Zarch

1987

"Zarch" was written in three months in 1987 by David Braben as a launch title on Acorn's Archimedes series of computers. Another game, "Lander" was bundled with the machine, which used a cut down version of the landscape from Zarch as a demonstration of the machine's power. It became synonymous with the Archimedes, since it was featured in almost every review of the machine, and is apparently still the best selling title of all time on the Archimedes. The game consisted of a weird craft flying over a rolling patchwork quilt landscape, and many other games since (Zeewolf etc) have copied this technique.

Zarch was exceedingly well reviewed at the time, as most other games were either 2D platformers, or wire-frame 3D - hence the now seemingly amazing tag line on the cover of ACE magazine (now Edge) SOLID 3D - the future of games? Zarch was reviewed with a score of 979 - the highest rating ACE had given at that time (and only subsequently bettered by Virus at 981)