Battle of the Ports

[Protocol Penguin]

I'm amazed we've had so many Pacman games tbh. I thought the game was rubbish from day one and never liked any of them. But I still remember how super impressed I was with the GFX in Pacmania on the Master system and more so on my schools Acorn Archimedes.

I’cd never grasped how to play the traditional Pac-Man games properly. Apparently it’s all about using your movements to manipulate the movement of the ghosts, but I’ve never caught on how to play it strategically, rather than as a twitch-based game of reactions. Bit like chess really. Pac-Mania was my favourite as a child due to the pretty graphics, very nice for their time, and it making more sense from a gameplay perspective at that age.

[Yakumo]

I'm amazed we've had so many Pacman games tbh. I thought the game was rubbish from day one and never liked any of them. But I still remember how super impressed I was with the GFX in Pacmania on the Master system and more so on my schools Acorn Archimedes.

Same here. I was always impressed with pacmania's looks.

[Cepp]

I love pacman although I'm not very good at it and mostly play unofficial versions (pacman 8k & paku paku specifically).

It's surprising how Atarisoft messed up the controls on that DOS port (every port?). Travelling in a horizontal direction and pressing up or down before there's a path to do so makes Ms Pacman reverse course which is frustrating when you're being chased by a ghost and press the arrow key too early. It's a basic thing and not something the 2600 port suffers from.

[DeathAdder]

The only Pacman game I can really have fun with nowadays in Pacman arrangement, which was on the GBA Pacman collection. None of the other traditional maze chase games of his do it for me at all.

That said, the Phillips Videopac had a brilliant Pacman game. There were only twelve pills - two regular and one power pill in each corner, if I remember rightly, but it had a level editor, which was amazing. Has any Pacman game since then ever had one? If not, I wonder why.

[Yakumo]

Before the Neo Geo SNK were still making many great arcade games. Beast Busters is one of them. Released just 1 year the Neo Geo was released, this game features the SNK scaling sprites trademark. Sadly this was only ever ported top two systems. Let's check them out.

[Leon Retro]

Beast Busters is one of them.

I thought you'd like the Amiga port. The graphics are quite impressive, with a decent amount of detail. It's just a shame the dev didn't manage to put music in. That spoils a lot of Amiga games.

[Yakumo]

A game loved by many for it's technical marvel but not for the gameplay. Strangely Shadow of the Beast was ported to many systems. Let's check them out.

[Kotatsu Neko]

A game loved by many for it's technical marvel but not for the gameplay. Strangely Shadow of the Beast was ported to many systems. Let's check them out.

Beast 1 was all over the place. Beast 2 less so. Unknown to most is that ports to the MD and SNES were actually in the works for Beast 3, which were being worked on by Reflections in conjunction with a now long defunct port house. Reflections were supplying the art, the port house was coding. It was playable and looking much prettier than the Amiga version, but it was cancelled due to the main programmer (and company owner) eloping to America with his girlfriend and leaving the company (which was based in Newcastle, like Reflections) defunct.

[DeathAdder]

My local has the Lynx version of this, quite highly priced, but I think I'll stick with Blue Lightning as my "technically impressive but not much fun to play" game on ghe system.

[samanosuke]

My local has the Lynx version of this, quite highly priced, but I think I'll stick with Blue Lightning as my "technically impressive but not much fun to play" game on ghe system.

Sums up most of the Lynx library, apart from Desert Strike which resembles the 16-bit version and plays just as well.

Edit: you can get brand new sealed copies of Beast for around £20 on eBay.

[DeathAdder]

Many of the Lynx games still hold up very well today.

[Leon Retro]

My local has the Lynx version of this, quite highly priced, but I think I'll stick with Blue Lightning as my "technically impressive but not much fun to play" game on ghe system.

Shadow of the Beast on the Lynx is my favourite version of the game. I really like the new effects and how it plays. I'd say it's definitely worth owning. It looks really nice on a tiny screen.

Although, Rygar and Toki are much more fun overall. They're easily 'must-haves' for the system.

I have a modded Lynx II with a new screen, so I'm not sure how games look on the original screen. I guess it's just a case of having a darker, blurrier image.

[ZipZap]

A game loved by many for it's technical marvel but not for the gameplay. Strangely Shadow of the Beast was ported to many systems. Let's check them out.

The C64 version was actually made by DMA Design (like the PC Engine). Good port of a not so good game!

[Yakumo]

The C64 version was actually made by DMA Design (like the PC Engine). Good port of a not so good game!

Ah, that explains why it's better than other ports.

[Yakumo]

The original Ghostbusters was a great move. I was 10 years old when it came out. I actually saw it at the cinema back then. Then came the cartoon show, The Real Ghostbusters. I loved the first season of that too. Then came the game. Well, to those who lived in the US. In the UK it was quite a rare cabinet and in Japan it wasn't even known as a Ghostbusters game. Funnily enough the game got a few ports. Let's check them out.