Centurions
(Reaktör, 1987)

Doc Terror wants to steal the entire world's supply of tyron dichromate from the Weapons Development Centre, and only the Centurions – Ace, Jake and Max – can stop him. The game takes place in an enormous maze, and the aim is to locate six segments of a key. These segments are locked away in buildings, and in order to obtain them, you must open the doors to the buildings by looking for the key with the corresponding shape. To make things more difficult, these keys are surrounded by 'moats' which can only be passed if you are controlling the correct Centurion – either Air, Land or Sea. The gameplay resembles Gauntlet, but most of your time is spent repeatedly trudging from one end of the maze to the other in a search for the correct door or key, and boredom will soon set in.

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5

You are the captain of the Cerberus, a pirate spacecraft. You've heard news of a freighter which contains lots of treasure, and you fly your spacecraft towards it – but then you are surrounded by the Starfleet Police. It's a trap! Now you must shoot your way out of this situation. A nice story, but this is just another standard space shoot-'em-up, and it's not a very good one. The graphics are quite good, although there's no scenery – just vast, empty space. The game moves at a fairly leisurely pace and there isn't much action. All you do is encounter the same waves of aliens; there are no levels or targets to reach, so there's not much point in playing it.

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5

The Anti-Nuclear Party has infiltrated a nuclear power station and programmed the robots so that they are now running amok inside it. In just 30 minutes' time, the entire station will explode! You must prevent this by collecting 18 fuel rods and disposing of them in the pit that lies at the centre of the first floor of the station, which has seven floors. Despite a nice loading screen and some good music on the menu, this is a mediocre game with horrible and garish Spectrum-style graphics. You can only collect one rod at a time, and if you're on one of the higher floors, it's a pain to go all the way down to the first floor to dispose of it, and then go all the way back up. Also, the time limit seems to be too tight to allow the game to be completed.

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5

Gog, the evil Gobot, is mining Moebius with the goal of creating an army of transforming killers. Gog's goal is to take over Earth. There is only one Gobot left on Moebius who will stop at nothing in preventing Gog's plans. You play Leader 1 and fly along a scrolling landscape taking out the miners in a Defender-style game. The controls can be tricky at times, but overall it's an easy game to get into. OK graphics with dual-plane scrolling is a rare thing on the CPC, but you get it in this game!

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7

Baseball is popular in America, but not all that popular elsewhere, and this game is a very poor representation of it. The graphics aren't the problem here – although the players are badly drawn, the game switches to an excellent animation sequence, shown from behind the batter, when it's time to pitch the ball. It's not that there's almost no sound, either. It's just that the game is very slow indeed, and it seems to be impossible to hit the ball without fouling. Even the computer can't hit the ball!

See also: Championship Basketball.

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2

If you're thinking that this is a 'proper' simulation of basketball, think again. It's a two-on-two game – in other words, there are only two people in each team, and rather than being able to travel up and down the court, the game is always played in one half of the court, and each team takes it in turns to aim the ball into the net. The graphics are small with a bad choice of colours being used, and there doesn't seem to be any sound. Anyway, it's an unexciting game that is awkward to play.

See also: Championship Baseball.

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4

Why Codemasters chose to release a game that is identical in almost every way to Jet Bike Simulator is something that eludes me. Here, you only get to play one of the three sets of courses, and it also happens to be the hardest of the three. You're also in expert mode, which means that if you finish last, you're out. The first course is much too tough as there's a very narrow gap you have to squeeze your jetski through, and it's far too easy to miss it and so end up coming last. Go and play Jet Bike Simulator instead.

See also: Jet Bike Simulator.

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4

This is supposed to be the sequel to Super Sprint, but in reality it's just a re-released version with a built-in track editor. Other than that, there is literally no difference between the two games at all – at least, there were no differences that I could detect. OK, you can design your own tracks, and there are no on-track hazards such as oil slicks, but the game is still as boring as its predecessor and the graphics and sound effects are exactly the same.

See also: Super Sprint.

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5

This adaptation of Roald Dahl's much-loved children's book is very poor indeed. There are two sub-games and a platform game which can only be played properly if you complete both the sub-games first. In the first sub-game, you must guide Augustus Gloop through a network of pipes. As you walk left and right, the pipes re-arrange themselves. It's confusing and very difficult indeed. You play Violet Beauregarde in the second sub-game. You carry a board in front of you and must guide the blueberries into the hole so that the juice can be extracted from them. The main game is a standard platform game in which you collect Willy Wonka tokens. This is also very difficult. The graphics are crude and blocky and the gameplay is totally uninspiring.

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2

Chase HQ
(Ocean, 1989)

You're an American police cop with an ultra-fast sports car, and have to chase criminals in it and arrest them by ramming their car – although this isn't something I would want to do to a car as expensive as that! You're also racing against the clock, and Nancy, your boss, is not someone you want to mess with. This is a truly great game with some very good graphics, and it's fast as well! The sound isn't too good – engine noises and not that much else – but if you have 128K, then you'll be treated to some stunning digitised speech. This is definitely a game that is not to be missed.

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9