Defenders of the Earth
(Enigma Variations, 1990)

Ming the Merciless has kidnapped the Defenders' children and is holding them in the Fortress of Evil. You control Flash Gordon as he fights his way through three levels of the castle, shooting and jumping over monsters, and facing some pretty mean end-of-level guardians before encountering Ming himself. Your colleagues are also able to help you, by opening locked doors or creating bridges which will allow you to cross chasms. There are also a few energy icons which can be collected. The graphics are marvellous, but the music on the menu is unremarkable. However, the biggest problem is that the game is very tough indeed; completing the first level is a real feat, even with the four lives that you are given.

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Defender on the CPC. Unless you've lived on Mars for the last 30 years, there's no need to explain how this game works. Alligata's version is very neat indeed. The graphics move smoothly and are colourful. The sound effects are very imaginative but there's no music – no worries, though, as the arcade original didn't have any music either! The difficulty level is set just right to allow progression and very high scores!

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Every now and then, there's a game which is strikingly original, and this is one of them. By bouncing a laser beam off sets of mirrors, you must shoot all the balls on the screen before aiming it at a target. However, watch out for the gremlins who will adjust the mirrors when you're concentrating on something else! You must also avoid overloading the machine, which can happen if the laser bounces back on itself, or if the beam hits a mine. It's not easy to get the hang of it at first, and the colour schemes are mostly gruesome, but you may well like it, and there are 60 levels to tax your grey matter.

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Deliverance
(Hewson, 1990)

Our hero is back to rescue some more fairies from hell and bring them to safety in heaven, but there are lots of lakes of fire and nasty, fire-breathing monsters to battle against. In fact, there are far too many monsters. If you thought Stormlord was tricky, then you clearly haven't played this game; it's impossible to get anywhere without a monster appearing from nowhere and causing you to lose a life. Getting Stormlord to jump properly is also a matter of luck. The graphics are as well-drawn as the first game, and the tune is good, too, but it really is far too difficult.

See also: Stormlord.

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You fool! You've smashed four talismans belonging to Trodor the demon and now his evil minions have taken over the castle! Your only hope now is to find all the pieces – four for each talisman – and put them back together. They're scattered all over the castle, and all the rooms are guarded. You'll probably need to make a map, as it's easy to get lost in the castle. The graphics are nice and colourful and the game moves at quite a fast pace as you move from one room to the next, and the tune is also very good, and you'll be kept busy at finding the pieces of the talisman for some time.

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La Dernière Mission
(MBC, 1988)

On the 6th of September 1999, aliens invaded Earth, and as the year 2000 began, humanity was threatened. A guerrilla organisation, Liberté, fought a war against the aliens, forcing them to retreat. By July 2001, the fighting was still going on. Liberté has sent you on The Last Mission – to go to the aliens' camp in the Arctic wastes of Canada and destroy it by planting bombs. This is a rather average text adventure with some rather nice pictures to accompany the locations. Unfortunately there is very little actual text; there are no descriptions of any of the rooms, and you are almost never told what objects of note are in the room. The parser is also poor, and why did the authors feel the need to include digitised pictures of women between the two parts of the game?

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Can you travel along the Upward Path to attain the rank of Dervish using your magical powers, and in doing so, reveal the secret of the universe? Hmmm... There isn't much explanation of what you need to do, but what is obvious is that this is a Gauntlet clone, so there's lots of wandering around mazes and shooting monsters to be done. Things are made a bit more tricky in that there are several types of weapon, and working out which weapon is most suited to defeating particular types of monster is a process of trial and error. I quickly became bored with the game; the graphics are ugly and garish, the sound effects are abysmal, and the gameplay is totally uninspiring.

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Wild West action awaits in the town of Devil Stone in this two-part shoot-'em-up. The first part is a horizontally scrolling affair in which you shoot all the cowboys you can manage. They walk towards you and will also shoot from windows. If you're hit by bullets, you lose energy, but if you touch any cowboys, you lose one of your three lives. The second part is set in a saloon where the customers take aim at you one at a time, and you must kill them before they fire their gun and kill you. The graphics are beautiful in both parts, and although the first part may seem very difficult, it isn't once you get the hang of it, although there should be more restart points. The second part is good as well, but relies a lot on luck, and if you are shot, you have to start all over again.

See also: Gunsmoke.

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Deep in the centre of the earth is a network of rooms where life-bearing cells are generated. However, a hacker has altered the programming of these cells, and it is your mission to restore the programming to its normal state. On each of the many screens, a cell is generated at the yellow door and bounces off walls and tiles towards the red door – the door of evil. You have to move the arrow tiles so that the cell is guided towards the green door – the door of life. You have a magnetic key that can be dropped in order to move the tiles, but watch out for the robots! Also be aware that certain robots, as well as the cells, will kill you instantly if you touch them, depending on whether or not you're carrying the magnetic key. It sounds confusing, but if you like a mixture of puzzle-solving and arcade action, this is the type of game you'll enjoy.

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You’re exploring a sunken ship, trying to find a lost golden crown. You’ll first have to collect many treasures hidden in the darker places of the ship, avoiding ghosts and having enough oxygen to survive. This is the kind of Sorcery-style game that you love to play, even though the graphics aren’t brilliant, the sound effects are poor and the action is rather repetitive. Anyway, it will keep you in front of your screen for a few hours, because you always want to discover new treasures.

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