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Home Computer Games of 1987

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
Tseng Labs released the ET3000 2D graphics card with 512K of vRAM
Roland released MT-32 MIDI Synthesizer / AdLib released AdLib Music 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

-- Computer Game History.

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.

At this point, let us remind ourselves of Amiga 1000 graphics of 1986, via Defender of the Crown:

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 640x400.
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 224x136 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 288x140 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 640x350 and featured a 608x345 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 320x256 and updated at 50 FPS -- with light-sourcing and shadow-casting. In terms of gameplay, graphics and physics Zarch is GOAT-level.