Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder

Developer: Namco     Publisher: Tengen     Released: October 1989     Genre: Action Rolling Thunder may be a forgotten series now but looking at the current gaming landscape it was very influential. All cover based shooters can trace their heritage back to here although...
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King of Dragons

King of Dragons

The King of Dragons is an interesting game.  It was released not long after Final Fight blew the doors off the genre and a legion of imitators followed.  It tried to do more with its mechanics than most of those...
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R-Type

R-Type

Of the many shooters that I have played over the decades I count three that shaped my tastes.  Gradius was one of the first major shooters I ever played.  There’s Zanac, which introduced me to Compile and their penchant for...
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Youkai Club

Youkai Club

As the NES rose to prominence platformers took over the market with every publisher getting in on it.  Even though we got our fair share there were 3 times as many platformers that didn’t come to the US.  Of course...
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Hook

Hook

Developer: Ukiyotei     Publisher: Sony Imagesoft     Released: 1992     Genre: Platformer Movie licensed video games were on average absolutely dreadful during the 8 and 16-bit era. Sure you could blame this on the films publishers chose to create...
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Devastator

Devastator

In America the Sega CD is often looked back on as a wasteland full of terrible FMV games and licensed junk.  That is true to an extent but when you dig deeper it has an alright library of diverse games. ...
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It’s no slight exaggeration to say that every kid across the country wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game back in the 80s.  If you didn’t then sue your parents because your childhood was robbed.  Turtlemania swept the country...
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Last Alert

Last Alert

Developer: Laser Soft    Publisher: NEC    Release: 11/30/90   Genre: Action The Turbo Grafx-16 had very little success when it came to side scrolling action games. While Genesis owners got to enjoy Gunstar Heroes and Contra Hard Corps they had…Bloody....
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Twinkle Tale

Twinkle Tale

The Cotton series of shooters are an incredible bunch that practically no one has ever heard of because only one single release came to the US.  And that game is one of the rarest and most expensive retro games of...
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Double Dragon

Double Dragon

I really miss Technos.  As the creators of the modern beat em up with Renegade the legions of titles that followed all owe a debt to their work.  I was not a fan of Renegade but could see that it...
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