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You have been hired as a mercenary to gain access to an alien mothership. To do this, you must fight through eight levels containing several waves of aliens, and a big end-of-level alien. On completing each level, you then enter a maze where you must pick up a key and a blueprint of the mothership; you'll also be given a password so you don't have to complete previous levels in future games. The aliens are very mean and you'll need some skill to dodge them, although you can collect power-ups which make you invulnerable for a while or make you go faster. If the game consisted only of the space shoot-'em-up section it would be just about OK, but the maze section is so frustratingly difficult that you'll give up on the entire game after a few goes.
A rare example of a stealth-'em-up on the CPC, you are cast as a ninja sent into an enemy stronghold via a rubber dinghy, with your mission to retrieve stolen computer discs and make your escape via a convenient helicopter on the roof. There are many guards roaming the corridors, guard dogs running around, and security cameras that will shoot you if they see you. However, anything you find on the floor (rocks, shuriken, etc.) can be a deadly weapon! Anyway, the graphics are fine - dark and suitably moody though very lacking in colour - and the playing area is large, though not too large. As for the music - well, there isn't really any, and what sound effects there are aren't very good. But still, a really good game. Ninja fans will love it; just don't get too attached to the main character because he dies in Saboteur 2!
Guide the intrepid explorer around a jungle maze in this delightful game. You can only escape by collecting the four pieces of the lost amulet that are scattered in the labyrinth environment. Armed with only your trusty sword, you have to make your way through a mass of marauding wild creatures that appear on all sides from the undergrowth. The graphics here are cute, whereas the music and the sound effects, like the game itself, are simple yet effective.
See also: Knight Lore.
You are Tal, the last hope for mankind's successors in a post-apocalyptic world which has been destroyed by the invasion of a hostile alien race. The legendary sacred armour of Antiriad, an advanced anti-radiation suit, is the only weapon available to overthrow them. You have to find the suit and its components that are strewn about the landscape and then to use it to free your people. This is one of the most lavish games ever to be produced on any 8-bit machine, let alone the CPC - the graphics are simply brilliant. The sound effects are adequate, whereas the opening music is excellent. If anything, the only problem with this game is that it's far too hard to complete without cheating!
This is a fighting game based on an ancient martial art known as sai karate, in which you face one opponent at a time. As well as being able to kick your opponent karate-style, you also have a long stick to hit your opponent with, as well as blocking your opponent's moves. You start with a white belt and try to work through the ranks, up to a black belt, and then working through the eight dan levels. There is a wide variety of moves you can execute, and you'll soon find out which are the most effective ones. The colourful and well animated graphics are accompanied by some suitably Oriental jingles, and there's a different background for each level. It's a good game that will appeal to beat-'em-up fans.
The Viet Cong launched a suicide mission on the US Marine Corps headquarters and have captured your commanding officer. Now you must penetrate the Viet Cong's base and rescue him from their clutches. This is a two-part platform game in which you must jump over chasms, avoid hidden mines, shoot Viet Cong soldiers, and blow up the occasional jeep, tank and helicopter. You're armed with a gun, a supply of ammunition and a limited number of bombs, and you can buy extra weaponry at shops, which also act as restart points when you lose a life. The graphics and sound effects are very good (lots of explosions!), but it's too difficult for my liking, especially since there are too few restart points.
Ian St. John and Jimmy Greaves used to host a football show on TV which was apparently rather popular, and these two personalities appear on this quiz game which will suit football anoraks nicely, but leave everyone else (myself included) bored. Up to four players take turns to answer three types of question - home questions are about more recent football, away questions relate to 60s and 70s football, and the rare derby questions are based on trivial facts. To liven things up a little, you get to see a footballer scoring a goal, which lets you know if you were right or wrong. There are other nice bits of animation to see and the graphics are lovely, as is the music, but answering question after question about football just isn't my thing.
Similar to R-Type, here you control a baby dragon that has to rescue its mother. On the way you encounter weird metallic creatures such as mechanical tigers, cyborg bulls and armoured cobras who act as half- or end-of-level bosses. Power-ups can be picked up by shooting special pills that are littered around the scenery. Thankfully, unlike other similar games, when you die you don't lose them, even after a new continue. Your dragon also has a unique feature; your tail is impervious - only its head is vulnerable. This proves very useful when you're surrounded by enemies and their fire, as you can respectively destroy them and block with it. Nice looking, but a rather slow scrolling affair that is made difficult by the rather small screen area.
Deep in the heart of space, evil forces have gathered, and it is your task to destroy them in this clone of Nemesis. There are two main sections; firstly a side-scrolling flight through the innards of the beast at breakneck speed in which you have to work hard to avoid the shifting scenery and relentless roving worm monsters, and a second top-scrolling journey through a decidedly packed asteroid field. A variety of power-ups are available, but considering the degree of difficulty here they tend not to be kept for long. The worst aspect of this game though, has to be the sheer lack of effort on the part of the programmers who quite clearly dragged the Spectrum version over (which actually has more colours!) without any due thought or consideration for the Amstrad's superior capabilities.
See also: Nemesis.
Remembering those early teen years when the hope of seeing an awfully digitised picture of a big-breasted pop star could keep me two hours in front of my screen, I'm really glad to have grown older. But, well, that was a way to practice poker. The graphics are ridiculously bad, the computer's strategy is rather strange, and you must have a great imagination to distinguish anything erotic on the few MODE 2 screens that you'll see. Keep this game if you're a collector, or if you're a fan of Samantha...
You are an aspiring warrior hoping to attain the title of Samurai War Lord, under the guidance of your master, Chu Yu. You must fight against other warriors in two disciplines - karate and kendo (fencing) - before duelling with four of the best samurai warriors. Before each fight, you must select a strategy to adopt, and you must also select three of twelve types of training to improve your prowess. Then you must choose your attack and defence tactics; choose wrongly and your opponent could have a big advantage over you. All these tactical decisions that need to be made detract from the actual fighting, and it's difficult to know how your decisions affect you and your opponent. The graphics are fairly good with some splendid backgrounds, and the music is suitably Oriental, but the game itself is poorly executed.
Those naughty elves have spiked Santa's Christmas pudding, so for one day only, you have to take over as Santa and deliver presents to all the children around the world. There are three levels, taking Santa over Lapland and then across the Atlantic Ocean, before heading over the houses and dropping the presents he has collected on the way. While flying the sleigh, you must dodge or shoot all the Christmas presents coming at you (!) by firing snowballs at them. It's a pretty appalling game, and far too difficult for the young children that this game would be aimed at. Overall, the graphics are mediocre, and the only good thing about the game is the excellent rendition of various Christmas carols.
When it was published in France, in 1986, Sapiens was really out of the mainstream. It was the first CPC game to introduce fractal graphics - I'd never seen a game with so many trees and bushes in it before! And its plot (your main objective is hunting to survive) was very refreshing. The playing area is really huge, and you'll never see the same landscapes twice every time you start a new game (remember, they're mathematically generated!). But the screens all look the same, which quickly becomes boring. That's a pity, because the control panel is handy - once you've worked out how to use it - and there are many things to do, such as making a spear, carving a flintstone, and killing a bear. But most players won't have the patience to discover all the joys of the prehistoric era.
Play Ilan the Crusader as he battles against the Saracen hordes. On each of the 40 levels, you must look for the Saracen chief and blow him up with a hand grenade. You will need arrows to do this, and to shoot some wooden walls and other moving enemies (crosses with flashing coloured balls on each end - bizarre!), but each arrow can only be fired in one direction, although there is a plentiful supply. The graphics and music are absolutely dire, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that the game is written in BASIC (it isn't, though). There is also no option for starting from a particular level, and after playing only a few levels, I became bored. Take my advice; don't play it!
The SAS are the élite fighting force, able to tackle the roughest terrain and the toughest missions, and this is a really tough mission. You're on your own as you race through desert, jungle and swampland to destroy four enemy bases. There are four levels consisting of two parts; the first is a shoot-'em-up where you go berserk with your gun and grenades, avoiding enemy fire, while the second sees you armed only with a knife, stabbing the oncoming enemy soldiers (who are all unarmed, thankfully). The graphics, sound and music are all excellent, but as luck would have it, the game is too difficult, particularly the second part of each level - maybe the SAS could use it in their recruitment training!
A group of terrorists are holding people hostage in various locations and threatening to blow up a nuclear power station. In a situation this serious, you call the SAS. You control one SAS gunman at a time as you attempt to stop the terrorists from carrying out their plans. You start at a farmhouse where the terrorists are based, watching out for enemy fire, grenades and mines. That's probably the only one of the four levels that you'll have the chance to see, because the game is far too difficult. The main problem is that the action is just too fast; the gunman you control, and the terrorists, move so quickly that you just can't avoid enemy fire. The graphics and music are quite good, but it's a shame that it's wasted on such flawed gameplay.
The forces of evil are taking over the universe, and the wizards which once ruled the world have fallen under its spell. As a warrior, you must first become a wizard by gathering three scrolls guarded by the fearsome Tam Lin beasts, and then you must free the wizards who have been captured in the Palace of the Clouds. The graphics in this game are some of the most breathtaking I have seen on the CPC, and have to be seen to be believed! There's no music, but the sound effects are good. It's a great game, too, with lots of enemies to kill, although there's a lot of jumping around, as the warrior moves somewhat gracefully through the air.
You and your friend Yurk, a dragon who was rescued in a previous adventure called Orphée (released several years before this one), have entered another world and must escape from it by collecting some magic crystals. Not a very original story, is it? This is a rather nice text adventure in which you select commands by clicking on icons instead of typing them. It makes the game more accessible to those who are new to text adventures, and you aren't left struggling to find the correct words. The graphics are beautifully drawn in the high-colour, low-resolution mode - a change from most French text adventures - but the font is rather difficult to read. There's also some delightful music to accompany this very agreeable game.
See also: Orphée.
The first time I played this game, I was really baffled. Even my friends who owned a C64 stopped giggling at my CPC when they saw these graphics! The sprites are huge and colourful, and the animation is as fast as it can be. Remember Trantor? Well, this game is even better! Okay, the action is sometimes a little confusing, and the game is rather difficult. But there are three totally different stages, each of which you can access by a code. The last one, in which you're an eagle, is really amazing. I really think this is the most gorgeous game for the CPC, and one of the very best; programers had (at last) mastered the machine!
The slot-car hobby that many of us spent our childhoods with is somewhat badly recreated here. Either a computer or a friend can race on a track. There are lots of pre-designed tracks available, or you can create your own. However, the racing itself is dull; the track is too narrow and overtaking is therefore extremely difficult, and if you crash into your opponent, the race is over instantly. The graphics are average, but there's hardly any scenery on the track edges. The sound effects are very limited as well, and the drone of the engines becomes irritating. Indeed, creating your own tracks is probably the best part of this game!
Alan Chance was falsely accused of bungling a police raid on a drug gang which led to his death, and as his ghost, you have three days to clear your name. This is a three-part text adventure, starting in the graveyard as you witness your own funeral, and then moving on to gather evidence at the scene of your death in order to locate the gang at their new hideaway and allow the police to arrest them. This was Level 9's last text adventure and a great way to end their legacy. The 28 pictures are wonderful and really add to the atmosphere. Some rather elaborate commands can be understood, too, and the plot is also highly original. This is one of the best text adventures I've played.
Two completely different types of game - a quiz, and a Centipede clone - are mixed together to produce one rather awful game. You control a spaceship that can only move left and right, and you must shoot all of the blobs that move from left to right, and gradually down the screen towards you. However, every few seconds, and after completing a level, play is interrupted and you are asked a question or two about maths or history. If you don't get it right, either you lose a life, or you have to restart the level. These interruptions are frankly annoying and make the game very irritating to play. Why should anyone be asked such questions while playing an arcade game, anyway?
Scooby and Shaggy have been captured and are being held in a castle cell, so Scrappy must rescue them. This is a platform game with four levels, lots of ghosts and other nasty creatures, and bonuses to collect. The monsters can be killed by using some 'puppy power' (i.e. punching them), although this requires some practice; time it wrongly and you will lose one of your three lives (and they are easy to lose). The graphics are really colourful and excellent, but there are few sound effects and no music, which is a shame. The game itself is enjoyable to play but suffers by being rather difficult, and you really need more lives to make the game a bit fairer.
See also: Scooby Doo.
Scooby's friends are being held in a haunted castle belonging to a mad scientist, so Scooby enters the castle to rescue them. Originally, this was meant to be an interactive cartoon adventure, but this proved to be too ambitious for 8-bit machines and a completely different game was released, after a very long wait. You must explore the castle, climbing stairs and jumping over holes and skulls lying on the floor, while punching the ghosts and other strange creatures. Extra lives can be obtained by collecting Scooby Snacks, and you'll certainly need them. The graphics are Spectrum-like, and there's no music or theme tune to sing along to! The game itself is very repetitive and quite frustrating, particularly when you reach the third level.
See also: Scooby and Scrappy Doo.
Gather your French-speaking friends around the computer to play this quiz game. This quiz can be played by between two and five players, and it features a strange nose-shaped cartoon character as your host, who is very nicely animated. On each turn, you can choose one of seven categories, and each player stakes some points and then guesses the correct answer to a question. If they answer correctly, they gain the number of points they staked, but if they don't, they lose it instead. The first player to reach a certain target score wins the game. This game isn't bad at all and makes good use of pictures and music with the questions, and there are 'junior' and 'senior' versions of the game as well. (The answer to the question in the screenshot is "Taureau (the bull)", by the way.)
In September 3020, the most powerful computer in the world, known as Silice, has gained control of the Nuclear Arms Centre of the Terra Federation. The only way to stop Silice from destroying Earth is to play a deadly game of pinball against it - but no one has beaten it so far. What's more, pinball in the 31st century is a very dangerous affair, as the bumpers, ramps and targets have been replaced with tanks and guns - and the ball is radioactive as well! However, as a pinball game, this one is mediocre. Although the graphics are colourful, the movement of the ball is jerky, and you have very little control over it. The ball can become stuck on a screen for ages, and while there are 20 screens, it's unlikely that you will see most of them. As pinball games go, this one is mediocre.
All of the Scout troop's award shields have been stolen, and you have to find them all. Like a good Scout, you've also got to do some good turns - cleaning the windows of the pensioners' flats and gathering sealife for the nature class, and mushrooms for the Scouts' meals. There are only about a dozen screens, but clearing them all is a tricky task with all the nasty creatures about. The graphics and sound effects are fairly simple, although there's a catchy little tune on the starting screen that you can whistle to! It's worth a look, but don't expect much out of the game.
Take on the might of 21st century fighter 'planes in your outdated World War II era 'plane. The odds don't sound great, but this vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up gives you five lives and five credits, which is extremely generous; I managed to reach the fifth level out of six on my first attempt. Unfortunately there are no power-ups apart from mini-'planes which act as smart bombs which attach to either side of your 'plane and can also be used as shields; the disadvantage is that your 'plane becomes wider and therefore easier for the enemy to hit. Graphically, the game looks very Spectrum-like, and the sound effects are mediocre as well, and although it plays well, it is a little on the slow side and not very challenging either.
This is a clone of the arcade classic Q*Bert, where you jump around on the squares to make them change colour. Here, you control a worm, and the monsters you have to avoid are black bugs. You have 60 seconds on each level to change the colour of all the squares. The difficulty increases as you progress - the bugs move faster and there are holes which restrict your movement, although the bugs can move over them! You also get an extra life when you complete each level. I've never liked this type of game because the controls always seem to be very awkward, and this game is no different. The graphics are mediocre and the sound effects are useless, but at least it's not that hard, despite the annoying controls.
Your morals are tested in this computer version of the board game. The players take it in turns to ask someone else what they would do in certain situations, and they have to answer "yes", "no" or "depends". If their answer doesn't match the answer card that the player owns, that player gets a new question card. However, the other players can make a challenge if they thought the player answering the question was untruthful... The first player to get rid of all his/her question cards wins. It's not easy to explain the rules in such a short space, but you should get the hang of it after a few goes. Unfortunately, playing against the computer isn't as exciting as playing the actual board game with your friends.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Lots of skateboarding here as you attempt to earn medals and raise some money to buy tickets and equipment by showing off your miscellaneous skills at courses scattered throughout Skate City. There's a ramp, a couple of downhill tracks, and a slalom track too. If you don't do well enough, you won't get any more tickets to get into the courses, and the killer bees will come after you (honest)! The game is quite a lot of fun at first as you muck about on all the courses, but I lost interest after some time. And killer bees? Who on Earth decided to put killer bees in a skateboarding game?
Seymour is about to make his big break in a new film, but there is chaos, as the director has gone and left the scripts locked in a safe! Yes, Seymour has to come to the rescue. The game, which was released as Seymour Goes to Hollywood and is more commonly known by that name, features several classic films such as Grease, Flash Boredom, Sherlock Bones and The Wizard of Oz, but to see them (and solve the puzzles within them), you'll have to find the keys to each studio first. The puzzles are entertaining and the graphics are impressive, but two things let this game down - the frustrating maze of studios in which it is easy to get lost, and the size of the game; it's too much to sit through in one go. Amstrad Action also released a mini-game, Seymour: Take One on one of their covertapes, which is worth looking at.
See also: Sergeant Seymour Robotcop, Stuntman Seymour, Super Seymour Saves the Planet, Wild West Seymour.
Despite being in the 25th century, some things never change. The emperor Cophenix wants Mirdav to rescue the princess Doxaphin. Mirdav has to fight his way into the Kindos castle, from the dungeons to the upper rooms. Only the mighty sword he's carrying, Sgrizam, will let him take the princess back to his father. Sgrizam is quite a simple arcade game. Whenever an enemy comes to you there are only three possible actions - bend down, jump or brandish your sword. The graphics are quite big and colourful and the scrolling is smooth, although there is some sprite flickering. The sound effects are only average. There's a tune but thankfully, it doesn't play throughout the game. Sgrizam is reasonably difficult; it just requires a bit of concentration. Its main problem is that although the levels change, the gameplay remains almost the same.
Many prisoners are being held in the dungeons of a mysterious castle, and you must rescue them. You must explore nearly 100 levels, shooting doors to release the prisoners, and finding keys to unlock other doors. There are also many monsters to impede your progress, although if you have some prisoners with you, they will be a bit easier to defeat. This is a Gauntlet clone and it's unfortunately not a good one. The graphics are poor and the scrolling and movement are jerky and slow, and the music on the menu is nothing special either. All the dungeons look very similar, and the game lacks excitement.
Joe Musashi returns to fight more crime on the streets of America. One of your students, Kato, has been murdered, and not only that, but the Sauros are threatening to blow up a US space shuttle. You must prevent this from happening, and avenge Kato's death. Throughout the game, you are accompanied by your dog Yamoto, who seems to be totally invulnerable to any enemy fire. You have an unlimited supply of shurikens to throw at enemies, and you can also use magic to kill every enemy on the screen, although you can only use this a few times. The graphics are big and colourful, but the sound is rather limited and the music on the menu is irritating. The game itself is great to play, and having six credits and four lives with each credit is wonderful.
See also: Shinobi.
Transformed against your will into a hideous mutant servant by the Beast Lord Maletoth and his evil mages, you resolve to use your beast-like powers to scour the land in search of him and to take vengeance for the death of your father. Fight your way through a seemingly endless barrage of adversaries in order to face the final confrontation with Zelek the Beast Mage, in order to regain your humanoid body and rid yourself of the shadow of the beast. The music here is of a very high quality, and combined with the detailed monochrome graphics this is a very eerie, yet appealing game.
Captain Blatt was inspecting the outer hull of a massive mothership in his Shadow Skimmer, but the mothership's computers have malfunctioned, and the Shadow Skimmer is now being treated as a hostile invader! Can you guide Captain Blatt to the other side of the mothership and enter the hatch that will lead you to safety? This is a colourful shoot-'em-up that also requires a lot of exploration. On each of the three sectors, it is necessary to find and shoot an object that will remove the barrier that blocks the entrance to the next sector. Occasionally, you must explore below the hull using the hatchways, and flip your spaceship to pass certain obstacles. The graphics and sound effects are very good, the game is easy to get the hang of, and exploring the hull will keep most players interested.
The streets of America are full of muggers and other criminals, and as the Shadow Warrior, your mission is to clear the streets and make them safe again. The Shadow Warrior's method of combat is a series of ninja-style kicks, and in fact, this is the only move that you can use on the enemies. You may not have to learn a lot of moves like other beat-'em-ups, but I think this is a bit limiting. It's a fairly standard scrolling beat-'em-up - the graphics are nice, but there's hardly any sound and there's nothing that makes it better than other games like it.
This is an average karate game with four skill levels, in which you control Lo Yin. The story of the game is that Wang Chen, a pupil at the Changchun Academy, massacred all of his fellow pupils and teachers, and Lo Yin was the sole survivor. In reality, it's just a straightforward beat-'em-up, with you fighting against Wang Chen's men one at a time. On each level, you must defeat your opponent four times before he does the same to you. The first skill level is easy, but after that, it becomes a bit more challenging. You can also change the speed of the game to make it easier. The graphics are quite good, particularly the backgrounds, of which there are four selections available. However, there's no variety in the gameplay and it soon becomes repetitive.
A gang of mercenaries led by Snide Gantree has stolen a Soviet submarine, and you must single-handedly battle your way through three enemy bases to recover the submarine. This is a dull beat-'em-up in which you take on several mercenaries, move right to the next screen, take on another group of mercenaries, move right to the next screen, and so on - and this goes on for what seems like an eternity. Occasionally you can collect weapons, but there is hardly any variety in the gameplay, and each level is so long that most people will want to switch off and play something better when they realise how boring this game is. The backgrounds are nice, though.
Lee has spent much time mastering the mysterious martial art known as Chin's Shao-Lin, but he is trapped in a temple that is filled with hordes of Triads. Can you use the skills you have developed to defeat them and escape from the temple? Each level contains a set of number of Triads who you can knock out with a carefully timed kick - although if you get it wrong, the Triads will hit you instead. Halfway through the level, a Triad who is stronger than the rest must also be defeated, although it requires several kicks to knock him or her out. The graphics are nothing special, and the Oriental-themed music is not great either, but the game overall is fairly good, if perhaps a little lacking in variety.
The background to this icon-driven text adventure is very weird and convoluted, but I shall try to summarise it here. A magical barrier known as the Cairnrue is preventing rain from falling on the land, but in order to dissolve the barrier, a magical stone called Inovar is required to invoke the Ritual of Decairn. Unfortunately it has been stolen, and only a tiny shard remains, so it is up to you, Varwield Secunda, to travel westwards and retrieve Inovar. All of these fancy names and rituals are very confusing indeed at first, and some of the puzzles are rather odd. However, the use of icons to select verbs means that solving most of the puzzles isn't too difficult, and if you stick with the game, you will eventually begin to make sense of it.
To be honest, I don't know what this game is about, but what I can certainly tell you is that it is awful. It's a run-of-the-mill space shoot-'em-up where you shoot aliens and collect power-ups while exploring a maze and trying to find the route through it. However, the nature of the controls is such that far too often, you end up using your precious power-ups when you don't need them, and since you will actually need the power-ups to progress through the maze, this makes the game nearly impossible to play. Excellent graphics are wasted once again on a lousy game - sigh...
It's gangster shooting time in this truly abysmal horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up. Kill the gun-toting gangsters either in a hail of bullets or by throwing Molotov cocktails at them, and try not to hit the informer that wanders about the screen as if he's in a trance. There are plenty of games like this, and nearly all of them are much better than this one. The scrolling is very slow, it takes ages to complete a level, it's far too easy, and the Spectrum-like graphics are off-putting. The only good thing is the music on the menu.
You are the sole heir to your uncle Ferdinand Sharpe's fortune, but to inherit it, you must find twelve treasures and the deeds for your uncle's estate. You start in an inn, in a quiet village in Somerset, where your solicitor is waiting for you. After you've spoken to him, you're on your own. If you're a fan of Infocom's text adventures, you'll know which one influenced the creation of this GAC adventure, although there are many puzzles to solve before you even encounter your first treasure. The map is quite large, and there is a lot to see and do. Plenty of well drawn pictures have been added, too, and unlike many GAC adventures I've played, there are few problems with finding the correct word to use.
The American-built Sherman M4 tank saw action in World War II. Despite its inferior armour and weaponry, it was also reliable, and they managed to beat the Germans by outnumbering them. You can command a battalion of up to four tanks in ten missions against the Germans. Five of them are based in Normandy, while the other five are based in the Ardennes region. The playing area contains villages and supply bases which are held by the enemy and which you must capture. You also have to hunt down and destroy enemy bunkers and tanks. The game makes use of wonderful 3D graphics, but the game slows to a snail's pace when the screen becomes crowded. However, the biggest fault is that all of the missions are too easy, even on the higher difficulty settings, and the gameplay is rather limited anyway.
Bwah Foo has captured all the children at a school for training ninjas, and as Joe Musashi, a former graduate of the school, you resolve to rescue all of them. The children are scattered over five levels which are split into three or four sections. It's a platform game, and a rather good one, with lots of enemy ninjas to slay with your shurikens. Different ninjas will require different techniques, though, and then there is the matter of defeating the end-of-level guardians. You do have magic powers to help you, although you can only use them once in each section. The graphics aren't all that good - they're rather messy - and the music on the menu is poor, although some better tunes play throughout the game, which is easy to get into and fun to play.
See also: Shadow Dancer.
This is a rather silly game, and one which was also slightly controversial when it was first released. You know those long airport walkways? This game sees you jumping to and fro between them and killing gang members with whatever weapons you can find lying at the side of the walkways. You can also get extra lives if you can achieve certain targets which change on each level. The controversy arises when you lose a life; your blood-stained head gets cut off and rolls down the walkway! It's not that bad a game, but all the levels (apart from the first) are basically the same thing. The music is really cool, though!
Struck by a lightning bolt, Robot 5 has come alive. He tries to escape from his creators who want to catch him in order to study what happened. This game was inspired by the movie of the same name by John Badham. You control Number 5 through the laboratories and must find the way out. You can download programs to enhance your abilities, search the rooms for keys and other items. That part is rather good, with good graphics and a cheerful music. The second part is an action sequence in which you must escape cops and various animals while jumping over ponds. It's difficult and rather stupid. In summary, this is an average game. It's a pity that the second half of the game could have been better.
Welcome to Shufflepuck Café! If you've ever played a game on one of those air hockey machines you find in big amusement arcades (and boy, I loved playing them in my youth!), you'll recognise this. Air hockey is like ice hockey except that it's against two players, and you hit the ball with a bat rather than a stick. It's really easy to grasp. The café is filled with eight contestants, who each have their own ways of playing, which you will need to know in order to beat them. You can play a few games against any of them, or take part in a knockout tournament. Both the graphics and the music are stunning and the game is great fun, and you can customise it as well.
A man known as Bozon wants to exterminate Earth, and his headquarters lies deep underwater. As Lieutenant Henry, you must swim through the sea to locate his headquarters. The game consists of one long level with lots of creatures to shoot, and several huge dragon-like monsters (which you must obviously shoot as well) help to break the action into distinct stages. Initially you can't move fast at all and your firepower is limited, but collecting the power-ups left behind by the creatures you shoot gives you more speed and weaponry - and you're going to need it! Without it, you'll lose lives very easily. If you keep hitting the fire button, you'll be OK. The graphics are all right, but they could be better, and so could the music, which is mediocre. The game itself is reasonably good once you get the hang of things.
The Halson galaxy is under threat. You have been sent on a mission to destroy a thermonuclear planet. This is a standard horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up in which you shoot lots of aliens and jump across craters and lakes. Every so often, a spaceship appears and you enter it, taking you into space, where you shoot and dodge spaceships instead. However, it's highly unlikely that you will ever get the chance to do this without cheating. This is a ridiculously difficult game from start to finish! Jumping over obstacles requires great precision, but while you're trying to position yourself, the aliens are swarming around you and draining your precious energy. The graphics are very good, albeit with too much purple used, but it's a shame that the gameplay is not up to the same standard.
Known as Marche à l'Ombre in France, and based upon the songs and the suburban-Parisian universe of the famous French singer Renaud, this game is a strange attempt to merge two worlds (pop music and video game). The game in itself is rather dull. Though the graphics, in black and white, are rather good, they lack variety and the playing window is too small. Furthermore, it's quite impossible not to get lost because the point of view changes every time you enter a new place. The plot is original (you must find your motorcycle which has been stolen, and buy two tickets for Renaud's show), but the gameplay is awful. Time is limited, the game area is tiny - about 20 screens - and the fight scenes are a pity. One for fans of Renaud only.
I'm not sure what the story behind this game is, but the game itself consists of seven stages, each divided into three phases. In the first phase, you have to shoot and dodge alien attack formations; in the second, you have to clear a maze of dots and find the pattern of dots which you can't clear; and in the third, you have to reproduce this pattern by bouncing on tiles at the right time. This is all repeated seven times, and it gets harder each time. The graphics are reasonable and some of the animated sequences are nice, but the gameplay may get repetitive, especially when you get three extra lives on completing each phase.
You are in control of a fleet of American submarines based in the Pacific Ocean during World War II, and you must simply sink as many Japanese ships as you can. You can try some target practice or attempt various missions which recreate actual events in the Pacific, and depending on your experience, you can adjust the difficulty and realism levels. This is an extremely realistic game (in fact, the West German authorities banned it from general sale because of this) and it's clear that a lot of attention has been put into this. It's not exactly for action fans - it's very much a strategy game, and you must plan your actions carefully - but if you like these sorts of games, then this is a winner.
An enormous bomber 'plane, equipped with the most advanced technology known, has just been launched - the Silent Shadow. Its mission is to fly to the outskirts of a city to destroy an enemy base. However, the Silent Shadow's sheer size makes it relatively vulnerable, so you (and perhaps a friend) must pilot a much smaller fighter and destroy enemy ground targets and 'planes to make way for the Silent Shadow. There are four levels, each one an unrelenting onslaught of enemy firepower. Your fighter can hold up to three bombs at a time, and many more can be collected along the way - and you'll need to use them regularly. The graphics are undoubtedly very nice, but it's difficult to make out the enemy's bullets, and there are so many enemies to face that you will probably never reach the end of the first level.
This horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up is better than most other offerings. You control a helicopter and you just blast away at the enemy helicopters and missile bases. On every level, there's a helicopter which has to be hit in the right place, and then there's the end-of-level helicopter which is very big indeed. There are also extra firepower and invincibility bonuses to collect. It's colourful with lots of explosions, and if there's an extra player handy, it's possible to play with a jeep, although it's not as powerful as the helicopter. One warning, though - don't play this game if you suffer from epilepsy, as the screen flashes quite a lot.
See also: SWIV.
Ahh... it's one of the most famous games ever, and it did appear on the CPC. You have to build your own city, starting with a power station and then building residential, commercial and industrial zones, and making the infrastructure of roads, railways and power lines. You must also make sure your citizens are happy. There is a limitless number of ways to play this game, and it is great fun - especially when you initiate a few disasters! The colour scheme isn't the best but the graphics are excellent all the same, although the beep is horrible - and it also couldn't save or load cities with some disc drives (such as mine); not that this is a problem now that we have emulators...
This game is loosely based on an episode from the TV series. The space mutants have arrived at Springfield and are causing chaos, and as Bart Simpson, you're the only one who can stop them. In the first level, the aliens have sprayed some objects purple, and you have to paint them red using a spray can and any other objects you can find a use for. The second level involves collecting hats and knocking them off people's heads (!), and in the third level, you must collect and shoot balloons - and so it goes on. The graphics are very colourful albeit basic, and Bart looks just like the guy you see on TV. There isn't much sound, though. It's a cute little platform game and I like it, although the levels are a bit long.
Take on the role of Sir Lancelot and explore a castle consisting of 24 rooms. In each of these rooms, you must collect several objects before you can visit another one - but there are also lots of monsters which you must dodge. This simple but delightful platform game was released in the early stages of the CPC's life, so the graphics are rather crude, but don't be fooled. There is some wonderful platforming action on offer, and while experienced players will find that most of the rooms pose little difficulty to them, completing all of the rooms will still be a challenge.
The village of Nargoot was fairly prosperous, thanks to the Golden Shield - a shield with magical properties. However, the dark magician Amargol has stolen it. Enter Arn, a farmer from the village who has set out on a quest to find the shield and return it. This is a wonderful game with three levels which each load separately. Each level contains lots of monsters which must be shot, and several larger enemies which can only be destroyed with a particular weapon. You must also collect six objects in order to complete each level - if you reach the end. The most remarkable aspect of this game is the graphics; they are absolutely luscious, with really big sprites. As a result, the game moves a bit slowly, but it's nothing to worry about.
A mediocre and very simple single-screen arcade game in which you move around the screen on your flying skateboard, using it to kill the monsters which float around the screen in a particular formation. There are four monsters to kill on each level - two waves, with two monsters in each wave. Bonus icons can also be collected when they appear. The graphics and sound effects are rather primitive and there's no appeal to the gameplay at all; it's the sort of game that you'll play a few times and then forget about.
Freddy wants to impress his roller skating friends with his skills, and he's going to do this by skating around several obstacle courses. The game is divided into two parts. The Car Park Challenge consists of four courses which have been laid out in a car park. You must impress the judges by performing stunts, while not crashing too much or becoming too tired. If you don't impress them enough, you must repeat the level. The Championship Course is more like a platform game in which you must simply reach the end of each level without losing all of your lives. The graphics are colourful and the music is absolutely marvellous, and although the Championship Course is merely OK to play, the Car Park Challenge is such great fun that you'll want to try it out again and again.
Join Lester on five different skateboarding events - the ramp, high jump, downhill course, pool jousting (!), and the jam (a fight in a back yard). You can practice an event or compete in all five. They're all boring, anyway; there is a very limited number of moves you can perform on the ramp, and the downhill course and the jam scroll too slowly to make it exciting. These two events are in monochrome, while the rest of the game uses full colour (but still very poor) graphics. It gives the impression that the game has been put together in an inconsistent and rather slapdash manner.
The Slime Rats are the coolest skateboarding gang in town, although I don't know why they call themselves the Slime Rats - the name doesn't sound very cool to me! To join the gang, you must tackle a series of courses, collecting eight flags in each. The graphics are appalling, there's no sound effects (although you have to listen to some irritating tunes before and after each course), and the gameplay's just as bad. The scrolling between screens is annoying and the collision detection is suspect as well. Maybe it's not quite as bad as it seems, but it could have been a lot better.
Tom Essex woke up one morning and found that all of his super powers had now disappeared, and he was no longer Superkid - but he continues his mission to clear the streets of criminals. Armed with his skateboard and catapult, Tom has to skate around six stages and collect nine banknotes on each one, while avoiding the muggers or firing at them. Contact with the muggers loses energy, and if you lose too much, the game is over. After completing a stage, there is a bonus stage which allows you to collect more points. The music is very good, and the graphics are OK as well, and Tom zooms around each stage at some speed. However, the muggers are hard to avoid and appear randomly on each screen, and progressing to subsequent stages is more a matter of luck than skill.
See also: Superkid, Superkid in Space.
The Evil Sorcerer has captured several beautiful women, and your mission is to rescue them and defeat the Sorcerer, who adopts various disguises throughout the eight levels of this platform game. One Eye (and Red Dog if two people are playing) must board pirate ships, explore a variety of lands, kill a lot of the Sorcerer's henchmen, and collect lots of treasure in the process. Sword fighting techniques will not take long to master, although finding the right methods for dealing with some of the tougher henchmen will be a bit more tricky. The graphics are colourful, although the music doesn't fit in well with the pirate theme - and if you only have 64K of memory, you will only hear silence! Overall, this is a fairly satisfactory game, although the scrolling is very jerky, and the controls are slightly awkward.
Many years ago, Skweek's planet was contaminated with a blue skweekicide by aliens. Now you're going to change all 99 continents back to their original colour - pink! Each level consists of a board of tiles, and there are all sorts of hazards - monsters, arrow tiles, ice, and crumbling tiles are just some of them, but there are also a large range of bonuses. The graphics are extremely cute, and Skweek is so small and furry! There are two tunes to select, but they're rather too cute for my liking. You can switch them off, though. All in all, this game is so amazingly excellent that there's no way you can't like it.
See also: Super Skweek, The Tiny Skweeks.
A legend tells that four people will one day bring peace to the kingdom of Belda. That day has come, and you control this group of people. The game is based on Qix (hence its name), where you must draw lines in order to fill in parts of the screen; when you fill at least 75% of the screen, you can go to the next level. To make this more difficult, there are a few monsters; a green mask which moves unpredictably and very quickly around the screen, and one or more other enemies which move along the lines that you have drawn. There are also apples which give you more time, and potions which make you behave in strange ways. The graphics are very good and the game is well presented, but the presence of the green mask makes it frustratingly difficult.
This is a bog-standard shoot-'em-up in which you are flying above the surface of the planet Orac and shooting aliens. Some of them leave gold stars behind which you can pick up, and collecting them allows you to select from a list of power-ups, which you can decide to make use of at any time. The graphics are pretty good when you consider that this is just another space shoot-'em-up, and the music is good as well. It's just that the enemy bullets are often too small to see, and if you lose a life, it's really difficult to recover from losing all your power-ups too.
This is a simple game set in the future, where two balls - one blue and one red - try to fire another ball over their opponent's goal, which is represented by a square. The game can be played with a friend or against the computer, and you can change the computer's expertise, as well as a number of other settings. The ball is magnetic, and if you're nearby, you can attract it towards you. Once you have the ball, you then aim and release it. While the concept is very simple, it will take time to master, as controlling your ball is tricky due to a lack of friction. Not everyone will like it, but I thought it was reasonably good, although the graphics during the game are rather blocky and the scrolling is slow.
In this brilliant Dizzy clone from Codemasters, you play the part of a trainee wizard named Slightly, and must rescue the lovely princess who has been snatched away by an angry, sunburnt dragon. Unfortunately, poor Slightly is stuck in his master's castle, and must first find his way out. Codemasters add a nice little variation to the gameplay here, as to progress Slightly must learn spells by finding both the spell and a related object (for example, a hearing spell and a megaphone). These are pretty fun, especially later spells which turn the poor guy into a bird and a fish. The graphics are good and little Slightly is cute and well animated, the music is unbelievably catchy, and the game's difficulty is perfect. This game is great in all ways, except for one thing; I found it a bit too short.
It's late on Friday night, and Slug is sitting with his girlfriend, watching the horror film Emperor Hades Meets the Yak-Faced Melboids from East London Part 37 (Revisited) (sounds like an interesting film to me!), when his girlfriend is suddenly taken away by a mechanical arm, to another world. As Slug, you have to collect five hearts on each of the levels, which consist of four moving platforms with holes allowing you to fall down to and jump up to higher and lower platforms. There is the usual array of monsters to shoot with your TNT slime as well. Beneath the silly plot lies an extremely basic arcade game. The graphics are quite good, and there are some nice animated cartoons every three levels, but it's dull and repetitive and won't hold your attention for long.
You are Pigseye Peers, an inexperienced army surgeon who has been thrown in at the deep end, in the Strangest Mobile Army Surgical Hospital East of Detroit. But the still, which provides you with alcohol, has gone missing, and you must discover what has happened to it. As you've probably guessed, this is a parody of the M*A*S*H TV series and film, and if you're a fan, you'll recognise a lot of the characters in this game. As for the game itself, it's a text adventure which was written with GAC. The graphics are reasonably good, and solving the puzzles isn't as hard as some GAC adventures - the vocabulary isn't too limited.
In the 21st century, a new style of game show has emerged on TV. It's fast, it's furious, and it's got action - it's Smash TV! You run around a maze of rooms, each containing several waves of monsters about to unleash their fury at you. You won't get a single moment to relax here! You can improve your weapons by collecting power-ups left behind by some of the monsters. The graphics are big and bright, although all the rooms look the same. The sound effects are good with lots of lovely explosions, but there's no music. However, it's a great game full of action and no time to take a breather.
You're sitting in the computer room at PUE Tech on a freezing night, and a snowstorm is raging outside. It's time to finish your assignment, so you'd better get on with it - but you soon discover that all the computers are down. Bummer! Fans of Infocom's text adventures will instantly recognise the scenario, which is almost exactly the same as that of The Lurking Horror. This adventure is written using GAC, so it's unfair to expect it to match the quality of the game it's based on - but it uses GAC's features well. The author's sense of humour really shows through, especially if you've played The Lurking Horror and discover that certain things are rather different in this game! This is a really enjoyable text adventure, and is arguably one of the best GAC adventures that I've ever played.
I don't know why the word 'snoball' is spelt the way it is in this game, but you know the saying about "a snowball's chance in hell", and now you're attempting to raise hell, armed with just a few snowballs. Can you pull it off? This is a Breakout clone, using an armoured tank as a bat and a snowball as a ball. Unlike many other Breakout clones, though, the bat moves vertically and not horizontally, and there are also plenty of monsters which fly towards you. They can be hard to dodge, but you soon learn to hold down the fire button more or less constantly. The graphics are very colourful, but there's nothing that makes it better than similar games.
A snooker management game? What kind of lunatic thought of this? It's one of Cult's terrible efforts at writing management games, being written entirely in BASIC with no graphics to speak of. You start bottom of the world rankings and have to play in tournaments and earn prize money to make it all the way to the top. You can also arrange matches with other players and gamble your money on other players. The big problem is that you have to sit through other players' games, and of course, your own games. It is duller than watching paint dry, and even die-hard snooker fans will loathe this sorry excuse for a game.
Despite the name of this game, you don't actually play a proper game of football; instead, the game concentrates on training. There are four types of training - dribbling, tackling, passing and penalties. When you have completed all four courses successfully, you can then go on to the assault course. The courses are all self-explanatory, except for the dribbling, in which you have to kick the ball around some cones in the direction highlighted by the arrow shown on the screen. There aren't many football training games around, mainly because they're just not as exciting as actual football games. This is no exception; the graphics are OK, but the gameplay is really dull.
There are lots of football management games on the CPC, but this game instead sees you as a crooked businessman trying to buy at least 501 shares in the top ten clubs in the 1st Division. Starting with £200,000, you buy some shares and watch their value rise and fall as each team's fortune changes. Each week, you are paid a dividend through your ownership of the teams, and can use that to buy more shares. You can also bet on a team to win the league or be relegated, and you can also call meetings to demand pay rises, ground improvements, or a new manager. There is no excitement to this game at all, mainly because it takes ages to build up enough money from your dividends, and you are forced to look at screen after screen of information after each turn. Oh, and it's written entirely in BASIC as well.
The French version of this football game is known as Marius Tresor Foot, after a great French footballer who played for France in the 1982 World Cup. You can select two of four teams (Great Britain, France, Germany or Italy) and choose the level of each of your players (from 0 to 20) and your opponent's players. However, there are no differences between the different teams, save for the colour of their shirts. You automatically control the player that is closest to the ball, although pressing the fire button allows you to change the player you want to control. Once you are in possession of the ball, your speed is reduced by half, which favours a very collective method of play! Eventually, it is a fast and really enjoyable game, though it isn't realistic at all.
Soccer and pinball - when you think about it, it almost makes sense. As you'd expect, the pinball table is laid out in the form of a football pitch, the aim being to get rid of each of the defenders blocking the way, and then scoring three goals to go on to the next table - which has exactly the same layout, but with more defenders. Whether you'll actually be able to score three goals seems to be a matter of sheer fluke; the game is too difficult and the goalmouth is too small, letting down an otherwise novel concept. Out of interest, it also uses the cassette motor as a sound effect... bizarre!
A football management game combined with a board game - it sounds interesting but after a few goes, you begin to realise its limitations. Three players, which can be human or computer-controlled, choose to manage one of 32 teams and take it in turns to move around the board. Each square on the board triggers an event; one type of square lets you buy new players, another lets you set up a youth team and coach, or to make improvements to your stadium, while another lets you train your players. There are also 'chance' squares which may win or lose you money. The problem is that you can only perform actions when you land on the right square, which may take one turn or ten turns. Football management games should be based on skill and not luck.
What's it like to be the manager of your own software house and release some games? This game lets you try this out. Your aim is to survive for five years, but you start out with a budget of only £2500, and if you go more than £25,000 into debt, it's all over. In each quarter (which counts as one turn), you can select one or more games to buy, and then it's your job to organise the duplication of tapes and the artwork, packaging, price and the number of advertisements to place in magazines. After each turn, you then read the Games News magazine which has news of how well you're doing and how good or bad they think your latest game is. It's all good fun, although it can be frustrating and unpredictable most of the time.
You're a games programmer at a software house, and you want to achieve the title of Software Star. Games are developed and released, and each month you get to see how well they're doing in the software charts; getting in the top three is crucial if you want to be known, and good reviews count, too! Other tasks you have to perform include booking adverts, removing old games from your catalogue, and whether to use hype or honesty to sell your games. Any initial excitement about the game begins to wear off; even on the beginner level, it's too difficult.
Yawn - it's yet another Galaxians clone. This one has only four levels; three of these feature a formation of aliens hurling laser beams at you, while the fourth sees you fighting against the aliens' mothership. We've seen it all before. The graphics are actually not too bad and are quite colourful, but the sound effects are nothing special. The game itself is a bit difficult; while the alien ships whizz about the screen and fire at you (and those lasers seem to home in on you), your spacecraft moves rather slowly - but practice makes perfect. Even so, there are better games than this out there.
The evil Dargons have enslaved the galaxy, and you must free as many planets in the galaxy as you can. How do you do this? You must find an asteroid and shoot it, allowing you to steer it in a particular direction. Captured planets will be liberated if you manage to crash an asteroid into it. It seems like an extremely drastic method of liberating a planet, but I'm not responsible for devising this game! Obviously, you have the usual aliens to contend with, as well as the fact that your spaceship is very snake-like in both appearance and manoeuvrability. There are also several dials that tell you the nearest location of various objects. The graphics are quite good, although the screen is mostly empty space. However, for some reason, I don't really warm to this game much.
Bully and Mónica are both cursed. Every full moon, one of them turns into an animal, while the other regains their human form. This prevents them both from being together, so they wait until there is a total eclipse and they can visit an underwater temple where the curse can be removed. In the first part, you control Bully, and you must find the key to release Mónica (who has turned into a hawk) from her cage and reach the temple. The roles are reversed in the second part, where you control Mónica, who is accompanied by Bully (who has turned into a fish). What a strange story for a game! Well, the graphics are very nice indeed and really detailed. Unfortunately, even with twenty (!) lives, the game is still frustratingly difficult, particularly in the second part.
One morning, a little eight-year-old boy called Carlitos was ready to go to school. He walked out of his house and into the streets - and was confronted by hordes of armed men shooting at him! Fortunately he had a Gunstick with him... This is the very surreal story behind this target shooting game, which can only be played using MHT's Gunstick. As the scenery scrolls along, you have to shoot the gunmen and avoid shooting any innocent bystanders. Your ammunition is limited, so you will also need to shoot boxes to maintain your supply. It's fairly standard stuff, although there is a lot of action going on; there is little time to rest! The graphics are very detailed and well drawn, although the tune on the menu is merely OK. Despite the silly story, this is a fairly good game.
Wealth beyond avarice is yours for the taking in King Solomon's mines, but first you must navigate your way through a labyrinth of monster-filled chambers in this conversion of the Tecmo puzzle arcade coin-op. To proceed, you need to obtain the cunningly placed key to unlock the exit door. Reach it via the blocks that are arranged before you and lay your own to bridge any gaps between you and your goal. However, the monsters can condemn you to fall to your death by destroying the blocks beneath you. Thankfully you can kill them the same way and use fireballs against them that you can pick up along the way, along with reams of bonuses that are littered all around. A rather difficult challenge but a delightful looking game.
Fly the highly sophisticated and well armed fighter jet, the Sonic Boom, engaging it in six different conflicts across the continents of the world. Nothing original in the plot, then; it's another vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up. However, it's quite good, mainly because of the beautiful graphics and the fact that the difficulty level is such that you can complete most of the six levels without too many problems - although it's perhaps a little too easy. There aren't many power-ups to collect - extra firepower is more or less all you can get - but the variety of end-of-level combats you face is interesting.
What sort of a name is Sootland? I don't know, but it's one of those target shooting games where you have to aim your crosshairs at the bad guys before they shoot you. This one is an American western style shooting match, and there are three levels, each with four screens. All you do is scroll between them and find the cowboy popping his head through the scenery - they only appear one at a time, and when you've shot him, you have to find the next one, which means more scrolling. This goes on and on, but you just don't know how many of the bad guys you're supposed to kill. The graphics and sound are both pitiful, and it's such an awful game that it's unbelievable.
All of Sweep's bones have gone missing, so it's the task of Sooty and/or Sweep to search Matthew Corbett's house and collect the bones. You can play on your own or with a friend as either Sooty or Sweep, and there are also two difficulty levels, which control how much time you've got and how many bones there are to collect. Unfortunately, you can only collect one bone at a time and give it to Soo before you can get another one. You'll also need to watch out for the insects flying about the house! The game is clearly one for very young players, as everyone else will find it far too easy - and why are the graphics in monochrome?
After defeating the warlock Krill in Enchanter, you now have your own room in the Circle of Enchanters. But the leader of the Circle, Belboz, has gone missing, and of course, you must find him, or the Circle of Enchanters is in big trouble. The game again consists of exploring the Guild Hall and then exploring the land, gathering scrolls and using them to cast spells. However, this time, you don't have to worry about finding food and drink, and several potions can also be found in the game. The difficulty level is greater than in Enchanter, with a glass maze, and another puzzle involving time travel in which you meet an older version of yourself! I think this is the best of the three games in Infocom's Enchanter series.
See also: Enchanter, Spellbreaker.
This game is the sequel to one of the most famous games on the CPC - Sorcery, widely used by Amstrad to promote the CPC because the graphics were very nice at the time the game was released. The first part is more or less the same as in Sorcery, but it is a bit easier. The real plus of the game is in the second part, in which you have to find four golden hearts to defeat the evil necromancer. The game provides good graphics and fast animation and it is really addictive. It is not too large, so you won't get lost easily, and the difficulty is well balanced. Just a little hint; in the second part, drop the 'roland' statuette into the water (in the 'bridge' room) to get the fourth golden heart.
A computer is still running the planet Nonterraqueous, and a robot with the mind of a man is sent out with a bomb so that the computer can be destroyed. The computer lies within a large maze filled with platforms, and you have to jump to reach them. However, some platforms are higher than others and you'll need to adjust the jumping power of the robot. The thing is, the robot is a bit slow, and with the many monsters about, you'll probably hit one of them and come tumbling back to the floor and maybe losing a life. Before long, frustration sets in after you realise that getting anywhere is too tricky.
See also: Into Oblivion, Nonterraqueous.
The Southern Belle was a steam locomotive that carried passengers from London's Victoria station to Brighton. This is a realistic simulation which faithfully recreates the 51-mile journey and allows you to take control this famous train. Although there is a daunting range of controls, you can choose which ones you can manipulate, and leave the computer to work the remaining controls. In addition, there are several runs which vary in difficulty, and in order to pass them, you must achieve a rating of at least 70% overall. Starting with a training run, you can then try to cope with speed limits, maintenance works, stopping at stations, and attempting to beat the record of 48 minutes from Victoria to Brighton. The vector graphics are excellent, and even if you're not a trainspotter, you may find the game to be a nice diversion once you've got the hang of it.
Soviet citizens are being kidnapped on the orders of a dictator from a neighbouring country. The KGB has sent its best agent, Igor, into the country to rescue the hostages. You have to drive around each of the two levels (only two?), collecting the hostages as they run towards your vehicle. Unfortunately the dictator's army is out to get you! You'll be assaulted by a barrage of bombs and bullets, and while you're dodging them, the hostages are being killed; if too many die, the game is over. The graphics are detailed and well drawn, although the rendition of the Soviet national anthem on the menu is mediocre. The game itself is OK, but the constant bombardment that you face makes it very difficult indeed.
Here's an Asteroids clone without any of the playability. Shoot the aliens as they zoom across the screen, while trying frantically to stay out of their way at the same time. It's not easy at all, and if you can survive for two minutes, you're doing really well! My main complaints regarding this game are that the controls are unresponsive and the movement of your spaceship is sluggish, whereas the aliens move much faster than you and are therefore difficult to avoid. The graphics are fairly good, but the game is so frustratingly difficult that you'll want to throw something at your CPC in sheer anger.
During the War of Strife, which lasted for 5000 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You are a test pilot working for the Space Rider Jet Pack Company, and have been sent to a planet to test their latest jet pack, and also collect 99 nuggets containing important minerals while you're there. Of course, the caverns and mines in which you'll find these nuggets are filled with hazards and aliens which will drain your energy, which is represented by an oscillating wave of coloured bars at the bottom of the screen - neat. However, the game is rather mediocre. The graphics and sound effects are poor and the jet pack is difficult to control; it's practically impossible to stay still, which makes shooting the aliens a frustrating task. It also lacks originality.
The Space Smugglers are a highly organised group of dangerous assassins, and you have just been chosen to rid the galaxy of them. On the screen are three teleporters, and aliens appear at random. Some of them are harmless, but others are dangerous and will show you their weapon after a few seconds. You can only shoot an alien when they have drawn their weapon, so you will need quick reflexes to survive! When you have shot the required number of aliens (shown at the top of the screen), you are taken to the next level. This game can only be played using MHT's own Gunstick, and it's actually fairly unexciting. It takes ages to complete a level, and of course, the next level is the same, except that you may need to shoot even more aliens. The graphics and animation are absolutely wonderful, but that's of little consolation.
An earthquake has struck and has damaged the pipes that cool a nuclear reactor. It's time to call in the local plumber to mend the pipes. This is a platform game consisting of only one screen, and as leaks continually appear, you have to adjust the joints with your spanner to stop the leaks. To make life more difficult, the screen gradually fills with water, although you can go underwater to fix leaks. Other things to watch out for are mutated rats and falling debris. The graphics and sound effects aren't particularly good, as would be expected from a game that was released in the very early days of the CPC, and despite the inclusion of five difficulty levels, there's not much to make you want to play the game again after a few goes.
Race against 19 other riders around ten tracks in your super-powered motorcycle, capable of reaching 250mph! There are three difficulty levels - novice, champion and pro - and you can practice each track before you go racing over two, four or six laps. The first thing you'll notice once you start racing is that the graphics are very blocky indeed! However, this doesn't necessarily mean that this is a bad game; in fact, it is quite fast, although one annoying aspect is that all of the riders un