Silpheed

Firefox 3.6 is more competent than 4.0 on this machine. That's progress!

It's like Christmas came early, and it was a really terrible Christmas. It's just what you've always wanted - DOS-based shoot-'em-up Silpheed. It was a big-ish deal back in 1988, but is it still a big deal now?

Sonic Classic

If you too are feeling the need for a Sonic the Hedgehog 4 alternative, Sonic Classic might just float your boat. It's a glitchy, unpolished fangame with a questionable selection of music, but aside from that it does exactly what it says on the tin - it's a classic Sonic the Hedgehog game, free from poor voice acting, odd storylines and stupid ideas... well... aside from having two water levels. And most importantly, it's a complete game. What's not to like?

If I were to grade it, I'd give it a high C, but in a world where most fangames fail to hand their work in, it still stands as being pretty good.

Adventurous Boy

That was one long radio show.

"Unlicensed drivel!? I thought you'd grown out of that, Squirrel!". Not quite. Top time travelling duck fan BanjoSonic likes to feed me forgotten pirate games once in a while. This is one such game, Adventurous Boy for the Sega Mega Drive. It's a broken Fantasy Zone clone... how could I resist?

Space Harrier II

Space Harrier Harder

Space Harrier II is one of those games people love to hate. Released for the Sega Mega Drive in 1988 (as a launch title in Japan!), it's aged pretty poorly and is has always lived in the shadow of its older arcade brother. But that doesn't mean it's a bad game... does it?

Gloom

The Amiga's nice and all, but can it run Doom!?

No. But it can run Gloom, a 1995 Amiga game desperate to prove its worth against DOS-based IBM PC compatibles. It fails, but it's still a remarkable piece of technology for a system not designed for the third dimension.

Space Harrier

1985 saw Sega make one of the most cutting edge and legendary pieces of software to date - Space Harrier. It's a game I've grown up with in one form or another, and though the modern gaming media have different views, I still believe this is one of the greatest arcade games of all time.

And predictably it was ported to everything, including computers so bad that the fantasy zone was reduced to mere rectangles. This port, for the Amiga, was hailed as one of the better options upon its release in 1989.

I wonder how it stacks up today!