The Sea Lord has kidnapped your friends, the Scuba Kidz. Fortunately you're a good swimmer, so you decide to rescue them using your scuba diving gear. You must swim through eight reefs, shooting bubbles at fish to kill them (!) and ensuring that your supply of air does not run out, otherwise you will drown. Occasionally you may come across locked doors, but some of them lead to dead ends, and since keys are in short supply, you must learn which doors to open and which to leave alone. This is a dull game with little to see and do. Both the graphics and sound effects are primitive, and all the game really consists of is wandering around each of the reefs and trying to find the exit.

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SDAW
(Lankhor, 1990)

A nuclear explosion in 2194 wiped out the city of Chicago. 76% of its inhabitants were killed, while most of the rest became mutants, who took power and now plan to dominate the world and terrorise the few remaining survivors with a weapon of unimaginable power. Nearly fifty years later, one of the survivors creates an android called SDAW to travel through the sewers and locate and destroy the weapon, which you, as SDAW, must now do. This is an adventure with dozens of locations which generally look very similar to each other, but there are relatively few puzzles to solve, which is slightly disappointing. The graphics and presentation are both very good indeed, but there's a sense that the game relies more on style than substance.

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7

The United States and the Soviet Union have declared all-out nuclear war on each other, threatening the destruction of the entire world. As missiles hurtle through the atmosphere, you control a satellite belonging to America's Strategic Defence Initiative (which went under the nickname of 'Star Wars'). On each stage, you must destroy all of the missiles, fighters and enemy satellites as they fly across the screen. If you don't, you have to play another section where you must try to destroy even more missiles as they target the Earth's cities. This goes on for ever; there doesn't appear to be any ending to the game, and it soon becomes repetitive. There are very few sound effects, and despite an excellent loading screen, the game also suffers from being a Spectrum port.

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5

I'm quite a fan of Adrian Mole but this game is rather disappointing. Much of the humour and content that was in the book is retained here, and some new events have been added to make things more interesting. You don't actually get to do much; all you do is read Adrian's short diary entries and make the occasional decision from a choice of three responses, which affects your score. You start at 40% and your score increases or decreases as you make the right or wrong decisions. The graphics are horrible and garish as well, and the game is really an 'adventure' in the loosest sense of the word.

See also: The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

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5

La Secte Noire
(Lankhor, 1990)

Someone from the Black Sect (the English translation of the game's name) has entered the village of Issegeac, killed your grandfather, and stolen a book of spells which belonged to him. Can you retrieve the book and save Issegeac from another curse? This is a text adventure, but like many French text adventures, none of the rooms have descriptions, and you must rely on guessing what objects to perform actions on by looking at the pictures - and many of the responses are unhelpful. How long would it take someone to guess that you must press a branch to reveal a secret passage which doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere in the game? Thankfully, it gets better from that point onwards. Apparently this is regarded as one of Lankhor's classics, but I certainly don't agree.

See also: La Crypte des Maudits.

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7

This is an original game in which you use a seesaw to catapult bricks into the air, in order to knock out some insects which appear from two turrets of a castle. Erm... just play the game, OK? Another larger insect throws bricks on to the seesaw one at a time, and you must push them into the right position so that the next brick that lands on the seesaw will throw them into the air. You have to be careful that you aren't thrown into the air, and if a brick lands on you, it will hurt! The graphics are colourful, and it's a nice idea for a game, but it's too difficult to complete even the first level.

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5

The Sentinel
(Firebird, 1987)

This is one of the classic games, because there is no other game like it. You are placed on an artificial landscape which is guarded by the Sentinel, and you have to reach his position while avoiding his withering gaze as he rotates slowly around his plinth. However, you can't actually move - you have to absorb the trees that are scattered around, and use them to create robots that you then transfer yourself to. You can also create boulders and place the robots on top of them to reach higher ground. Oh, and there are 10000 landscapes to master... This is a truly absorbing (pun intended) game with astonishing graphics, but it takes a lot of time to learn - you'll need a lot of patience and thought to get through it!

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9

Sepulcri
(Reaktör, 1986)

In 2075, the Strategic Defence Initiative has become reality, and the first satellite is being developed. The designers of the satellite need to test it, however, and they have built a very, very small robot which can explore inside the computer. You control this robot, which has to activate all the switches in the computer. It's an isometric exploration game which should instantly remind you of another, better known game. Most rooms contain hazards such as monsters to avoid, and spikes which you may need to jump over if you want to progress. The graphics are good, although some of the colour schemes are horrible, and the robot moves fast as well. Overall, it's a nice game which will keep fans of isometric games like this one happy.

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8

This is one of three arcade games starring Seymour, who has become a policeman. He's got an extendable arm which he uses to grab the bad guys and then throw at the nearest wall in order to kill them and grab the bonus that is left behind. On each screen there's a generator that creates the bad guys, and Seymour will need to remove all of them within the time limit to go to the next screen. Getting used to the controls is the most important part, and when you've mastered them, you'll really be able to enjoy the game. It's a simple game but great fun to play, although you only get three lives, and you really need more than that.

See also: Seymour at the Movies, Stuntman Seymour, Super Seymour Saves the Planet, Wild West Seymour.

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8

Time to burn some rubber on a motorbike as you race against eight other riders. You have to finish each race in a certain place to qualify for the next race - if you don't manage this, you're out. The motorbike is quite powerful, but you're going to need to use some turbo to get past the other competitors, and on longer races, you'll also need to pit to fill up with fuel and to change the tyres. However, it's too easy to crash, and by the time you're back on your bike, you'll be too far behind to gain on them. The graphics are really blocky as well, and don't really give the impression of speed.

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5