Can you guide Brainache (otherwise known as Private Harry Jones) through the Stella mines to retrieve his mining equipment and the Anatese diamond and bring them back to the spaceship one at a time? It's going to be a perilous mission, since the mine is full of deadly plants and creatures. This is a dull game which only has one level. The graphics are poor and there is a lot of flicker, and the scrolling between screens is slow as well, but the worst thing about the game is that the mutated insects that you will encounter are very difficult to both shoot and avoid, and it's very frustrating indeed. The music on the menu is the only worthy aspect of this mediocre game.

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The name suggests that this game is going to seriously hurt your brain, and it will! There are 26 screens, each containing areas of different colours. A ball bounces around the screen, and you must manoeuvre three coloured lines using a cursor so that the ball is trapped in a red area of the screen, where you will score points. If the ball enters a purple area, however, you will lose points, and if it enters a green area, it will warp to another area of the screen. To go to the next screen, you must have more points than when you started the screen. It's frustrating at first, but if you're smart, you can easily find ways to trap the ball. I don't know what other people will think, but I love this game to bits!

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9

Based on the awesome 80s cartoon show of the same name, Bravestarr is a truly awesome game. The story goes that your master, Shaman, has been captured by the evil Tex Hex, and you must get him back. Apart from flying around on your hover-jet shooting bad guys, you can visit various locales, grill the regulars, learn clues to Tex Hex's whereabouts, and so on. The graphics are very colourful and detailed, the sound is excellent (there's even an attempt at the show's theme tune!), and the game is hugely fun, mixing several genres successfully. My only gripe is the game's length - it's very short (I finished it in around ten minutes!), but that doesn't matter because you'll play it again and again!

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9

Of the many Breakout clones I have played, this ranks as one of the worst. Twenty levels are there to be played, but after a few minutes of playing the second level, you'll switch off and play something else. It's that old favourite, the indestructible brick, and on the second level, the other bricks are enclosed inside three walls of them so that it's very difficult to reach them. In addition, the ball moves too slowly and the aliens that move about the screen get in the way. It would probably take hours to complete the second level! The graphics are terrible, too, and your bat is very difficult to see.

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3

Once you've seen this game, you'll reckon it is one of the worst CPC games ever - it certainly isn't the best! There's a walkway connecting two houses together, and you have to get as many of the little men as you can to walk from one house to the other by linking the walkways together at the right time. It is an extremely slow and boring game which is made all the worse by the terrible, irritating music (which mercifully can be switched off) and the horrible graphics.

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0

This is a football management game in which you are the manager of one of 16 teams competing in the British Super League, which consists of a mixture of teams from the English and Scottish leagues. It quickly becomes clear that it's yet another poor game from Cult. There are no graphics worthy of the name; in the match highlights, the players are represented by asterisks, and big black boxes flash on the screen to show where the ball is being passed to. There are no detailed statistics for each player, so you can't tell how good they are, and it's not possible to find out how good players from other teams are, either. It is actually written in machine code, but it gives the impression that it's written in BASIC, and as a result, it's best that you avoid it.

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3

Manny Lopez, leader of the Sharks, is going to fight against other gang bosses for the title of King of the Bronx. To help you in this task, you'll start each stage wearing armour and carrying different kinds of weapons. Bronx has big and colourful graphics, including a great loading screen, a good background story (that is, in the game inlay) and a sense of humour. Maybe you've seen some of your opponents before. Nevertheless the game is a bit slow, due to the size of the sprites, and once you manage to combine offensive and defensive moves, it's a bit too easy.

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6

Life in the Bronx district of New York must be tough with all the muggings, robberies and other crimes that occur each day. You're a new recruit and have to show the bosses that you're the meanest cop around. The game starts with target practice where you must achieve a certain score; if you do this, you can go on to the streets and shoot criminals - but don't shoot any grannies or you'll be disciplined! The graphics and sound are somewhat basic, and for that matter, so is the gameplay; the missions basically consist of more target practice, and the game is a bit too easy.

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5

Is there any need to introduce this game? Based upon the movies of the famous kung-fu actor, this early platform game is one of the funniest ever released on our computer. Technically, there is nothing amazing. The graphics are average and the sound effects are sufficient, no more. What makes the gameplay excellent is the design of the levels. Each screen is different and the difficulty of the (many) traps perfectly studied. You must collect golden lanterns and climb nets and ladders. Two opponents will try to stop you; a green sumotori (!) and a ninja. It's really funny to watch them fry as they walk on the traps you have triggered...

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8

Bubble Bobble
(Firebird, 1987)

This is one of the great classic games, and it's easy to see why. It's a simple platform game where Bub (and Bob if another person is playing) kill all the enemies by blowing bubbles at them and then bursting the bubbles. Bonus points can be obtained if you collect all the letters of the word 'EXTEND'. There are also a range of monsters and 100 tough levels to get through. The graphics look very dated and whilst there aren't many sound effects, they do their job. This is still a fun game to play after all these years.

See also: Rainbow Islands.

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