Dive right in

Customise your submarine and do battle under the waves in side-scrolling remake

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THE early Eighties to the mid Nineties was an absolute golden age for fans of side-scrolling games.

Sega's 1977 game Bomber was the first to make the leap from flip-screen graphics to scrolling ones, proving a pivotal leap in game design and revolutionising arcade machines.

It was a few years before the format really took hold, with the first genres to really popularise the style being shoot 'em ups and beat 'em ups.

Thanks to side-scrollers we got 1981's Defender, 1984's Pac-Land, 1985's Gradius, 1987's Double Dragon, and even games like 1985's Super Mario Bros and 1991's Sonic the Hedgehog.

When you think back to that era, of all the titles ripe for a remake 1989's X-Out doesn't spring straight to mind.

First released on the Commodore 64, then the Amiga in 1990, X-Out (pronounced Cross Out) did offer players something different to your standard horizontal, scrolling shooter.