You are flying a rocket, when it is forced to land on a nearby planet due to a shortage of fuel. Fortunately you have detected that this planet contains reserves of energy, but you have decided to assign three robots - Xor, Rho and Sam - to explore underground and find these reserves. Each robot has a different function. Xor is designed to collect the energy reserves, Sam can repair the other robots if they break down (although it can't repair itself), and Rho transmits communications from the other two robots back to you, so all three robots must stay close together. Graphically, the game is excellent, but apart from exploring, there's little to see and do, and it is immensely frustrating when you crash any of the robots after playing the game for so long.

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A very early game by the now legendary Oliver Twins, the aim of this game is to search the huge castle of the Sheriff of Nottingham and find all the hearts scattered around, and then to free Maid Marian and kill the Sheriff. Of course, out to stop you are the Sheriff's men, armed with bows and swords, but these can be picked off with your trusty arrows. The graphics are quite impressive considering when it was released, and very detailed - Robin fires his bow very realistically - and the sound is great. This is the first game I ever played which had real speech ("Help me Robin!") and this impressed me a lot back in the day. Overall, a good novel twist on a fairly well used idea, which is a fair bit easier than others of its kind, and as a result of this, it is a lot more fun.

See also: Robin Hood: Legend Quest.

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Maid Marian has been locked in the Sheriff of Nottingham's castle, and Robin must rescue her. Hang on, didn't Codemasters release a game with exactly the same plot already? Indeed they did. This is a different game, although it plays very similarly to the other Robin Hood game, with lots of running around, shooting arrows, collecting keys and treasure, and jumping on to platforms. This was one of the last games that Codemasters released for the CPC, and frankly, one would think that they could have done better than this. The music is good, but it's a Spectrum port, complete with colour clash. There's nothing special about the gameplay, either.

See also: Robin Hood.

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Replace Robin Hood with Sherlock Holmes, add a lot of humour, and you will have some idea of what this text adventure, written using The Quill, is about. There are some strange events going on in Sherwood Forest - Dorothy's dog, Toto, has been kidnapped; Friar Gorbuchetnik explodes after eating one burger too many; the cabbie's cab has been stolen; the Three Bears are about to hang Goldilox (!), and the local Smurphs are being turned into garden gnomes. The game is split into three parts, but unlike nearly all other multi-part text adventures, you can travel between these parts. There are a lot of locations, although most of them are very similar (which is humorously exploited by the authors!), and most of the objects that you can collect can't be examined, which frustrated me. However, it is still a reasonably good adventure overall.

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Robinson Crusoe
(Coktel Vision, 1987)

Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel of the same name remains famous even today, and this is an adventure based on the novel. You must guide Robinson Crusoe as he tries to survive on the island that he has been shipwrecked on. The game consists of seven stages, with a beautiful illustration adorning most of the screen on each one, and some nice animation to accompany them. Throughout the game, you are given a choice of possible actions, and every choice you make affects the outcome of the story. Finding the exact set of choices to make is a frustrating exercise, since the animations and text are displayed very slowly indeed. The music is awful as well, but the game is still playable despite all of these problems.

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Robocop
(Ocean, 1988)

I've never seen the film, but this is certainly a brilliant game. The first few levels take you out on to the streets on routine patrol, before identifying the criminal involved in the drug gang using a photofit, and then raiding the drugs factory. You'll also meet the robot ED209, before finally shooting a criminal who has taken the president of the United States hostage. The difficulty setting is just right, the graphics are beautiful, and the music is great - and no one who has played the 128K version will ever forget the stunning digitised speech - "Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law". Everything about this game is just perfect!

See also: Robocop 2.

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Robocop is back to clean up the streets of Detroit again, to close down the facilities that produce the addictive drug Nuke, and ultimately face his nemesis, Robocop 2. Seven levels of platforming and shoot-'em-up action await you in this game, which was only released on cartridge. First of all, let me say that no game demonstrates the extra features of the Plus and GX4000 machines better than this one; the scrolling is extremely smooth, and hardware sprites and the many extra colours available are used to great effect. It looks and feels like a 16-bit game! However, it is very difficult indeed, although if you persevere and don't lose your temper, you will eventually learn the full layout of the first level. If it were a bit easier, I would have no hesitation in giving full marks to this game - but it's not to be.

See also: Robocop.

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Robozone
(Imageworks, 1991)

In the year 2067, the Earth's cities have become so polluted that they are patrolled by giant Wolverine robots. However, their numbers are decreasing, and you are the only one left to defend New York against another set of robots - the Scavengers. Your mission now is to destroy The Furnace, a building which is choking New York with even more pollution. There are three very different levels to this game. The first two involve exploring New York and its underground system, and aren't much fun to play, while the third is a much better space shoot-'em-up. The graphics are very nice, with detailed sprites and lovely explosions, but it's a shame that the gameplay isn't as good; the rather tedious first level will put a lot of people off.

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You may have guessed that this is a remake of Boulder Dash, where you collect gems while trying to avoid loosening the many boulders scattered around. This game is almost exactly the same, but Rockford is now human, and he gets to star in five different roles - as a hunter, a cook, a cowboy, an astronaut, and a doctor! Each of these themes has several levels of their own, and the graphics also change to reflect the theme. The graphics are very nice, and so is the music, but, like the original game that it's based on, it's just too difficult for me.

See also: Boulder Dash.

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There is an old coin-op by Namco called Rally-X, which could be described as a cross between Pacman and Super Sprint. Well, this game is a sort of revision of that coin-op, with better graphics and music, but not as fast as the original. Your task is to drive your car around each level, collecting the parts of a racing prototype, while avoiding enemy cars and other hazards such as mines and traffic lights. Rock 'n' Roller isn't a great game, but once you manage to drive accurately, it'll give you hours of fun.

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