Pac-Pac Commodore Plus/4 Pac-Man

Another Pac-Man clone? Surely the world has enough of these, we don't need another one! Well in this case, maybe we do. The trouble with Pac-Man clones, particularly ones on classic 8-bit systems, is that they tend to be absolutely awful. This version breaks the mold however, it's fast responsive, looks good and sounds good. All in all much better than the dire offerings that often get passed off as Pac-Man. It takes a few liberties with the format of original arcade game, but it's still clearly Pac-Man and worth a download if you like that sort of thing. 

It's the demo season - With Spectravison and PC Engine!

Yep, it's that time of year again when demo parties start happening. Lots of interesting demos are on the way, but what's caught my eye are these two releases from the Edison 2016 party.

The first is this demo for the very obscure Spectravideo 328, another early 80's machine that has been largely forgotten about. This demo is pretty cool and looks rather MSXesque, which is no surprise as the Spectravideo 328 is apparently the system that the MSX standard was based on.

This demo is from a much more well known system, the good old NEC  PC Engine/ Turbogrfx, but it's still a system that doesn't get a lot of demo attention, so this is pretty cool too. It's an invite to the Datastorm 2017 party, early I suppose, but if this is a harbinger of what's to come then it may be worth waiting for. 

Wing Warriors - MSX Homebrew

I'm not sure exactly when this came out, but it's a new hombrew title for that often overlooked Japanese 8-bit computer the MSX. Although it suffers from that familiar jerky scrolling common to so many MSX games it still looks like a lot of fun and you can grab it here! 

Sega Master System Homebrew 2016

The results are in for the 2016 SMS Power! Sega Master System coding competition and here's a quick video of the top two games in this years entries. 
Bara Buru is a nice 80's-esque platformer in the style of Bubble Bobble. It's apparently a fully finished game and from what I've played so far seems pretty good. 
Cimmerian is essentially a remake of the classic 8-bit fighter Barbarian. It's still incomplete, but looks promising. Hopefully a complete version will soon follow. 

The Keep - Vic 20 FPS? Well sort of.

Calling this game a first person shooter is pushing it a bit, whilst it is first person, theres not really any shooting here, probably calling it a first person dungeon crawler would be more accurate. It's been out a while, but this new video from Retro Gamer VX is the first I've heard of this game and it's certainly impressive for the system. Running on the original unexpanded Vic-20 it's surprisingly smooth and looks pretty playable. 

Of course this isn't the only game of this type on the humble old Vic, there is in fact a port of Doom available for the system. Whilst not nearly as smooth as the above game, it is a full fledged FPS with enemies to shoot and everything.

Obscure Systems Showcase - Fujitsu FM7/FM 77

The latest in my occasional video series showing off games on less well known systems features the Fujitsu FM7. Another Japan only home computer, it was originally released in 1982 and seemed to enjoy a reasonable level of popularity, competing with the PC8801 and X1. Later on in the udgraded but fully backward compatible FM77 series was released, with superior graphics and sound making it a pretty capable gaming system. 

In this video I've featured a few games for the original unexpanded FM7 and a few for the fancier FM77 model. I suppose I could have done different videos for both the machines, but the FM77 seems more like an upgrade than a different system so I ended up combining them. 

Silpheed is really the stand out title here, it's a lot of fun to play and the graphics and sound are very impressive for the system. Some of the other games were a bit disappointing, they often look better than they play, but Wibarm may be something of a hidden gem if I could work out what the hell was going on. 

The Lands of Zador - Even More Majestic

I've featured The Majesty of Sprites on here before, the startlingly good looking Commodore Plus 4 game from Bauknect, but here's the sequel and it looks even better. The same wonderfully colorful graphics, but this time it seems that all the stages are smoothly scrolling in all four directions. Apparently the gameplay remains much the same, but with some added puzzle elements - a physical release from psytronik software will be coming out sometime soon