Undeadline (MD) - We had a shmup of the month thread going with this one and back then I found it very hard bordering on unplayble, the MSX original wasn't easy either but IMO more accessible and the screen feels less crowded. Now that I've been playing the MD version for a while, it grew on me and I can't get enough. The game is really merciless, if you lose a life it's back to the very beginning of the level again, there are treasure chests that give you extra weapons but also deadly poisons or strip you of all your powerups, and don't get me started on the mid- and level-bosses. You get showered with tons of enemies, thorough memorisation is key to advance, as is lots of practise, at least for me, gonna play this one for a while longer.
That said, it's an awesome game with very well thought-out level design and gameplay. It took me a while to tune in to the weapon system in the MD version, some weapons that work for me on MSX do not on MD and vice versa, it's important to experiment a lot, the right choice of weapon makes tricky parts more doable.
Robocop vs. The Terminator (MD) - Great mindless fun, it's like all the late 80s and early 90s action platformer Robocop games rolled into one, it has the gore, the humour, excellent playability and great visuals and sound, it's an awesome package for those who like a bit of pixel carnage every now and then. It's fun, that's what counts for me, to a point where I don't even care about its unforgiving difficulty in later levels, luckily the early levels are quite easy so you can get a few extra men before the going gets tough. Awesome game overall from the late MD era.
Space Dungeon (Atari 5200 emu) - A Robotron-style shooter where you move from room to room, collect treasure, kill tons of weird and wonderful enemies and cash in your findings for a grand result. Doesn't look like much but is just awesome to play, I'm a sucker for dual-stick shooters and this one does not disappoint, it's fast, flashy and fun, good stuff for some half an hour of intense blasting. The 5200 version is the only official console port of this early 80s Taito game in existence, which I always found strange because it's a really good game that would have deserved way more attention from gamers. If you like Robotron, you gonna love Space Dungeon.
Robotron 2084 (Atari 5200 emu) - Certainly not the best version of the game but strangely addictive, most elements of the arcade game are there, controls are flawless and the sound is spot-on. Player and enemy sprites are much larger than in the arcade game which makes the game feel claustrophobic at times but it's not a problem, just makes things extra challenging. Movement isn't as smooth as in the real thing, it feels a lil' rough around the edges. Speaking of challenge, the game has six difficulty modes where 0 is for after-work relaxashun and 5 is gonna beat yer balls with a baseball bat. I'm playing on 3 at the moment, tried 5 but couldn't get past some lame 15k-ish pts.
