Pipe Mania
(Empire, 1990)

This is a marvellous puzzle game where you piece together random sections of pipes on a board to allow the slime to flow through it. If it doesn't flow through enough sections on each level, the game is over! There are also bonus levels where instead of placing pipes on a board, you drop them from the sky, Tetris-style. The graphics do their job - they don't have to be awesome for this type of game - but there's no music and few sound effects. Even so, this is a great game which is made even better by a password for every five levels so you don't have to go through the earlier levels every time.

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Pirates!
(Microprose, 1987)

Fancy being a pirate in the 16th and 17th centuries, sailing across the Spanish Main? This all-time classic sees you as either an English, French, Dutch or Spanish adventurer, captaining a ship and sailing to and from towns, trying to earn prestige by capturing and plundering enemy ships and towns. You also have to visit taverns to recruit men for your voyages, and you can trade goods with local merchants as well. During the course of your travels, you may also find members of your family and uncover lost treasure! Although it can be rather slow at times, this is a truly awesome game which gives you total freedom to do whatever you want. Being a pirate has never been so much fun, and I cannot do this game justice in such a small space. You really must try it out for yourself!

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Pit-fighting is an illegal 'sport' where two burly men fight each other to the death. There are eight contestants you must face, and you can choose from one of three fighters - Buzz, an ex-pro-wrestler; Ty, a kick boxer; and Kato, a karate expert. I'm not into beat-'em-ups, though, and this is certainly one of the worst ones that I've seen, with awful, blocky, Spectrum-like graphics and slow, jerky scrolling. It's far too easy as well - that is, if you can be bothered to slog it out. In short, it's the pits (groan)!

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You're a lowly Ensign Seventh Class on board the Stellar Patrol Ship Feinstein, when the ship is torn apart by an explosion. You escape to a nearby planet, and end up in a deserted complex. As you explore your surroundings, you eventually learn that all its inhabitants died from a nasty disease - and now you're infected as well, and must find a way of curing it. This is a thoroughly engrossing text adventure, which features the adorable robot Floyd, who becomes your companion through much of the game. The constant need to obtain food can be a bit irritating, and you'll need a lot of access cards to explore several areas of the complex, but the scenario is fascinating and the game is suitable for inexperienced adventurers.

See also: Stationfall.

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A colony that was established on the planet of Laughton 2 now lies deserted, and it has since been occupied by alien forces. You are Captain Ford, a space pilot who has been sent to the former colony to see what has happened, and to shoot the aliens. It's a horizontally scrolling space shoot-'em-up, and my goodness, it is bad! There is only one level, and no power-ups whatsoever to collect. But the worst aspect of the game is the amount of flickering that occurs; I don't think I have seen a game with such horrible flickering. The scrolling is very slow as well. It's a badly programmed game and there's nothing to recommend about it.

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Platoon
(Ocean, 1988)
Reviewed by Chris Lennard

The first casualty of war is innocence - or perhaps it's being forced to play this. Engage the Viet Cong in this supposed adaptation of the movie to which it bears little resemblance. The most part of the game involves having your soldier wandering around the deadly labyrinth that constitutes the Vietnamese jungle, collecting objects in order to complete your mission. From all corners of the screen you are almost constantly assailed by enemy troops that appear from nowhere, or alternatively you are suffering at the hands of nearly invisible snipers and troops. The 3D sections in the underground tunnels are more impressive, but are frankly not worth getting to in a game that is ultimately frustrating, annoying and extremely difficult.

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Bruce Forsyth hosted a popular TV game show in the 1980s, but this computer adaptation of it doesn't do it justice at all. You and a computer or a friend take it in turns to guess the percentage of a certain group of people who said yes or no as to what they would do in a particular situation, then you turn over playing cards one at a time, guessing whether the next one will be higher or lower; if you successfully turn over five cards, you score a point. The first player to score two points goes on to the final round where you can gamble to earn more points - although unlike the TV show, you don't win any prizes, and you don't hear the crowd shouting "Higher!" or "Lower!" at you all the time. Playing this game is entirely a matter of luck instead of skill and it quickly becomes boring.

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In 1605, Guy Fawkes tried and failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament. This is your chance to rewrite history and succeed where Guy failed - or else you'll be hung at dawn! You have to search the Houses of Parliament for sticks of dynamite and other objects, but you'll also need the dynamite for blowing up the bats and other creatures that fly about. The graphics aren't bad, but the music is irritating (although it can be switched off), and entering doors and climbing ladders is very awkward; it took me ages to work out how to do it.

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Here's a cute puzzle game which was only released on cartridge. On each level, you have to clear a pile of blocks from the screen by matching blocks together. You control an egg-like creature that can only move vertically and which can be positioned to allow the block to bounce off the walls of the screen, and hit the appropriate blocks in the pile. It's not easy to explain the rules, but if you have a few goes, you'll learn them quickly. You don't have to clear all the blocks, though; when you've cleared enough, you can qualify for the next level. The game exploits the extra graphical facilities of the Plus machines, the music is really good as well, and there's also a two-player option which allows both players to play simultaneously.

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A gold mine is being threatened by landslides because the handle that turns off the piledrivers has broken - but the only way you can obtain one is to cast it from the gold that the mine is producing. The building next to the mine consists of five rooms which can be reached using the lifts. The problem is working out exactly what it is that you are supposed to do! The instructions that come with the game are brief and very unhelpful. Actually, I'm not entirely sure if there is a game in here. I certainly can't be bothered to waste time trying to find out where and what it is.

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