogame soundtracks ever created. And, for the C64 version, an outstanding example of the possibilities of the audio chip of this machine (known as SID).
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Author: GN Team - Published: 29 January 2020, 8:11 pm
Akira is an action game developed by International Computer Entertainment and released in 1994 for the Amiga. It's based on the 1988 Akira film.
Sadly, the game is one of the worst commercial games ever created for the Amiga, with scores such as 6/100 by The One Amiga, 16% by Amiga Power, and 18% by Amiga Format. It also has a rating of 1.8 on Lemon Amiga.
But if you want to see for yourself how the game is, there you go!
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Author: GN Team - Published: 28 January 2020, 10:33 pm
Dark Side is a first-person 3D space action game created by Incentive Software in 1988 for 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. The title was released for ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Amiga, and Commodore 64.
The title uses the game engine developed internally by Incentive, called Freescape, to create a complete 3D environment, with objects rendered as polygons and the ability to look up and down. This is the second game to use this engine after Driller, the precursor to Dark Side.
In this game, you are a government agent who aims to destroy a terrible weapon on the moon. The beam gun is a kind of Death Star that some terrorists want to destroy a planet (not very original, I know).
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Author: GN Team - Published: 25 January 2020, 4:11 am
Super Hang-On is a motorcycle racing coin-op created by SEGA and released in 1987. It was ported to many platforms in the following years, including Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Atari ST, and ZX Spectrum.
It was the sequel of Hang-On, another coin-op released two years before. Both games were designed by the legendary game creator Yu Suzuki, also known for OutRun, After Burner, and many other successes.
The Amiga version of Super Hang-On, released in 1988, was developed by Software Studios, and it was one of the most appreciated (and one of the most faithful ports).
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