Atari emulator --> Shamus

That's odd!  I seem to recall this being a Synapse game, and having it before 1986... in red cartridge form, no less!  Bet that'd be worth something today.  I was more easily impressed back then.  A cartridge from a company other than the company store, and with no safety valve on it!  Just the bare ROM sticking out all pink and naked.  Anyway, this was a fun one for me.  I took it way too seriously back then.  Now William Mataga's a transgender chick, and I grow weary of the unfairness of it all.  I can't dodge that many bullets the enemy hurls at me!  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

Update: Shamus lives on, reincarnated in iTunes form!  Read more about it at junglevision.com, the online home of all things Mataga.

1/28/16 - Now I'm one of these people who would live their lives completely the same over and over again if I had to, and I probably don't.  But I do consider it one of the great failings of my life that I consistently chose level 0 Novice of play over level 9 Expert in Peter Fokos' 1982 classic, Alien Ambush William Mataga's 1982-1986 Synapse Software classic, Shamus.  I mean, level 9's Expert's hard!  It's hard work!  And plus, you keep getting blowed up and all that!  I just HATE that!  So I'm trying to make up for lost time by playing level 9 Expert now...actually, the Expert level goes way way way way WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too fast for mine, or anybody's, sake.  Maybe Kang and Kodos can process information that fast, but not me. Plus, the keyboard would probably wear out, using it that fast.
Now that I briefly pause and think about it a little (rare for a blogger), the enemies in Shamus get kinda Richard-ish, don't they?  They usually fire three bullets at you, one at your head, one at your feet, and one at your torso, giving you just enough time to slowly walk out of the bullets' way.  Better use one of your large pink shivs fairly accurately to save yourself!  And don't even set me gtarted on those Snap Jumpers!  See, for all you kids out there unfamiliar with the lost art of Atari 8-bit fonts, you'd have to... ah, skip it.  But tis the rare programmer indeed who'd incorporate that fact into the game play in such a manner.  Give em hell, Mataga!

7/16/'19 - Even though it's a Commodore 64-based page, I'm going to include a hyperlink to the game map of Shamus.  The ORIGINAL, not the cute-ified Nineteen-Hundred and Tendo Game Boy version, mind you.  127 rooms!  Why does THAT number seem familiar?  Tee hee hee