Abandonware

Did you ever hear of Arkanoid? I hope you did if you find yourselves true gamers. Yes, this is an adaptation of good ol' Arkanoid. But not just ANY adaptation. This one is really good. It has many new options and obstacles: moving enemies (e.g. a lighter, a boiling pot, an eye, a moving head...), many items to collect, different levels and so on...

Tapper was published in 1983 by Sega. First it was a coin-op game, then, sometime later it has been ported to PC, C-64, Atari and to some other platforms. Lately, an Xbox 360 conversion has been made as well.

What is this game about?

Everyone who grew up in the seventies and eighties knows it. Zaxxon! An arcade classic from Sega that we spent almost all our money with. Just waiting for the next spare hours to run to the next amusement arcade and put coin after coin into the fantastic flickering machine hoping to get on top of the highscore lists. Now 22 years later we still get a raised heartbeat when we hear the name of THE game…

In this game you take control of J-Bird, whatever this abbreviation may mean. The goal is to change all tiles on a pyramid to appropriate ones. To do this you must jump onto them while avoiding enemies.

Galaxian is a clone of the world famous Space Invaders and that pretty much explaines what the game is all about. You have to wipe out wave after wave of alien invaders to score points. The higher in the swarm the alien is , the more points you earn. The aliens make it harder on you by dropping bombs and using suicide attacks on you. They don't advance on you as they do in Space Invaders, but the constant shooting and the surprise attacks keep the tension pretty high.

Remember how in the 60s there were all sorts of bad horror films where they had the brides of the monsters and the half divorced nearly widowed spouses... Well, it's a recipe they wanted to use with Pac-Man too. One of the first clones of the game Ms. Pac-Man.