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French Computer Games

This is an alphabetical listing of stylish, unique and artistic French computer games that were released in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Only French computer games that were released in English-speaking countries are listed. In addition, only computer games that originated in France and that were designed and developed by French software studios are listed. For example, Pang of 1990 on Amiga stands as a brilliant coinop port by Ocean of France, but Pang is of Japanese origin; it is not a French game. Thus, Pang is not listed but French clones thereof would be, if such existed. Thus far, 22 genuinely French computer games have been covered by my commentary.

In case some readers think I have overlooked them, please note that Unreal of 1990 and Agony of 1992 are Belgian computer games, not French.

In the late 80s and early 90s French computer games were notable for their artistry, cinematics and atmosphere. British and American gamers of this time period deemed French computer games to be stunning in terms of presentation and unique in terms of mechanics, but also, at times, distinctly foreign and strange -- almost alien.

On C64 and Amiga, one can only imagine the kind of computer games that could have resulted from combining French innovation and aesthetics with German compositions and technical prowess, but the inferior Amstrad CPC and Atari ST were more popular in France.

It could be considered a tragedy that the Atari ST was more popular than the Amiga in France; in fact, it was a tragedy. Afterall, the Amiga was the computer of choice for artists, animators and graphicians, not the ST. In addition, Amiga game audio was far superior to ST game audio; in games, the Amiga was simply superior across the board, period. Even the fact that you could cram more data onto diskettes sets the Amiga apart from the ST, to say nothing of the Amiga's custom chips. When harnessed by top-level coders the Amiga featured an infinite color palette range in comparison to the ST, infinite.

Imagine what French computer games would have looked like and sounded like if they were not hamstrung by the ST's feeble, off-the-shelf hardware.

In the late 80s and early 90s many French software studios focused on innovation, aesthetics and cinematics at the expense of raw and unadulterated gameplay, which was the province of the Germans and the British. Nonetheless, French software studios developed some of the best adventure games and some of the most memorable and visually-striking computer games of the late 80s and early 90s.

By a country mile, the most famous French software house of the late 80s and early 90s was Delphine Software.

Alone in the Dark IBM PC MS-DOS I-Motion Infogrames 1992 was unique.