American Tag Team Wrestling is a two-versus-two wrestling game. You can choose from eight different teams and fight your way to the championship. The graphics are average – not much detail on the sprites and in the background. Besides that, all the teams look the same in the ring! There is a small variety of moves; one kick, one grab, one punch, and that’s all. You can also run and execute a flying kick, but you will never hit the target. The gameplay suffers; you will probably be badly beaten by the computer, and because of the small variety of moves, you will become bored easily. The sound is almost absent, just like the grab factor. Overally, this game is light years behind WWF WrestleMania and it is a hasty job.
American Turbo-King
(Mastertronic, 1989)
Drive your car around six obstacle courses while avoiding other cars, as well as the bombs that are dropped by planes and helicopters. You’ll have to memorise each course thoroughly – if you don’t, you’ll probably reach a dead end and have to reverse your car, which costs so much time that you’ll have to start again anyway. The graphics are average and while the tune is excellent, there are hardly any sound effects, and your car is totally silent. It’s quite a slow game as well and not really worth bothering with.
Amo del Mundo translates to “Master of the World”. It’s a Spanish take on a Jules Verne novel. Rather than a one-for-one retelling, it shares similar ideas and does its own thing. At heart it’s an action game but with a tricky puzzle element as well. As it’s a Spanish game, it’s rather on the difficult side. The main sprite reminded me of either Boba Fett or one of the heroes from MASK. He’s animated OK with some nice abilities, and the graphics are quite detailed. There is a lack of colour and the game struggles when things get busy, and the sound effects are rather annoying. Sadly this is an extremely frustrating game. It wants you to search for and collect items but it also won’t give you five seconds of peace, which means getting your head around the puzzle mechanics is just too much.
Los Amores de Brunilda
(Retroworks, 2021)
Fray Gonzalo was making a pilgrimage with his companion Fray Cesáreo when they decided to rest at a village – but the house in which they are staying is haunted by the ghost of a woman named Brunilda, and Cesáreo has become the victim of a curse and is unconscious. Gonzalo must find a way to lift the curse and awaken Cesáreo. This is an excellent graphic adventure with extremely cute and colourful graphics and several wonderfully atmospheric tunes. The presentation is further enhanced with some beautiful animations of burning fires and candles, fountains and ticking grandfather clocks. The sheer size of the game means that it can only be played using the Dandanator hardware device, which few emulators support, but you will be kept occupied for some time as you attempt to solve the many puzzles in your quest to free poor Cesáreo from his curse.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
Amstrad CPC World,
Saberman,
XeNoMoRPH.
After the traditional Amsoft loading screen you are presented with a very bland-looking display. Instructions are offered and it’s vital that you read them to learn how the game works. When you’re ready to play, you’re asked for your handicap, which also requires a password. Simply put, Amsgolf asks the player which club to use, the direction to aim the ball, and then the strength of your swing. After pressing the appropriate keys the action begins. A line is drawn that indicates the direction and destination of your ball, with redefined characters representing the scenery. Each screen or hole is simply another mish-mash of drab-looking hazards with pointless audio. It’s a game that you’ll try once and never touch again.
Amsilvania Castle
(Magic Team, 1987)
Knowledge of Spanish is required in order to play this game properly.
Somewhere within the dungeons of Amsilvania Castle lies a hoard of treasure, and you are determined to find it. Before you enter the castle, you can buy items such as ropes (to get you out of hidden traps), pliers (to open treasure chests), batteries, and scorpion antidote. The gameplay consists of going from room to room searching for objects to help you progress. Making a map is essential, otherwise you’ll soon become lost. The graphics and sound effects are very primitive and your character moves very slowly – which is perhaps to be expected, as the game is mostly written in BASIC. You’ll encounter a lot of locked doors early on, but there are no keys around to unlock them, and most of the treasure chests can’t be opened. Most of the rooms look very similar to each other, and exploring the dungeon soon becomes tedious and dull.
Amsoccer
(IJK, 1986)
Amstrad Rovers take on IJK United in the worst football game that has ever been released for the CPC. There are only four players in each team, and none of them can run fast enough to catch up with the ball, which bounces around the pitch like it’s on ice; it doesn’t have any friction at all! Every time the ball moves past the edge of the screen, you have to wait for several seconds while the screen scrolls to reveal the next section of the pitch. Scoring goals is more or less impossible, and the graphics and sound effects are abysmal. How on Earth such an awful game was ever released is beyond me.
Amstrad Eterno X
(CapaSoft, 2025)
The Amstrad Eterno fair is held annually in Spain, and Amstrad Eterno X was released to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The plot of the game is that the organisers are planning to exhibit posters of the previous editions of Amstrad Eterno, but they have gone missing and are scattered across Spain, so you and your gang must retrieve them. This is a platform game with only ten screens – one for each year that the fair has taken place. Graphically it’s nothing special, but the music is excellent and rather catchy, and just because there are a mere ten screens doesn’t mean it’s easy to complete, as dodging enemies and hazards in the later screens is quite challenging.
Amstrad Shuffle
(Alpha Omega, 1986)
This is a collection of eight card games, with two separate parts containing four games each. The first part contains the traditional game of patience, where you arrange cards in columns in descending order and alternating suit colours, as well as clock patience (a bit boring), row patience (much more interesting), and pairs (a memory game). The second part contains the more complex games – carpet patience (much too easy), raglan patience (a much harder variant of traditional patience and very hard to get anywhere), sultan patience (which uses two packs of cards and is quite challenging), and blackjack. If you’re familiar with patience, you should be able to learn the rules easily and enjoy some of the games a lot – I certainly did.
Anarchy
(Rack It, 1988)
Shoot all the blocks on each level whilst avoiding the monsters, and then when you’ve done that, find the exit block with an inability to fire! You also can’t shoot blocks if you’re next to them – you have to get a run at them, if you see what I mean. The graphics are a bit simple but they do the job, as do the sound effects and the music. It’s still a good game to play with some tight time limits, although the keyboard controls are really awkward.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Axelino.