ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES

Mega Drive Pal | 1994

A cartoon style high action platformer from Konami.

The central character is Sparkster. One day an army of pigs invades his town and captures the princess. Sparkster embarks on a mission to rid his land of the oinks and rescue the princess. The story suggests a game like Mario however this is not the case.

The game play if full of variations. You are armed with a sword for making bacon out the enemies and a rocket pack yielding stages where Sparkster takes flight shooting down enemies and later on giant robot boxing.

The game has the typical Konami style to it and sports some great graphics and sounds. All over a great Mega Drive (or 16-Bit) title if even if it was a little forgotten.

Rocket Knight Adventures was released on the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo with a sequel Sparkster released later.

THUNDERHAWK

Mega CD Pal | 1994

Core Design’s infamous Mega CD benchmark title. Thunder Hawk is a helicopter combat simm with intense mission based action.

Thunder Hawk was part of a handful of games that demonstrated the correct usage of the power that the Mega CD had. Instead of the usual crappy FMV style of game synonymous with the machine this game showed that the machine showed be used for games and not film. The result - a game with visuals easily making it one of the best of the 16-Bit era with brilliant game play to match.

There are a total of 10 campaigns each having between 2 and 8 missions each. Each campaign takes place in a different location in the world from Bio Research in Alaska to Piracy in the Chinese Seas.

Thunder Hawk was updated for Saturn, Playstation and PC in 1997 under the name Firestorm. Thunder Hawk is again to receive an update which is due for release on the X Box and possibly other platforms later this year.

SPACE HARRIER - SEGA AGES VOL 1

Saturn Pal | 1997

Space Harrier is unarguably one of Sega’s most famous games ever. At the time of it’s debut in 1986 the game showcased the Sprite Scaling Technology of Sega’s System 16 Arcade board which was also the platform for other classics such as After Burner and Out Run. The man behind all of these games is Yu Suzuki.

Set in the space year 2567 Space Harrier must save Dragon Land from the army of the demon Absymbel.

The game play pretty simple; basically shoot and dodge. You run or fly across the chequered floor shooting down enemies with your laser cannon avoiding incoming fire and sometime (even more difficult) evading pylons and trees. To play Space Harrier to the end requires ultra fast reactions.

Check out the Space Harrier feature.