Screenshot of La Espada Sagrada

La Espada Sagrada

(Topo Soft, 1990)

Reviewed by Javier Sáez

This game was an attempt to recreate the flavour of good old adventures, but adding better gameplay and some fine details. The plot is simple – recover the sacred sword to your tribe (by the way, the English translation of the game’s name is ‘the sacred sword’). La Espada Sagrada is divided into three stages. The first two are 100% pure adventure. The third one is a jump and shoot arcade game, which is less amusing than the other stages. There’s little more I can say; the graphics are good and so is the sound. Give it a try and you’ll have fun for a long time.

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Screenshot of ESWAT
Screenshot taken from 128K version of game

ESWAT

(US Gold, 1990)

Reviewed by Robert Small

There have been many Sega games converted to the Amstrad CPC with varying degrees of success. ESWAT has you controlling a futuristic cop taking out bad guys as you progress from left to right through its levels. You start off as an ordinary cop but progress to wearing a special armoured suit with greater firepower. There are some nice aspects to the graphics, like arriving in your police car at the start of levels, but everything runs very slowly. There’s no music and limited sound effects. There are big sprites but the colour palette is limited. It’s the speed which hurts the most, as playing the game feels as if you’re plodding along, which hinders your enjoyment.

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Screenshot of The Eternal Light 2

The Eternal Light 2

(MORRISoft, 2014)

Reviewed by Missas

In this old-style platform game, you take control of a wizard who needs to gather some lanterns. This game was created using Sprites Alive. To begin with, the graphics are average with vivid colours and nicely drawn levels. You need to move platforms and avoid the enemies while trying to collect the lanterns. You may also try to achieve the best score by going as fast as possible. There is no in-game sound. Despite this serious drawback, the game is a Jet Set Willy-style platformer and it will not disappoint you, chiefly because of the smart level design.

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Screenshot of European 5-a-Side

European 5-a-Side

(Silverbird, 1988)

If you want to put some digitised speech into your game, at least make sure it’s recognisable. As well as being possibly the easiest football game I’ve ever played (I won my first game against the computer 8-0 and the second 16-0 – and that was in the six-minute game!), it also has the worst digitised speech I’ve ever heard in any game. You can just about make out the words “Goal! G-g-goal!,” but try listening to the attempts at saying “kickoff” and “half time”. Thrashing the computer is fun for a while, but soon becomes boring. Playing against a friend might be more fun, but it’s a pretty mediocre game, anyway – passing to other players is impossible. The sound of the crowd is good, though.

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Screenshot of European Soccer Challenge

European Soccer Challenge

(Players, 1990)

Play against other European football teams in this abysmal game. You can play against a friend or the computer, but unfortunately the computer is very good, even on the easiest skill level, and your players are very difficult to control. There are very few options that can be modified; the matches always last 15 minutes, and it seems to make no difference what team you choose to play against. The graphics are absolutely horrible, although the loading screen is rather good. Finally, there is some mediocre music on the menu, but the main game features no sound effects at all! This is one of the worst football games on the CPC, and should be avoided.

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Screenshot of European Superleague

European Superleague

(CDS, 1991)

The FA may not be at all keen on the idea of a breakaway European superleague, but this game will give you a little taster. You can choose one of eight teams from Europe, and there are three difficulty levels, too. All the usual management options are there – training, transfer markets and scouting, and there’s an excellent choice of match tactics you can look at. The graphics vary throughout the game, from the garish choice of colours of your office to the beautiful cartoons as your team tries to score goals in the matches. You should also listen out for the phone ringing – it’s so realistic! Overall, this is actually one of the better football management games on the CPC.

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Screenshot of Every Second Counts

Every Second Counts

(TV Games, 1988)

Remember this quiz show from the 1980s, which was hosted by the magician Paul Daniels? The show consists of five rounds, all of which are based on general knowledge questions, although in three of the five rounds, you are allowed to choose from a selection of categories. The points you win in the first four rounds represent the amount of time you get in the fifth and final round, hence the name of the quiz. Unfortunately, each game can be very short indeed, since if you get a single answer wrong in the first or third rounds, you’re not allowed to answer any more questions. The graphics and music are quite good and the game is well presented, but I can’t see myself coming back to play it again, and it’s not a game you can really play on your own.

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Screenshot of Everyone’s a Wally

Everyone’s a Wally

(Mikro-Gen, 1985)

Wally and his friends (Wilma, Tom, Dick and Harry) have to open the safe by collecting the five letters of the combination – but to do this, they have to earn some money performing various tasks around the town, and their wages are in the safe. You’ll have to work out by trial and error which characters to use for each task, which objects should be used, and what the tasks actually are. To help you out, Wally is the odd job man, Wilma is Wally’s partner, Tom is the mechanic, Dick is the plumber, and Harry is the electrician. The graphics are nice and the characters are really well drawn; it’s quite funny to see them walk! The little tune at the start of the game is great as well, and the game is actually a rather nice challenge.

See also: Herbert’s Dummy Run, Pyjamarama, Three Weeks in Paradise.

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Screenshot of Evil Donjon

Evil Donjon

(Genesis Software, 1989)

A sorcerer known as Elric has cast an evil spell over the realm of Sir Frondebeuf. The only way to restore normality to the land is to collect several phials which can be found within the Evil Keep (or Evil Donjon if you’re French). This is a simple platform game in which you must collect the phials on each level while avoiding the monsters. They always try to close in on you, but after a few goes, you can learn how to use this to your advantage. You can dig holes in some of the platforms to kill some of the monsters temporarily and retrieve any phials which they may have picked up. The graphics are very good indeed, and I love the chimes of the bells! However, there isn’t much room on the screen to avoid the monsters, and digging holes can often be a bit awkward.

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Screenshot of EXIT

EXIT

(Ubi Soft, 1988)

  • Knowledge of French is required in order to play this game properly.

Your spaceship has crashed on a strange planet, and in order to leave, you must repair it. You will also have to find several golden objects, and for some reason, these are obtained by playing a rather nice shoot-’em-up sub-game in which you must shoot all the blue bricks without shooting any of the red bricks. Then there is a sage who must be found, and there are a lot of other puzzles to solve... The graphics are really beautiful and colourful, but there is no text to accompany any of the locations or the objects, so it’s often very hard to know what you’re supposed to do with the objects you can collect. Another big problem is that the locations are linked together in an extremely confusing and illogical manner, so that you become disoriented really easily.

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