After noticing the Quarter Guy's Arcade Retrospective on Pac-Man, something really frustrated me. Has anyone recalled a video game but can't quite fit the pieces together and identify it? Well...this has bothered me for years, if not decades! There are several I'll try to describe, those that were still unlucky to be figured out. I desperately hope ANYONE can verify these hidden gems from my mind:
1. There was this side-scrolling game in which you take control of a white shooting spaceship. I don't know the name nor console, but it seemed black and white, or perhaps the tv was. The only memory I had was the ship can move left or right when you want it to and keep going until you change direction, aside from ascending/descending diagonally. The level was in a city with the tall, white buildings on the water, like in NY, and the vessel can either be flown in the air or submerge in water w/o taking damage. Plus, there was an ominous 8-bit tune to it...
2. Another black and white game, probably from the same system as the first; only this one was a part of a bunch of minigames. One of them was a game in which you take control of two frogs on lily pads at a pond and get points for every fly they catch; there may have been a time limit, though. With every game selected, the screen goes black showing the word of the game itself. I can't recall the frog minigame nor the actual game it belonged to.
3. I may have mentioned this before, so here I might go again: there was this 2d platformer in which you play as a pink bird of sorts that jumps and shoots darts. While the time limit may not be displayed, I remembered it pressuring me when the words "Hurry up!" appeared at the bottom of the screen, then seeing a spider, and the music changed. One boss I can recollect from it is a small sperm whale which swallowed the bird, enabling to shoot the inside while avoiding drips of water, then eventually falling apart. And when the level's complete, the end changes to a cuckoo clock, I think. Probably an NES or Genesis game...
4. There was this NES game in which you use the pistol to shoot the screen with, while also being a platformer. I can only recollect the background when you jump on branches of an enormous tree with a dark indigo sky. And suddenly, at one point, the screen kept flashing white, and the enemies fell from the sky. I don't think it was GOTCHA! though.
5. There was this arcade cabinet that has this unusual platformer of sorts. I can only recall the sky being blue, probably a forest/cave background?, with some long platforms the player can jump on. I can also only remember that the player on the ground can get caught by one of those cartoony, white, round dust clouds in which a brawl of sorts take place.
6. Speaking of which, there was another arcade cabinet game, but it was like a 1d racer. First, there was a small green screen to the top right setting up brown blocks/obstacles for a course, though they looked like pieces of brown manure to me. Then, it was just a brown racetrack that goes around, and the track itself was structured on a 1d background.
7. There was the PC game in which you use your cursor to select items. Like a trial-and-error thing. One of the levels was inside a castle of sorts. And the room had a series of levers. If the right one's chosen, the elliptical door opens to the right. But if it's wrong, a scary red demon appears and claims the player's life. I mentioned this in one of the Missing Episodes of Sleepy Hollow, as well. It ain't Shadowgate; that's different.
8. Another PC game in a sense. It started with a very creepy theme song, like a 8-bit. It might've been Overlord, but I think it's wrong. It IS, however, a space game where you're in the cockpit, and the screen had a large, flaming line that descended across from you. Then, there was another ominous tune where you lost, and there was this large being that almost had a face of a lion, with bright yellow flaming hair, and eerie eyes looking over the world. Man, did it scare me at times, probably a 90s game.
I think that's it for the moment. They're all like 80s-90s games that seem so archaic and vague... I hope someone would help me identify these missing links. And maybe I can help others as well. I hope someone would guess them right here via comments.