Crossbow started life as an arcade game developed by Exidy in 1983. In 1987, it was ported to a number of platforms including the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari XE, Commodore 64, Apple II and DOS. The ad above is by Absolute who handled the Commodore 64, Apple II and DOS versions.
The arcade version of Crossbow is a light gun game in which you are responsible for protecting a party of adventurers. The light gun in this case takes the form of a full size crossbow. The adventurers walk from the left hand side of the screen to the right and you have to protect them from various enemies and obstacles. The adventurers that survive the trip get to go on to the next location. You have to be careful not to shoot any of your friends because you can hurt and kill them.
The disadvantage of the computer ports done by Absolute for the Commodore 64, Apple II and DOS is that they do not support a light gun. Instead, you control a crosshair with a joystick in order to aim. Despite this disadvantage, the conversions are fairly good and if you liked the arcade original then you would probably like these. I'm not sure why light gun support was not included. Light guns were not popular on home computers though I know they were technically feasible as there were a couple available for the Commodore 64.
Being a Commodore 64 fan, that version is my favorite. However, I would also recommend the Atari 7800 version for the best combination of good graphics and light gun support. You'll have to play on a real 7800 with a CRT TV though for that to matter. I
This is a good example of an early light gun game and a nice change of pace from more modern rapid fire light gun games you see today. I think this game would make a good candidate for an update. A company called Mean Hamster released an iPhone version of the game. They were apparently planning a Windows version of Crossbow before going out of business.
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