Games That Push the Limits of the Apple II

Prince of Persia on this computer is actually incredible

The school I went to, for 2nd Grade, still had some Apple II computers. This was in 1995.

One thing worth noting about the Apple ][ is that it had an analog joystick with two buttons. It was designed before the Atari VCS - before the 8 way digital joystick with one fire button became standard. Back then, practically all home videogames were Pong or similar. So the natural game control for the Apple ][ was two analog paddles with one fire button each. The joystick? The joystick just mashes the two into one controller - two buttons and two analog control axes. The two buttons were useful for a lot of things, like in Lode Runner where you can instantly dig in either direction. The analog control made fine control of stuff possible, which was particularly notable for Wings of Fury (compared to ports that were controlled by digital joystick). The controls in the original Choplifter were less fidgety than the ports.

It was an interesting machine. Showing the monochrome against the colour screen finally got it to click in my head how our monochrome monitor showed patterns when a colour monitor automatically displayed colour. It’s a shame they didn’t just plug into the telly. We had a few games. Hadron was my favourite but I had no idea what was going on. Fortunately, us kids got a Speccy to play on. My dad bought a Europlus to write a book. The word processor came on its own hardware board with its own monitor cable. Another board drove an electric typewriter that typed the pages out by itself! Amazing stuff for 1980. It must have cost a fortune. Dad bought a Mac 512 a few years later to self publish his works as no publisher would pick it up. It cost the same as a small car. Think mum would have preferred the money spent on a better car car as at the time we had a soggy old Chrysler 180 with rust so bad we kids could poke our fingers through its front wings. Fortunately, she got got her wish as the book became an A Level reading text and we got a brand new Sierra in the late 80s (a superb upgrade from the intermediary Metro after the Chrysler collapsed in a heap).

The Apple IIe was essentially what I grew up with. All our schools had them exclusively, so each week at "computer lab", that was what we used. Lots of fond memories there.

"Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior With A Name Change" Not the most obscure game premise from the 1980s...

For me the Apple ][ feels pretty similar to the BBC computers - albeit with fewer graphics modes. But there's something about it (probably relying on mostly stock chips) that just gives it that utilitarian, for-school feel. Great machine, and a lot of potential with the card slots. It's also amazing that Apple gave out schematics and even the source code to the ROM with the computer. How things change.

I would have included Air Heart, which had some of the smoothest action I recall seeing on the platform.

For someone not familiar with the Apple II, you did a good job. The only serious omission I'd like to mention is not covering "Airheart", also by Dan Gorlin, and is an incredibly fast double-hi-res game.

I remember being pretty blown away by Prince of Persia back in the 80s

I had quite a collection of Apple II games as a kid, and while I can't really tell which ones "pushed the limits", a few come to mind: Karateka: like a much earlier Prince of Persia Neptune & Zenith: both programmed by NASIR!! Robot Odyssey: One of the hardest games ever made, you literally use circuit logic to program your own robots. And, not so much limit-pushers but some of my all-around faves: Conan, Chrono Warrior, and Captain Goodnight.

By far, by light years the best game I ever played on an Apple IIe was Ultima IV, and V also I suppose. Those two were masterpieces, and don't get nearly as much credit today as they deserve. They were so, so ahead of their time, it was like an Elder Scrolls or Baldur's Gate game, so much better than anything else for a long time.

I'm British and 41. I only heard about the Apple 2 when I read about the history of Apple about ten years ago. I didn't know anyone who owned one and no one at school ever mentioned them. We all had Spectrums, C64s and Amstrads, one kid had an Atari 400.

The Apple II was great, it was the first computer I remember playing games on.. But you can't forget Lode Runner, that was a true iconic game originally released for the Apple II :) And Gemstone Warrior, that was an early action rpg which I enjoyed far more than the turn based rpgs of the time.

It's true the Apple II wasn't a big thing here in the UK, but as it turned out, it was the very first computer I ever used. Our school got lucky, and won one in a competition (around 1982). It was the only computer in the entire school. Many lunch-hours were spent fighting over it - and the Logo Turtle - with my classmates.

The apple 2 is probably the oldest home platform that could do more complex long action adventure games with graphics.

When I was in grade school, the computer lab there had long since been filled with a few of every model of Apple II. At home we had an Amiga 500 and I used to wonder why these Apple machines had such awful graphics, not realizing at the time that it was hardware from 1977. There was an undeniable charm to them though, they're where I first learned proper typing technique and a little bit of BASIC. Didn't have any inclination to learn stuff like that at home on the Amiga, I was more busy playing Lemmings and Great Giana Sisters.

Where can I get "underpants of the wizard"?!? I need it!!! 😉

The BBC model B is probably the British equivalent.

Underrated system that gave us some of THE best educational games: Lemonade Stand, Oregon Trail, Odell Lake, Number Munchers, the Carmen Sandiego games and more. It also gave us some of the best RPGs as well: Champions of Krynn, Deathlord, Dragon Wars, the Might and Magic games, Phantasie, The Ultima games, Wasteland, the Wizardry games .. and more. It also gave us the very first Prince of Persia game.