Roll up, roll up! The circus is in town and you’re the main attraction! If you can steel yourself to enter the looming night-time big top on the intro screen, you’ll find four events await: tiger training, trapeze, tightrope, and trick horse riding. The events are divided into three or four tricky mini-events, but thankfully you can quickly restart each one so practising is unhindered. Once you have a grip on them, you can enter the international circus competition, or compete against a friend. I enjoyed most of the events, especially the trapeze, although the tiger training was unconvincing. The graphics and animation are respectable, and there’s a medley of circus tunes. Unfortunately, four events is not really enough and the gameplay lacks variety. With a couple of extra events (maybe human cannonball or knife throwing?) this could have been much better.
Cisco Heat
(Image Works, 1991)
It’s time for the annual police race through the streets of San Francisco. It’s a standard racing game where you must beat the clock and reach the next checkpoint in time. You’ve also got to avoid trams and cars which might block your way. However, this is almost impossible to do, because the collision detection is truly abysmal; you often find yourself colliding into invisible police cars and trams that are on the other side of the road. As a result, you soon run out of time and can’t reach the next stage. Steer clear of this game!
Watch YouTube videos of this game by: ChinnyVision, Xyphoe.
City Slicker
(Hewson, 1986)
A bomb has been planted in the Houses of Parliament by the dastardly Abru Caddabra and is due to blow up at midnight! As the hero, Slick, you must assemble a device (the BDU) to defuse the bomb. The parts are scattered throughout London and you have to use the Tube to get around, and you must also watch out for Abru! To be honest, the game is rather dull and also too difficult. The graphics are bad, the sound is even worse (and you should hear the imitations of Big Ben’s chimes), and the controls are much too awkward.
Another take on Will Crowther and Don Woods’ Adventure, this is a faithful retread of the classic treasure hunt as you look to make your fortune and fame from the contents of the mysterious Colossal Cave, inhabited by all manner of creatures including elves, trolls and even pterodactyls. As you would expect with such a faithful retelling of a classic, the puzzles seem familiar enough to be not too daunting in the beginning. The difficulty curve certainly ramps up as the game progresses, but this is still a fine entry point for any curious adventurers. The text is clean and crisp with no graphics present at all. Comparisons with Level 9’s version (Colossal Adventure) are to be expected and are unavoidable, and while it’s not on a par with Level 9’s game, this is still a decent effort that does nothing wrong but finds itself trailing in comparison.
Classic Axiens
(Bubble Bus, 1987)
Space Invaders takes a slight twist, as rather than staying in formation, the aliens can now swoop down on you, making life that bit more difficult. Unfortunately, several of them have a go at the same time, leaving you with little room to manoeuvre out of a hail of bullets. There is one useful facility, in that the bullets you fire align themselves as you move the ship left and right. Despite the colourful graphics (and a pretty good explosion), the fun wears thin, as all the levels are exactly the same.
See also: Classic Invaders, Classic Muncher.
Classic Invaders
(Bubble Bus, 1986)
Good old Space Invaders – it’s a timeless classic. Just shoot the aliens as they move left and right in formation, as their constant hail of bullets wears down your defences. The graphics are blocky but at least there’s colour, and a beautiful melody plays before the start of each level. I like the way it changes as you progress; on the first level, the melody is rather sombre, but by the fourth level, it’s quite cheerful. You can even save your high scores! It’s a difficult game, though; if you get past the fourth level, you must have ridiculously good reflexes.
See also: Classic Axiens, Classic Muncher.
Classic Muncher
(Bubble Bus, 1987)
A Pac-Man clone that’s better than most. You know what to do; eat all the pills in the maze and avoid the ghosts. You can also collect letters to make up words, which will give you lots of points and an extra life. Unlike most other Pac-Man games, this one is fast and it’s really slick as well, but at the same time it’s not too hard. Add some good graphics and several different maze designs and you’ve got a neat game, apart from the power pills not lasting long enough.
See also: Classic Axiens, Classic Invaders.
Classic Racing
(Amsoft, 1984)
You and up to five other players have the opportunity to own a stable of sixteen horses and enter them into race meetings in order to win prize money. You can play anywhere between four and sixteen meetings, and there are six races in each meeting. Before each meeting, each player is required to enter one horse in each race. Then, before each race, you are presented with the list of entrants, including their previous form, the weight of the jockey, and the bookies’ odds on each horse winning. Each player must then choose a horse to bet on. The graphics are quite good and the horses are very well animated, and the ability to play against several human and computer opponents adds a strong competitive element to the game.
Classiques No 1
(Titus, 1987)
Three classic games are bundled together in this package – Infernal Breakout, Invaders and Glutton (a Pac-Man clone). Infernal Breakout is frankly rubbish; there’s only one row of bricks, and pretty soon, another bat appears on the screen so that you’re playing Pong instead – extremely bizarre! The other two games aren’t bad at all. The graphics in Invaders are actually rather good, and it’s not too difficult. Glutton looks almost identical to the original Pac-Man, and you’ll soon be gobbling up those pills merrily and whizzing your way through the five levels in little time. In summary, forget about Infernal Breakout and play the other two games to your heart’s content.
See also: Classiques No 2.
Classiques No 2
(Titus, 1987)
Three more classic games for you to play – Penggo, Arnold (a Nibbler clone) and Grand Prix – although they’re not as good as the ones in the previous volume. Penggo sees you pushing bricks around in order to squash some fluffy monsters, while trying to push the three diamonds together so they touch each other. It would be the best of the bunch if it wasn’t so stupidly difficult. In Arnold, you are a snake and you must eat all the pills in a maze; as you grow longer, you must be careful not to trap yourself. This is probably the best game of the three, but it’s too easy and quickly becomes boring. Finally, Grand Prix is a racing game where you just drive for as long as you can, avoiding the other cars – not exciting at all. So, one OK game and two mediocre ones. Oh, dear.
See also: Classiques No 1.