Everyone will be aware of Asteroids, one of the earliest wire-frame vector graphics games released in the arcades, and for many their first taste of gaming…

I've covered a few BBC arcade conversions on the retroGamer site, so won't repeat what I've aleady said about the early days of home conversions and some of the liberties taken by developers like Acornsoft…

I seem to start a lot of reviews by stating that us Spectrum owners were hard done by…

One of my favourite early arcade games, Time Pilot, featured a lone ship, at the centre of the screen, with an approximation of 360 degree movement around the playfield…

This is one of the many quality arcade conversions that Acornsoft created for the BBC Micro, being a very faithful example of Pac Man…

The BBC Micro was touted as an educational tool, if you believe Fred Harris, and most of us growing up in the 80's will have used one at school, either doing some rudimentary programming, or playing with maths tools such as "Turtle"…

The recent celebrations over the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin moonwalking for real have, for the first time in my life, left me with an aching desire to become an astronaut and set foot on the surface of that very moon…

A hapless surface dweller seeks to escape from a network of drains, struggling to evade a trio of monstrous nasties, as well as fireballs and gloops of water…

When I first saw Revs I was overcome with one emotion… jealousy! What a fantastic game, and it still looks good when played with modern eyes…

There have been many controversial and un-politically correct releases throughout the history of gaming, but MRM’s Nutter must rank high among the earliest and most un-PC games of all time…

Back before the word Frak! became a swear on Battlestar Galactica, it was a 1986 platform game on the BBC Micro…

Comprehensive schools used to be dangerous places for people like me…

NASA: pioneers of intergalactic exploration, masters of the stars and the last hope of Star Trek fans hoping that alien warp-drives are discovered on one their expeditions so we can all wax our heads and fly around the universe shouting ‘engage!’ from oversized armchairs…

After Elite (and I suppose Granny’s Garden ) probably the most well known game on the BBC is Tim Tyler’s Repton and its many sequels…

In this excellent platformer you are cast as a brainy professor that is trapped in a network of caves – so obviously not that brainy! To escape you must negotiate the platforms, collect all of the horseshoes and then touch a large owl to complete the level…

Citadel is an arcade adventure game spanning over 100 screens filled with items to collect, puzzles to solve and enemies to avoid…

In this thoroughly silly game you take on the role of Dennis who has just been employed as a stuntman, and has to complete a number of stunt-packed levels to earn his wages…

Acornsoft was legendary for a collection of near-perfect unofficial arcade conversions, but the company also released some interesting original arcade-style games, of which Tetrapod was one of the best…

If you’ve ever read about the making of Robotron: 2084 you’ll know that it’s creator Eugene Jarvis was heavily inspired by Stern’s 1980 arcade game Berzerk…

This unique shooter was an early offering from Chris Butler, who went on to create several great arcade conversions on the C64 (including Ghosts N Goblins and Commando) and develop for the Amiga and Playstation…

Probably the most successful export from the BBC after Elite, Thrust was ported to all of the other 8-bit computers of the time and has even had homebrew versions released on the Atari 2600 and Vectrex in recent years! The simple premise of the game – collect an orb with your spacecraft on each level and escape into the atmosphere – was matched by equally simple graphics and audio, leaving the finely-honed gameplay and increasing challenge of successive levels to keep the player enthralled…

You’d be forgiven for thinking Imogen began life on the ZX Spectrum upon seeing the high-res monochrome graphics, but it certainly originated on the Beeb and as far as I’m aware it never made it to another system until Ovine’s PC remake some 20 years later…

One of the all-time classic platform games, especially on the Beeb, Chuckie Egg sees you play the role of a yellow dude in a big yellow hat who has to traverse a number of levels consisting of platforms, ladders and lifts…

Once upon a time, before lawsuits and copyright infringement became common practice, if a good videogame came along, coders would simply copy it for themselves…

One thing I’ve learnt from watching the excellent House MD is that people lie…