Dante, the space cowboy, has crashed on an alien planet. Fortunately he has landed near a hangar that should contain the tools he needs to repair his spacecraft – but there is also a strange vehicle that he must use in his search for the tools. This game was an entrant in the 2020 #CPCRetroDev Game Creation Contest and finished in ninth place. The concept is simple; explore a maze of rooms, collect the tools, and avoid the aliens in each room. There is also a time limit of 30 minutes, and the vehicle is armed with a cannon that can be used to stun aliens temporarily. It's quite tricky to control at first as it behaves like it's on ice, but there is a brake to slow it down. The graphics are simple but functional, the music is repetitive without being irritating, and it's a fairly decent game to play.

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Watch a YouTube video of this game by: Saberman.

Rating: 7/10

During the War of Strife, which lasted for 5,000 years, an army of fighting men called the Space Marines were assembled to take on the alien forces of Chaos. These aliens reside in large spaceships, and there are twelve missions to be undertaken. There are three chapters of Space Marines which you can control – the Blood Angels, the Imperial Fists, and the Ultra Marines. On each mission, you control four marines led by a commander. Completing a mission successfully earns the commander honour badges which allow you to obtain better equipment – but your commander has to return alive! The rules are rather complex and take some time to understand, and the game will seem difficult at first as all your marines are killed by the aliens! Stick with it, though, and you'll discover an absorbing and highly tactical strategy game.

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Rating: 9/10

A rather interesting board game in which you control the Space Cowboy, starting at the bottom left of the board and attempting to reach the top right. In each turn, two dice are rolled, and you can use them to move a certain number of steps in any direction you want. Then it's the turn of the aliens to move randomly, as they attempt to block your progress. If you are stuck and can't move, you are 'spaced out' and must pay a penalty. You can land on the aliens if you roll the correct dice and eliminate them, although this also penalises you slightly. If you accumulate too many penalty points, you lose. There are four different types of aliens and the difficulty can be configured. The graphics are nice and the sound effects do the job, and it's not a bad game, actually, despite what some people might think.

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Rating: 7/10

Space Froggy

(Glenco, 1990)

Reviewed by CPC4eva

Written in compiled BASIC using Sprites Alive to demonstrate its capabilities on the CPC, Space Froggy is a stunning platformer which appeared on an Amstrad Action covertape. Controlling a very cute and cool-looking frog wearing sunglasses who finds himself in space with nine lives, you set out to collect nine ROM chips and some keys that will open doors, all while avoiding enemy space monsters so you can upgrade a CPC464 to a CPC6128. Having played my fair share of commercially released budget games, Space Froggy puts most of them to shame. Colourful, big sprites, really good use of Mode 0, an atmospheric space feel, pleasant in-game sound effects, easy movement and controls, with a detailed playing area. It's all very professionally presented, a fun and absorbing game, and quite an achievement.

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Watch a YouTube video of this game by: GameHammer Classic Gaming.

Rating: 7/10

It's the year 2039 AD, and your spaceship receives a distress call from a crippled starbase which is being overrun by aliens. You have to explore the corridors of the starbase, rescue as many hostages as you can, and blast lots and lots of slimy, monstrous aliens. The game is viewed in pseudo-3D, with you looking down the corridors, and the effect is fairly impressive. Unfortunately, the pace of the game is sluggish, which spoils the atmosphere of what should really be an action-packed game. Interestingly, this is one of very few non-cartridge games to exploit the Plus' extra colours and other facilities, and for some reason, it was only released in France. However, the slow pace and the unresponsive controls make this a frustrating game to play.

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Watch a YouTube video of this game by: Xyphoe.

Rating: 5/10

Three-dimensional shoot-'em-up conversion of the popular Sega arcade game. Fly across the surface of different planets across the galaxy at breakneck speed, destroying the waves of enemies that come at you. Face and destroy the guardian aliens such as double-headed dragons at the end of every stage, in order to progress to the next with only your trusty laser gun to aid you. While the music and sound effects are nice, the gameplay is ruined by the somewhat hit and miss graphics. Backgrounds and your own character are more than adequate but the 'transparent' enemies and planet obstacles make it too difficult to pinpoint them, something which the sequel amends with solid sprites.

See also: Space Harrier II.

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Watch YouTube videos of this game by: ChinnyVision, Xyphoe, ZEUSDAZ.

Rating: 5/10

An evil force has taken control of the Fantasy Land and imposed a cruel tyranny upon it. Yet again, shoot your way past the scores of enemies that come at you and carefully weave your way through opposing surface structures. Blast the end of level monsters in order to face the next round and battle your way through to the ultimate level to meet and destroy the Dark Harrier. In spite of the fact that this lacks any originality – it's exactly the same as its predecessor – it's a superior game as the improved graphics beef up the gameplay considerably.

See also: Space Harrier.

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Watch YouTube videos of this game by: ChinnyVision, Xyphoe, ZEUSDAZ.

Rating: 8/10

Space Hawks is a Galaxian clone, pure and simple, but not a bad one at that. Upon loading, your ears are met with a decent rendition of a well known sci-fi movie. A starfield scrolls in the background as you choose one or two players. You then begin your attack upon the Space Hawks. Each stage displays different baddies, including a pink ball that bounces around the screen on later levels – hitting it causes it to split into four! Overall, it's a good blaster, and in many ways, it's far superior to many later attempts.

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Watch YouTube videos of this game by: GameHammer Classic Gaming, Xyphoe.

Rating: 8/10

40Crisis has made another Z80 miracle and here we are with one more direct emulation of another legendary game – the famous Space Invaders. There isn't much to say about this game, as you all know it. It is a 100% faithful emulation of the coin-op, like a MAME game. It is a strange feeling when playing an exact coin-op game on your CPC screen! I strongly believe that all of you out there should load it and spend some time playing it. The old arcade game feeling is unsurpassed and never ageing!

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Rating: 7/10

Commando Shura has been given orders to travel to an enemy space station and find and destroy a laser weapon on board the station. This game, which is an updated version of the winning entry in the 2015 #CPCRetroDev Game Creation Contest, is divided into two parts that load separately, like many Spanish games of old. In the first part, you must negotiate enemy territory and reach the space station by various means – firstly by parachute, then by quad bike, and finally by spaceship. In the second part, you must explore the station and find six disks to insert into the computers around the base in order to retrieve the code for arming the bomb that will destroy the laser. The graphics are very colourful and the second part is fun to play (even if the music isn't to my liking), but the first part unfortunately suffers from an unreasonably high difficulty level.

See also: Space Moves (#CPCRetroDev).

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Watch YouTube videos of this game by: Saberman, XeNoMoRPH.

Rating: 8/10