There are lots of Formula 1 racing games on the CPC, but Formula 1 management games are very rare. Up to six players can play as you battle it out to win the World Championship. You get to choose your team, which drivers to hire, and your sponsors. Before each race, you can spend money on improving both cars, and you must also choose which tyres to run with. The races are fun to watch, but you do have some involvement in them, as you have to get one of your mechanics to change the tyres and fix the car in pit stops! The graphics are mediocre and the sound basically consists of rather nice engine noises, but if you're a Formula 1 fan, you'll probably enjoy this game immensely.

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Qualify and race your car around any one of ten Grand Prix circuits. You'll first have to do a qualifying lap before actually racing against the other cars. You can choose whether to use automatic or manual gears, but if you use manual gears, make sure you don't over-rev the engine and blow it up! One thing you unfortunately can't choose is the weather, which usually ends up being wet, thus making the car more difficult to control. The game hasn't stood the test of time, though; the cars are just black silhouettes and there is no scenery of any sort, and the title tune is grating.

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Forteresse
(Loriciels, 1987)

Lord Angkor's beautiful daughter, the 22-year-old princess Gwendoline, has been kidnapped and locked away in a fortress. Can a brave warrior such as yourself rescue her? This is a graphic adventure which is very easy indeed to get into. Gwendoline is wearing a suit of armour, and you must find padlocks to remove the armour one piece at a time. Once you have found all of them, Gwendoline will be revealed in all her beauty... What struck me most was the quality of the graphics; each of the dozens of locations is represented by a beautiful, full colour, digitised picture. Hardened fans of French adventures might not like the relative simplicity of this game – there are only six types of objects to be collected and only a small set of commands which are represented by icons – but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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This is a compilation of four soccer games – 11-a-Side Soccer, Indoor Soccer, Street Soccer, and Soccer Skills (a training game). There's not much difference between the first three, other than the rules and the scenery. The training game is a joystick-waggling game where you take part in various training programmes and complete them in the shortest time possible, and not surprisingly, it's dull. The other three are OK, and there are three difficulty levels for each. You can also play with up to three other people, although having four people crowded around a keyboard makes things awkward!

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The Soviet Union has planted a nuclear device somewhere in the United Kingdom, and is intending to denotate it before the General Election to create a totalitarian British state. You are John Preston, an investigator at MI5, and you have to stop the Russians' dastardly plans. This game is based on Frederick Forsyth's novel of the same name and is in three parts. In the first part, you have to find out who is leaking some secret NATO documents to the Russians, but you'll need to keep your eye on other events. The second and third parts concentrate on the hunt for the bomb. The plot is certainly thrilling, but sadly, the game is let down by the awkward menu and control system.

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Those who are fond of that virile sport have surely heard of Frank Bruno, former heavyweight World Boxing Council champion. Well, the game itself isn't very appealing. The graphics are blocky and it's really hard to be accurate during the fights. It's definitely arcade-oriented, for the behaviour of your opponents isn't realistic at all. For instance, just after having been knocked down, they will deliver an uppercut that knocks you out! So all you have to do is hit them as fast as possible, which quickly becomes boring.

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Help Frank build his monster, Stein, together and bring him to life in fifty screens of this platform game. You must collect the seven parts that make up Stein's skeleton, but they have to be collected in the right order. Furthermore, you cannot jump up to higher platforms by yourself; you must use the springs instead. There are other surprises in store, such as ice, slime and teleporters, and of course, an array of monsters. Therefore, getting all the parts requires you to use your brain. When you've completed each screen, you are faced with a Donkey Kong-style screen to tackle. The graphics are simple, with a nice effect used to add extra colours. Overall, it's a rather average game, although the first screen is a lot harder than the ones following it.

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Freddy Hardest, the intergalactic playboy, was flying home from another party when he crashed his spaceship on the planet of Ternat – remember, never drink and drive! The ship is damaged beyond repair, so he must enter the alien base on the planet and steal one of their four spaceships. Once inside the base, he has to collect a nuclear fuel cell for the ship and log on to the computer terminals scattered around the base to find out how to launch the four ships. The graphics are stupendous, particularly inside the base, which is quite big; you'll need to make a map to find your way around it. Although the first part of the game seems difficult initially, practice makes perfect, and once you complete it, you can always go straight to the second part.

See also: The Guardian Angel.

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The aliens are invading your home planet. Can you fly in the Freedom Fighter and destroy them all? Yes, this is yet another space shoot-'em-up, and it's not very good at all. The aliens appear at the top of the screen and move steadily downwards, firing bullets and releasing concussion bombs. If a bullet hits you, or a bomb hits the bottom of the screen, you lose a life. Fortunately the bombs can be defused by picking them up (!). The graphics may be cute and colourful, but they are also very flickery indeed. The programmer may only have been 14 years old when he developed this game, but a poor game is a poor game. At least the digitised speech that says, "Get ready!" before each level is fairly clear.

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4

Fres Fighter II Turbo, as its name implies, is a Street Fighter II-style fighting game and perhaps the most advanced of its kind on the CPC. It is a huge game spanning four disc sides, with very detailed MODE 1 graphics and a nice soundtrack along with nice special effects. The colours used change from stage to stage, and because of the ultra detailed work graphics, they look great! The game intro is one of the best I have witnessed on the CPC. The gameplay speed can be adjusted and the controls are easy to learn. There are also special moves for each of the six selectable contestants. Moreover, there are several game modes, including one for 16 players! On the whole, this is by all means a masterpiece for the CPC, from start to finish.

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