Children of the 1980s will remember Battle Chess, that retro game that brought chess pieces to life.
Swedish artist Junkboy likes vintage games, too … so much so that he’s created contemporary art that’s almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Scroll through these artworks and see if you can tell which is which; we’ll let you know how well you did at the very end.
So we’ve come to the end. Think this street battle looks old-school? It’s not. It’s by Junkboy … and it’s his homage to the John Carpenter film They Live.
Before you learn how you did, we’d like to thank Junkboy for graciously allowing us to use his images, and the Amiga Graphics Archive for its help in finding terrific screen grabs from real, vintage Amiga games.
So!
How well did you do?
1. Leatherneck was a real video game. (Image credit: Microdeal via the Amiga Graphics Archive.)
2. Obey is a Junkboy original.
3. After Burner was a real video game. (Image credit: Sega via the Amiga Graphics Archive.)
4. This 80s-looking Batman scene was actually done by Junkboy. It’s a “demake” of the 2009 video game Batman: Arkham Asylum.
5. Barbarian was a real video game. (Image credit: Psygnosis via the Amiga Graphics Archive.)
6. Junkboy strikes again!
7. Ditto! That’s a “demake” of the DoubleFine game Brutal Legend.
8. That’s a screen grab from Jinxter, a text-based point-and-click game released in 1987. (Image credit: Rainbird via the Amiga Graphics Archive)
9. A screen grab from Agony, released in 1992. (Image credit: Psygnosis via the Amiga Graphics Archive)
10. This is a Junkboy demake of the 2008 game Dead Space.
11. This is a Junkboy demake of Starcraft.
12. A screen grab from the 1988 adventure game Fish! (Image credit: Rainbird via the Amiga Graphics Archive)
13. This is a Junkboy tribute to the Halo universe.
14. This is another screen shot from Agony.
15. A Junkboy tribute to Mirror’s Edge.
16. A screen shot from the 1992 game version of Alien 3. (Image: Probe Software via the Amiga Graphics Archive)
17. Another screen shot from Barbarian
18. A screen shot from Exile, a 1988 video game. (Image: Superior Software via the Amiga Graphics Archive)
19. A screen shot from Shufflepuck Cafe, a 1989 video game. (Image: Broderbund Software via the Amiga Graphics Archive)
20. A screen shot from Infestation, a 1988 video game. (Image: Psygnosis Software via the Amiga Graphics Archive)
21. Junkboy’s homage to Red Dead Redemption.
22. Junkboy’s homage to the John Carpenter film They Live.
Leslie Gornstein is a senior editor with CBS Interactive. For the past two decades, she's covered consumer and B-to-B tech; biotech; entertainment and various other subjects that seemed interesting at the time. She's the author of The A-List Playbook (Skyhorse) and she lives in Los Angeles.
