Vinyl Goddess from Mars (1995): Shareware’s Last Great Platformer Gamble
By 1995, shareware platformers were running out of road — Windows 95 was months away, and the floppy-disk-and-BBS distribution model […]
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Mystic Towers (1994): A Free Wizard-Sim Apogee Almost Forgot
Baron Baldric would really rather be reading. Unfortunately, an aging wizard with a talent for clearing monster-infested towers doesn’t get
Abuse (1995): The Mouse-Aimed Shooter That Was a Decade Ahead of Its Time
A Control Scheme From the Future, Stuck in 1995 Twin-stick shooters didn’t really exist as a concept in 1995, but
Ski or Die (1990) Review — EA’s Winter Answer to Skate or Die
Five snow sports, one relentlessly attitude-heavy presentation, and a cast of characters who treat a ski resort like a skate
Death Rally (1996): Remedy’s Debut, Long Before Max Payne
Before Max Payne, before Alan Wake, before Control, Remedy Entertainment made a top-down racing game where you shoot your opponents
Dark Ages (1991): Apogee’s Medieval Detour From Sci-Fi Platforming
Most of Apogee’s early shareware output leaned sci-fi or cartoonish. Dark Ages, released in 1991, went a different direction entirely
Duke Nukem II (1993): The Last Great 2D Duke Before Doom Changed Everything
December 1993 was a brutal month to release a 2D platformer — Doom was weeks away, and it would make
Flashback (1992) Retrospective: Delphine’s Bigger, Stranger Answer to Another World
A Year After Another World, Something Bigger A year after Another World (also known as Out of This World) put
Another World (1991): Eric Chahi’s One-Man Cinematic Platformer
There is no game quite like Another World, and there’s a simple reason for that: almost nobody else built an
Duke Nukem (1991): The Free Shareware Platformer That Started a Legend
Long before he was cracking one-liners in glorious 3D, Duke Nukem was a two-dimensional action hero in a side-scrolling platformer,
Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame (1993) — Mechner’s Tougher, Stranger Sequel
Sequels to beloved games usually play it safe. Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame did the opposite
Mortal Kombat (1993): The Fighting Game That Created the ESRB
No fighting game in history caused as much controversy as Mortal Kombat. Released in arcades by Midway in 1992 and