This is a curated list of PC games and other 8-bit and 16-bit computer games that came out in 1987. The computer games are listed in alphabetical order. I will expand on this list in the future.
The top half of the header image shows C64 games, the bottom half PC and ST/Amiga games.
Hardware and Software that Emerged in 1987
1987 was a truly historic year for computer games in that completely new computers, new computer models and new audiovisual hardware standards emerged in 1987. In the case of IBM PC hardware the new audiovisual standards would endure for almost one decade. Moreover, once cost-reduced and cloned they would usher in the dominance of the PC as a computer-game machine, which would first be suggested by the PC game catalogue of 1989.
- IBM released the IBM PS/2: i80386 DX clocked at 25 MHz (3½ MIPS)
- CBM released the Amiga 500/2000: M68K clocked at 7.xx MHz (1½ MIPS)
- Acorn released the Archimedes 300/400: ARM RISC clocked at 8 MHz (4½ MIPS)
- Motorola released the 68030 CPU (Amiga 1200 exp. & Falcon of 1992)
- IBM released the IBM PS/2 VGA Display Adapter & IBM 8514 VGA graphics card
- In September Tseng Labs released the ET3000 graphics card with 512K of vRAM
- IBM released 3.5″ 1.44 meg high-density disk drives (PS/2)
- In June AdLib released the AdLib Music Synthesizer
- In August Roland released the MT-32 MIDI Synthesizer
- Microsoft released Windows 2.0 & HIMEM.SYS memory manager
The Amiga 500 of 1987 would become the top-selling “16-bit” micro of the early 90s whereas 386DX VGA and AdLib/Roland would allow x86 PC DOS to match the Amiga in most genre by 1992 and eventually topple the Amiga in almost all genre by 1994.
Those who owned an Amiga or an Archimedes in 1987 were living in the future by half a decade pretty much across the board. Examples include:
- Preemptive multi-tasking GUI OS
- Multimedia & Genlocking
- Audiovisuals
- Hardware mouse cursor
- Plug n play & ease-of-use
Blitzing the field in 1987 the Commodore 64 hosted half a dozen historically significant games whereas the Atari ST hosted four, the IBM PC two and the Amiga and Archimedes just one each. The C64 hosted the highest quantity of innovative games in 1987, followed by the ST. The C64 was the strongest platform in 1987 in that no fewer than one dozen king-tier games came out on C64 first and were subsequently ported to 16-bit computers.
That said, in 1987 FTL made history by releasing two Killer Apps for the Atari ST; namely, Oids and Dungeon Master. Neither PC nor Amiga would ever officially get Oids. In addition, PC Dungeon Master was released five years after the original ST version. Oids and Dungeon Master garnered the most attention and praise, but FTL’s 1985 ST version of SunDog was impressive as well. At any rate, FTL were one of the best computer game developers in the world from 1985-1989; they were one of the first classy and professional 16-bit outfits whereas, for example, MicroProse employed the 8-bit C64 as lead from 1985-87.
Remember that, as it pertains to games, the Amiga’s custom chips only began to shine through in 1988. It was ST, PC and C64 market penetration that slowed down the Amiga-driven advance of computer-game audiovisuals. Make no mistake, the likes of Oids, DM, Pirates, Maniac Mansion and PSF could have been much better had they been developed for the Amiga as lead platform. On top of that, the Amiga did not ever get ports of Gauntlet, Xevious or Uridium — legendary games for which the Amiga was perfectly suited — and yet the ST of 1987 got such ports but did not do the originals justice. Moreover, one dozen notable C64 shooters of 1987 would never see the light of day on the Amiga, but the C64 most certainly did those justice.
The Atari ST got a foothold in the market because it was cheaper than the Amiga 1000 of 1985; not only that but, in 1987, the 520 ST did general-purpose stuff as good as if not better than the Amiga 500, which was released in May of 1987. While not being able to hold a candle to Agnus, Denise and Paula of the Amiga, the hires display and vivid colors of the ST nevertheless looked much better than 8-bit graphics in advertisement screenshots, but the reality — which could not be conveyed in print media — was that C64 VIC-II was better than the ST at scrolling screens and shifting sprites, and C64 SID outputted better audio than the ST’s Yamaha YM2149. Thus would one be positively duped if one shelved their C64 for an ST in 1987; doubly so, since the ST game catalogue of 1985-87 paled in comparison to the C64 equivalent. Verily I say unto thee, any C64 gamer of 1985-88 that traded in their C64 for an ST would have facepalmed in disappointment when they realized their mistake. Indeed, as regards VIC-II and SID getting pushed to their limits the C64 had not yet hit its peak: both C64 and ST would peak in 1988; after which, the Amiga 500 ruled the roost.
It is worth noting that, on a technical level, Amiga 500 games peaked higher and higher year after year for the next seven or eight years. Custom chips, son. Custom chips. Jay Miner, son. Jay Miner.
The C64 was so strong in 1986-87 that it contended with ST/Amiga and PC in genre in which ST/Amiga and PC excelled; namely, adventure games and flight sims. The C64 was lead platform for both LucasFilm and MicroProse, two of the biggest and best developers on the planet from the early 80s to the mid 90s.
Amiga hardware was far more advanced than PC, ST and C64 hardware from 1985-1989, and yet the Archimedes was more advanced than the Amiga — and Zarch is proof.
David Braben’s Zarch on the Archimedes is inarguably the King computer game of 1987; nothing even comes close. One can only imagine how good this 3D Gravitar-like could have been if Acorn blessed the base-model Archimedes with 1 meg of RAM straight out of the blocks: don’t underestimate what king-coders could do in 1987 if they had as base-line double the RAM at their disposal. And one can only imagine the kind of games the Archimedes could have hosted had it enjoyed high levels of popularity over a several year period, like the ST and Amiga did. For example, a sequel to Zarch could have featured increased draw-depth, greater geometric complexity and just more of everything. As late in the game as 1995 even inferior Zarch-clones on the Amiga got sequels!
As for 2D games, the vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up dominated 1987. The C64 led the charge with no fewer than 20 notable shooters whereas ST/Amiga hosted half a dozen each, but the Amiga hosted no big-name coinop ports. Miraculously, even the Amstrad CPC hosted one notable shooter that scrolled and shifted sprites smoothly [1]. cf. Commodore 64 Shoot ’em ups.
1987 ST/Amiga shooters displayed more vividly than C64 shooters, but C64 shooters were superior in terms of gameplay, scrolling and sprite-shifting from 1985-1988. C64 shooters drew from a shooter-catalogue stemming back to 1982 whereas ST/Amiga shooters were only emerging in 1987.
In my estimation Steve Bak’s Goldrunner was the first ST/Amiga shooter that “nailed” what scrolling shooters are or should be on M68K micros; in essence, hires, vivid and light-weight C64-style super-scollers. But instead of raising that spartan style to its logical peak too many ST/Amiga developers released slow-scrolling shooters weighed down by articulated sprite animations, layers of parallax and general feature-bloat.
The Standouts of 1987
In my estimation the standout computer game releases of 1987 are as follows (alphabetical enumeration):
- MicroProse’s Airborne Ranger on C64 featured 8-way scrolling, height-mapped terrain, 360° firing and cover mechanics.
- Meinolf Schneider’s Bolo on Atari ST displayed in monochrome hires 640×400.
- Stephen Ruddy’s Bubble Bobble on C64 is one of the best coinop conversions of all-time.
- Dave Thomas’ Buggy Boy on C64 is another of the best coinop conversions of all-time.
- FTL’s Dungeon Master on Atari ST rapidly updated a first-person 224×136 active drawspace while scaling animated sprites. Dungeon Master would lead to 20x DM clones by 1993.
- David Joiner’s Faery Tale Adventure on Amiga featured 8-way scrolling of an open world that consisted of 17,000 drawspaces each of which were 288×140 pixels in size.
- Gilman Louie’s Falcon on PC/Mac became the most realistic flight sim of the late-80s.
- Steve Bak’s Goldrunner proved that Atari STs could super-scroll vertically.
- Armin Gessert’s Great Giana Sisters on C64 scrolled at 50 FPS. GGS proved that C64s were technically capable of matching console platformers of Japanese origin.
- subLOGIC’s Jet 2.0 on PC displayed in EGA 640×350 and featured a 608×345 render field.
- Andrew Green’s Krakout was the most playable block-breaker outside of the Arkanoid coinop.
- LucasFilm’s Maniac Mansion on C64 constitutes the origin of the SCUMM engine, which would be employed by the LucasFilm/Arts adventure-game catalogue of 1988-1995.
- Lankhor’s Mortville Manor on Atari ST employed sampled sounds and synthesized speech.
- Xanth FX’s MIDI Maze on Atari ST featured FPS deathmatch five years before Doom came out.
- Paul Shirley’s Mission Genocide scrolled smoothly on Amstrad CPC via CRTC.
- Dan Hewitt’s Oids on Atari ST was a king-tier Gravitar-like that featured an integrated construction kit.
- Sid Meier’s Pirates! on C64 simulated 17th century life and laid down the open-ended foundation for Sid Meier’s Civilization to expand upon.
- David Braben’s Zarch on Archimedes was a god-tier 3D Gravitar-like that displayed in 256-color 320×256 and updated at 50 FPS — with light-sourcing and shadow-casting. In terms of gameplay, graphics and physics Zarch is GOAT-level.
Computer Game Catalogues 1984-87
Let’s take a look at the most historically significant, technically advanced or absolute best that the C64, ST and Amiga game catalogues offered by 1987. I have not “padded-out” the ST/Amiga column just for the sake of listing as many ST/Amiga games as C64 games. Then again, I have been generous to ST/Amiga because most of the ST/Amiga games listed cannot hold a candle to most of the C64 games listed. That said, neither column is exhaustive, only illustrative. For the most part, the games are listed in alphabetical order with their year of release appended.
Thus, by 1987, and as it pertains to Western home computer games, C64 hosted the 10 best shoot ’em ups, the five best platform games, the two best block-breakers, the two best flight sims, the two best racing games, the two best graphics adventure games and the three best versus fighters. On the other hand, ST/Amiga hosted the two best cRPGs, the best Chess game and a few other historically significant games such as DotC, FSII and MIDI Maze.
Note also how nine of the above “ST/Amiga” games — of which ST/Amiga owners were proud — were also on C64 — and a few of them were better on C64. Then note how at least one dozen of the above C64 games would never appear on ST/Amiga. And then note how at least one dozen of the above C64 games that did appear on ST/Amiga (either in the same year or in years subsequent) were no better than the C64 equivalent (or were not even as good).
As for 1987 2D game graphics, Amiga led the field in static graphics (DotC is inarguable) but C64 VIC-II led in moving graphics, which means screen-scrolling and sprite-shifting. In games smoothly moving graphics are much more important and impressive than colorful static graphics. Thus, 2D C64 game graphics of 1985-87 > 2D ST, PC and Amiga game graphics of 1985-87.
The avergage person may be more impressed by colorful pictures, but REAL gamers know that precise controls and collision detection coupled with silky-smooth scrolling and sprite-shifting is where it’s at. And the C64 game catalogue of 1987 had that in spades whereas ST, PC and Amiga — even if combined — simply did not.
Inarguably, the Archimedes led in real-time 3D graphics via Zarch.
Of course, C64 SID led the field in 1987 game audio. Even if we acknowledge specifics such as CM2000 sampled speech and DM ambience, C64 still spear-headed game audio in 1987.
ST/Amiga led the way in GUI-based games via hardware mouse cursor and icon-driven interfaces.
Notably, C64 was contending with PC in both flight sims and graphics adventure games in 1987; genre the PC would decisively take over by 1989 and hold onto forevermore.
The Gunship manual for C64 was 83 pages in length (1986) and the Project Stealth Fighter manual for C64 was 88 pages in length (1987). On the other hand, the Jet 2.0 manual for PC was 40 pages (1987) and the FS2 manual for ST/Amiga was 130 pages (1986). Thus, contrary to popular belief, the C64 hosted complex simulations in 1986-87, not just arcade-action games.
However, it is important to note that C64 could only display flight sims in low-res 160×200 whereas ST/Amiga displayed them in medium-res 320×200 and PC could display them in hi-res EGA 640×350.
Above all, C64 blitzed the field in gameplay via shooters alone. In 1987 there was no line-up on ST, Amiga and PC (taken collectively) that could come close to matching the line-up of Delta, Dropzone, Gradius, Hunter’s Moon, Iridis Alpha, Paradroid, Sanxion, Uridium and Zynaps. Indeed, the C64 held the shooter-fort in that not even the 1990s Amiga could truly topple the C64 in shooters.
A “big-name game” is a game that was famous in the day and/or would become extremely famous in computer game history by way of raising the bar and/or leading to massive franchise or genre expansion. Note the amount of big-name games in the C64 column; there are one dozen “beginnings of things big” in the C64 column but only a few each in the ST/Amiga columns. This is understandable because ST/Amiga were still emerging in 1987.
In addition, note that ST/Amiga never received offical ports of classic shooter coinops such as the original Space Invaders and Defender. I did not list such 1982-83 C64 games.
[*] ST Xevious > C64 Xevious.
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