You take the managerial role of an American football team. There is no music at all, and unlike some of the better known management games like Football Manager 2, there is no pitch to watch players running around on. You start with $30,000 in the bank and your goal is to win games, use the transfer market to build a better skilled team, and manage your finances and not go bankrupt, because if you do go bankrupt then the game is over immediately. There is a decent range of options, such as seeing where you are in the league, listing upcoming matches, and of course, the transfer market. News items scroll at the bottom of the screen too fast to read, unfortunately. The games consist of four quarters of fifteen minutes each, and results are displayed quickly so you don’t get bored of waiting.
Energy Warrior
(Mastertronic, 1987)
The Earth has mostly been laid to waste, and only three areas of untouched land remain. Of course, the aliens are going to put a stop to that, so it’s time to get your plane out and blast them... and that’s all you seem to do. Blast some aliens, then blast a caterpillar-like alien, collect a bonus, go to the next level after blasting a number of aliens, and repeat. With nine levels in each land area, you can imagine that the game becomes extremely monotonous. The only other thing worth mentioning is the excellent music.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
XeNoMoRPH.
The Enforcer
(Trojan, 1990)
It’s the 1920s, the era of Prohibition, and the FBI are on the trail of a mob of gangsters who are manufacturing whisky. This is a three-level shoot-’em-up which was only released on cartridge. It was intended to be used with the Trojan Phazer lightgun (and was one of only two such games released for the GX4000 and Plus version!), but thankfully it can be played with a joystick as well. In summary, you must shoot the gangsters to score points, but shooting innocent people (including unarmed gangsters) causes you to lose points. Once you have reached a certain number of points, you can go to the next level. The game is over when you are wounded once too often. The graphics are absolutely wonderful and it’s fun to play for a while, but everyone has seen this type of game many times before.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Xyphoe.
Enlightenment
(Firebird, 1988)
103 years ago, the druid Hasrinaxx destroyed four skulls and banished the evil Acamantor from the land of Belorn – but now he has returned. Starting at the village of Ishmar, Hasrinaxx must travel through the varying landscapes of Belorn, find Acamantor’s tower, and destroy him once and for all. This game is fairly similar in nature to its predecessor Druid, but the area you can explore is a lot larger, and there is a much greater variety of spells to be collected. You will also have to remember what they do and when they should be used. This added complexity gives the game a more adventure-like feel in addition to the existing arcade elements. Some players may like this, but I feel that this sequel is not as good as its predecessor.
See also: Druid.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
XeNoMoRPH.
A clever title for this game. On the one hand, a nod to Star Trek as it’s a space exploration game. On the other hand, it gives away what you will spend your time doing, which is trading with aliens – lots of aliens. Enterprise is quite proud of its vast universe to explore (five trillion planets!). It’s a nice-looking game as well. Stand-out moments include the graphics used for the planets (very 1980s sci-fi) and the animated pictures of the aliens you meet. You pilot your ship in an arcade/simulation manner. Landing on planets is easy enough. Trading with the locals is done through conversation, which can be funny and frustrating in equal measure. Your ship can sustain damage and accidentally damage others as well, but that damage won’t occur through laser fire. There is no combat, and that will disappoint many who will probably turn to a much more famous space trading game, namely Elite.
Epimetheus+
(CNGSoft, 2019)
There’s no real background story to this space shoot-’em-up; just shoot the waves of aliens and avoid crashing into them as they swirl around the screen. This game was originally an entry in the 2019 #CPCRetroDev Game Creation Contest and finished in third place, and according to the author, it was programmed in only 48 hours and finished just before entries had to be submitted. It’s got lovely graphics, colourful explosions, excellent music, and amazingly fast and furious action as the aliens whizz around at a blistering pace. This enhanced version includes a few new features and makes the gameplay slightly easier, although even so, if you can survive for more than two minutes, you’re doing pretty well! Despite the very short development time, this is a fantastic game, especially if all you want is a quick blast.
Equinox
(Mikro-Gen, 1986)
The mining asteroid Sury-Ani 7 has been contaminated with radioactive waste, so a disposal droid (that’s the thing you control) has been sent in to search the eight levels of the mining complex, find the waste canisters and send them down the vacuum disposal chutes that can be found on each level. Naturally, the complex is guarded by monsters which bounce around the screen and must be avoided as much as possible. The game is visually very impressive with great use of colour and very smooth movement, and the tune on the menu is also very good. The clever thing about this game is that although it looks like a straightforward shoot-’em-up, you have to think carefully as to where, and especially when, to use the objects and teleporters. This is an excellent game!
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Metr81.
Er*Bert
(Microbyte Software, 1984)
Er*Bert is a purple bouncy creature, and he has to move around a screen consisting of cubes and change their colour. Out to get him are Boris the gorilla, Coily the snake, and a purple ball. To help him evade their clutches, he can use transporters or rotahats, both of which move him to other parts of the screen. There are ten difficulty levels, four stages on each level, and two speeds that you can use, but the controls are so strange and the enemies so hard to avoid that getting off the first level is extremely tough.
A very early release from the prolific French publishers Titus, whose support for the CPC was pretty unwavering. The theme of the game is survival, as you have crashed in one of the world’s most hostile environments, so making sure you don’t freeze to death is a good start! Erebus is an adventure game where everything is controlled via cursor. The control method is serviceable, locations are surprisingly varied the further you get, and the graphics aren’t bad for a game released in 1986. However, the game is a trial and error experience which may not be for everyone, and while the graphics are OK, we all know Titus would go on to do even better in that department.
Erinia
(DaReInt, 2023)
A woman called Tisiphone is confined to a prison cell with another female inmate named Meg, but they now have a plan to escape. You play the role of Tisiphone, but it soon becomes clear that something quite sinister is going on within the facility when you are attacked by mutant creatures. This is a dystopian text adventure that was originally released in Spanish in late 2023 and then translated to English in 2025. It’s fairly easy to progress, even if you have little experience of playing text adventures, but there is some combat involved, and you may have to repeat some actions several times to achieve an outcome. The pictures that accompany each location let the adventure down, though; they attempt to convey a dark and gloomy atmosphere, but the CPC’s very limited palette of neutral colours makes most of them look like a pixelated mess, and it fails to achieve the desired effect.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
XeNoMoRPH.