Cinemaware

In the 1980's video games were starting to leave the video arcades and come into the homes via game machines and computers. Cinemaware led the way. They took many old movie themes and made them into computer games. The ones that I was familier with were the 3 Stooges, King of Chicago (mob movies), and It Came From the Desert (Sci-Fi Monster movies)
My favorite was It Came From the Desert. My friend Chuck had a copy of it and every time I was at his home we played it. Chuck really loved his computer games. I got him into comic books and he got me into computer games. In the game there is a radiation accident that makes the ants of a small desert town 20 feet tall. The ants march into the town and take it and the people over. The game actually makes you feel like you are watching a 1950's horrer film. Land scams, love triangles and desert cults abound as you play.
Cinemaware was one of the more successful computer game makers of the 1980's. In an effort to make it more fun for the user they tried to add more features to the games. However, this took more time and started to cause the company to miss shipping dates. Add in that the older titles were starting to slow down in sales and you had the makings for failure. In 1991 Cinemaware filed bankruptcy. They were not heard from for along time. Then in 2003 they started to come back as Cinemaware Marquee. They started with a Robin Hood game and have been puting out updated versions of their old games and bring foreign titles to America. Their website is here.