When they are asleep, Potsworth the dog and his friends - Rosie, Nick, Carter and Keiko - become the Midnight Patrol and enter a dream world, but to stay there, the Grand Dozer must be asleep, and the Nightmare Prince is trying to wake him. The gang must find objects on each of the five levels and stop the Nightmare Prince. You control one of the characters on each level, and each character has different powers. As well as collecting objects, you also have to activate lifts by pushing heavy objects on to the appropriate buttons. The graphics are cute and colourful, and the music on the menu is a joy to listen to. Unfortunately the levels are very big and take a long time to complete, which makes the game rather tedious to play.

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7

Race a catamaran or a speedboat along five levels of action, dodging other speedboats, watching out for mines, and trying not to crash into the scenery! Your boat uses a lot of fuel, so you'll need to collect extra fuel regularly. You can also collect mines which you can use to blow up other boats, although it's not necessary to do this at all in order to complete the course; it merely allows you to obtain a few extra points. The first course is very easy indeed and is a simple introduction to the game, but it becomes a bit harder from the second level onwards. There's also a 'night level' in which you can only see part of the course at any one time. The graphics are very good indeed, although there's no music. Overall, though, this is a great little game.

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Choose from twelve wacky drivers, and rev through some stomach-churning circuits. Watch the dust fly and the wheels spin as you screech over a rollercoaster track and wave goodbye to your opponents. Roar over mounds of mud, drive through the desert, slip and slide on snow-covered tarmac and race your way through the night to face the final lap and take the chequered flag. Your choice of driver affects your sprite's look and a nice display shows your position by shifting the characters' portraits. It possesses nice, colourful sprites, pretty backgrounds, and some detailed scrolling landscapes and competent gameplay to boot; the tracks become exponentially trickier while you dodge your opponents. A better conversion than Sega's more famous Out Run.

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8

This is a mixture of a board game and a quiz game for between two and four players; unfortunately, the computer can't control any of them. Each player has four men, and they move them around the board and answer questions; which category depends on the colours of the tiles. If a man can answer enough questions correctly, he mutates into a monster and becomes more powerful, which is useful when you move on to the same tile as an opponent and challenge him. If you succeed, your opponent will lose some of his power, or disappear altogether! The aim is to eliminate all four of your opponent's men. The graphics are absolutely wonderful, although a game can go on for a really long time. There are four banks of questions, and you can also create your own if you wish. (The answer to the question in the screenshot is "November", by the way.)

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8

Cash-in from the highly tongue-in-cheek Schwarzenegger action film. Guide our musclebound hero Arnie through the American tropical jungle, shooting the never-ending number of guerillas, while avoiding getting killed by the Predator alien that has its sights firmly set upon you. Sadly the game isn't as half as amusing as the film itself and if anything is particularly tedious; as a rule of thumb, almost any Schwarzenegger film conversions (barring Terminator 2 perhaps) are well worth avoiding.

See also: Predator 2.

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3

The Predator is back, and this time he's come to Los Angeles, where there is a battle between rival drugs gangs. Out to get all of them is Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, which you control in this dull shoot-'em-up. As the screen scrolls horizontally (and very slowly), you must aim your crosshairs and shoot all of the gunmen before they fire on you and drain your energy. The gunmen leave behind ammunition which you will need to pick up, as you will use a huge amount of it during the game! You can also collect better guns and energy packs, but avoid shooting the Predator and any innocent bystanders. The slow scrolling is the main reason why the game is poor, but the graphics are messy, and the sound effects are both minimal and awful.

See also: Predator.

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4

The Zoglor tribe has run out of food, so armed with a wooden club, Prehistorik the caveman must travel through forests, mountains, jungles and even venture inside a volcano in his search for food. Along the way, there are many different monsters who can be beaten up and killed. You can also enter caves, where you may find more supplies for the tribe. If you don't obtain enough food at the end of each level, you must start the level all over again, so watch out! The first thing you notice about this game is the graphics - they are definitely some of the best that I have ever seen on the CPC. However, the music becomes annoying after a while, but thankfully it can be turned off. Unfortunately the game slows down a lot when there are monsters on the screen; if this didn't happen, I would rate the game a lot higher.

See also: Prehistorik 2.

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7

One of the last commercial games to be released for the CPC and also one of the best. You control a caveman looking for food, and among the many monsters you'll face are bears, spiders, wasps, dinosaurs, and a huge ape halfway through the game. There are also lots of bonuses to collect. What makes this game stand out from other platform games is the graphics, which are truly awesome, especially on the Plus version, which features extra colours and parallax scrolling. The music is also terrific, and it's the only commercial game I know of that exploits the Plus' enhanced DMA sound facilities. Thankfully, the gameplay on the normal CPC version doesn't suffer, and it's a hugely enjoyable game to play.

See also: Prehistorik.

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9

The Grand Vizier has captured the Sultan's daughter and has given her an ultimatum; either marry him, or die! You have one hour in which to get out of the dungeons and rescue her from her cell before the Grand Vizier kills her. Each level sees you fighting guardians and finding the way out, and there are potions to be drunk, too. This was also the first game ever to feature real animation, where the characters really do move properly, and the number of actions you can perform are astonishing. The graphics are incredible, especially the intro sequence, and really, the only bad thing about this game is the awful 'music', which thankfully isn't present in the main game.

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9

Also sometimes known as Joe Blade 4... The inmates are running riot in the prison, and as ever, Joe Blade is the man to prevent the prisoners from escaping. Joe must explore the prison (which is very large), collecting food, ammunition, and keys to enter the cells. Some of the cells will have their windows broken, where an inmate will be waiting on the rooftop for Joe to capture - but you'll have to solve a puzzle (one of those sliding tile games) within 60 seconds. Once again, it's the same old game as the previous titles, with dull, monochrome graphics, a mediocre tune, and poor gameplay.

See also: Joe Blade, Joe Blade 2, Joe Blade 3.

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