| THEXDER |
 
Thexder, known as テグザー, Teguzā in Japan, is a Japanese run-and-gun game, created by Game Arts, released for the NEC PC-8801 in 1985 in Japan, and ported to many systems including the Nintendo Famicom, MSX Home Computer (Japan), Apple II, Tandy CoCo, and of course, the IBM PC which we see here (which the Wikipeidia oddly singles out the Tandy 1000 which is my preferred vintage PC for this one).
In Thexder, you control a Fighter Robot, often referred to by some as a "Gundam", that flies around in various Metroid-like spaces shooting at various enemies for high score. Thexer was imported by Origin Systems and thusly was one of those games that has full supoprt on the Tandy 1000. It was available starting in 1988 for DOS and has been ported even more ever since.Holy Mobile Suit Gundam! - My Experiences This was another game I found digging around for Tandy 1000 specific DOS titles, and this one caught my eye because it looked like something Nintendo-esque to play on the Tandy. I kind of consider the Tandy 1000 IBM Compatibles to be a bit of a link between my NES interest and my PC interest. Turns out this game was released on the Nintendo Family Computer in 1986 or 1987 and so there's a link between the two I was not expecting. Makes sense, it's a side scrolling game where you basically play a "Mobile Suit Gundam.....okay.....a little bit on why I keep referencing that... So let's go back to 2001, the day I got Creeping Net 2 from my old room mate. Me, the rhythm guitarist, and my room mate plus our bassist were all hanging around the bassist's apartment that afternoon during rehearal and at some point Cartoon Network was on and started advertising what sounded like the most asanine cartoon ever - fast talking guy "FULL BODY MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM! something high powered attack robot masters with nuclear powerflux whatevers into something somesuch FULL BODY MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM!! something something lazers, cats, flying equipment something "FULL BODY MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM!!!".....just then the ol' room mate walks on by, ever the one to make a snarky joke of something that sounds perverted...."What did he say? Full Body Supersuit Condom?" - man we just fell about the place laughing....anyway back on to my experiences, that's why I use that word a lot here, because Gundam sounds funny to American people because it sounds like you're talking about wrapping yourself up in a man-sized latex ballon! But it really just means a big fighting robot - and big fighting robots are awesome. Anyway, I've had this one for awhile but not posted it up here because I don't play it too often, but it's a great game (even though I'm lousy at it). This is one of the games that inspired me to design and maybe make a Tandy 1000 analog gamepad of my own design.Videos
#DOScember 2023 - Let's Play Thexder (on actual hardware, Tandy 1000A)
#SepTandy 2022 - a bunch of games (thexder is one of them) |
