Powerplay: The Game of the Gods
(Arcana, 1986)
This is a mixture of a board game and a quiz game for between two and four players; unfortunately, the computer can’t control any of them. Each player has four men, and they move them around the board and answer questions; which category depends on the colours of the tiles. If a man can answer enough questions correctly, he mutates into a monster and becomes more powerful, which is useful when you move on to the same tile as an opponent and challenge him. If you succeed, your opponent will lose some of his power, or disappear altogether! The aim is to eliminate all four of your opponent’s men. The graphics are absolutely wonderful, although a game can go on for a really long time. There are four banks of questions, and you can also create your own if you wish. (The answer to the question in the screenshot is “November”, by the way.)
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
jgonza.
Cash-in from the highly tongue-in-cheek Schwarzenegger action film. Guide our musclebound hero Arnie through the American tropical jungle, shooting the never-ending number of guerrillas, while avoiding getting killed by the Predator alien that has its sights firmly set upon you. Sadly the game isn’t as half as amusing as the film itself and if anything is particularly tedious; as a rule of thumb, almost any Schwarzenegger film conversions (barring Terminator 2: Judgment Day perhaps) are well worth avoiding.
See also: Predator 2.
Predator 2
(Image Works, 1991)
The Predator is back, and this time he’s come to Los Angeles, where there is a battle between rival drugs gangs. Out to get all of them is Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, which you control in this dull shoot-’em-up. As the screen scrolls horizontally (and very slowly), you must aim your crosshairs and shoot all of the gunmen before they fire on you and drain your energy. The gunmen leave behind ammunition which you will need to pick up, as you will use a huge amount of it during the game! You can also collect better guns and energy packs, but avoid shooting the Predator and any innocent bystanders. The slow scrolling is the main reason why the game is poor, but the graphics are messy, and the sound effects are both minimal and awful.
See also: Predator.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Xyphoe.
Prehistorik
(Titus, 1991)
The Zoglor tribe has run out of food, so armed with a wooden club, Prehistorik the caveman must travel through forests, mountains, jungles and even venture inside a volcano in his search for food. Along the way, there are many different monsters who can be beaten up and killed. You can also enter caves, where you may find more supplies for the tribe. If you don’t obtain enough food at the end of each level, you must start the level all over again, so watch out! The first thing you notice about this game is the graphics – they are definitely some of the best that I have ever seen on the CPC. However, the music becomes annoying after a while, but thankfully it can be turned off. Unfortunately the game slows down a lot when there are monsters on the screen; if this didn’t happen, I would rate the game a lot higher.
See also: Prehistorik 2.
Prehistorik 2
(Titus, 1993)
One of the last commercial games to be released for the CPC range and also one of the best. You control a caveman looking for food, and among the many monsters you’ll face are bears, spiders, wasps, dinosaurs, and a huge ape halfway through the game. There are also lots of bonuses to collect. What makes this game stand out from other platform games is the graphics, which are truly awesome, especially on the Plus version, which features extra colours and parallax scrolling. The music is also terrific, and it’s the only commercial game I know of that exploits the Plus’ enhanced DMA sound facilities. Thankfully, the gameplay on the normal CPC version doesn’t suffer, and it’s a hugely enjoyable game to play.
See also: Prehistorik.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
Axelino,
Xyphoe (Plus version).
A Prelude to Chaos is directly inspired by the Zelda series on the NES console. In this fantastic role-playing game, you need to guide Amy through 70 screens and help her collect crystals and open doors as well as gaining experience and routing ferocious enemies! The graphics are in Mode 1 with four colours and they are quite detailed. The sprites move fast and smoothly. There is a fantastic tune playing on the menu and during the game there are some effects, but they are nothing special. In terms of gameplay this game excels; there are many interesting puzzles to solve, the difficulty is correctly set and you won’t get bored of exploring. Overall, a fantastic and interesting game. Oh, there is more good news: at the end, we are promised that Amy’s adventures will continue...
See also: Chaos Rising, Concave, Ice Slider, Jewel Warehouse, Potato Rescue.
Time to step into the shoes of El Presidente in this early strategy game. The objective is to stay in power by balancing feeding your people, managing resources and building tanks – because, as we all know, world leaders love their tanks. You can select the wealth of your country at the beginning of a game, and as well as your internal popularity, you will need to be aware of how you are viewed in the eyes of the international community. The graphics are very simple with lots of statistics to read on the screen, although the tanks and game map are quite cute. Is being the President fun, though? For a while, certainly, but perhaps not a game to come back to.
Prince Dastan: Sokoban Within
(Euphoria Design, 2020)
Prince Dastan is being held prisoner in the Grand Vizier’s dungeons. Can he rescue the Sultan’s beautiful daughter before it’s too late? If you’re familiar with Prince of Persia, you’ll recognise this background story. This game finished in eighth place in the 2020 #CPCRetroDev Game Creation Contest, which awarded bonus points for including a reference to Prince of Persia. If you haven’t guessed already from the title, it’s a clone of the famous puzzle game Sokoban, in which you push crates around rooms and work out how to place them in their correct positions. There are 179 levels to complete, and it will take a lot of thought to solve them all. The presentation is of a very high standard, although the controls feel quite clunky when you’re moving your character around, which mars the gameplay a bit.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Saberman.
Prince of Persia
(Brøderbund/Domark, 1990)
The Grand Vizier has captured the Sultan’s daughter and has given her an ultimatum; either marry him, or die! You have one hour in which to get out of the dungeons and rescue her from her cell before the Grand Vizier kills her. Each level sees you fighting guardians and finding the way out, and there are potions to be drunk, too. This was also one of the first games to feature real animation, where the characters really do move properly, and the number of actions you can perform are astonishing. The graphics are incredible, especially the intro sequence, and really, the only bad thing about this game is the awful ‘music’, which thankfully isn’t present in the main game.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
Axelino,
jgonza,
Metr81,
Xyphoe.
Prison Riot
(Players, 1990)
The inmates are running riot in a high security prison, and you have been sent in to find their leaders and restore order. You must explore the prison (which is very large), collecting food, ammunition, and keys to enter the cells. Some of the cells will have their windows broken, where a leader will be waiting on the rooftop for you to negotiate his surrender – but you’ll have to solve a puzzle (one of those sliding tile games) within 60 seconds. This game looks and plays very similarly to the Joe Blade series, but like those games, it’s got dull, monochrome graphics, a mediocre tune, and poor gameplay.