Target Plus
(Dinamic, 1988)
As the name suggests, this is a target shooting game that requires MHT’s Gunstick; you can’t play this game without it. There are two games you can choose from. In the first one, you must shoot insects and prevent them from eating a chicken that is sitting on a table – yes, you read that correctly. The pace is rather slow and boring, and it’s a silly idea anyway. The second game is a clay pigeon shooting session in which discs are thrown into the air and you must shoot them to score points; the further away they are, the more points you score. You won’t play the first game for long, but the second game is a bit more interesting.
Renegade’s brother Matt has been brutally killed for snooping into the affairs of gangland boss Mr Big, and now our hero must set out once again, this time to avenge his brother’s death. Basically what we have here is an almost total clone of Renegade. The level settings are similiarly urban (there’s the run-down car park and the seedy city streets), the bad guys have the same moves as their Renegade counterparts, and so does Renegade himself! However, there are a few differences; apart from the ability to pick up weapons dropped by the thugs (a welcome addition), there is a pretty good simultaneous two-player mode. It has decent graphics, some lovely music, but just isn’t quite as good as Renegade – also, it gets very difficult and has the strictest time limit in gaming history!
See also: Renegade (Imagine), Renegade III: The Final Chapter.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by: jgonza, Novabug, Xyphoe, ZEUSDAZ.
Targhan
(Silmarils, 1990)
Targhan is on a quest to defeat a powerful lord known as the Evil One, whose castle lies beyond the mountains of Clorg. The quest will take him through forests, caverns and villages. The game is a mixture of fighting action, killing enemies with your sword and shurikens, and adventure; you’ll encounter scrolls which give you clues, and other objects to help you in your quest. The graphics are breathtaking – some of the best I’ve ever seen, and I mean that – and there’s some excellent music on the title screen as well. Unfortunately, it’s a big game and you can only save your position at specific points, and I found that exploring the caverns became rather boring. Stick with it, though, and you might find that it’s a pretty good game.
Tarzan’s girlfriend Jane has been kidnapped by tribesmen and you, as Tarzan, have three days to explore the jungle and find seven coloured gemstones and return them to the chief of the tribe so that Jane will be released into your arms once again. Along the way you will encounter spiders, spear-throwing tribesmen, tigers (well, they look like tigers to me), snakes and pits of quicksand, all trying to slow you down. Graphically it’s quite poor, but there’s a decent enough in-game tune playing. However, the gameplay is boring, the fighting is just annoying, and why isn’t Tarzan swinging through the trees? That would be much more fun and more like the real Tarzan!
Taskforce
(Players, 1989)
Snide Gantree and his minions have overrun a military base in the South Pacific, and he has also managed to hack into the computers which control the missiles that are stored at the base. You have to fly around the base and collect documents that will prevent the missiles from being launched, although when you find a document, you have to complete a Tower of Hanoi-style game where you shift rings from one column to another. You are armed with a large number of power-ups, including a limited amount of invulnerability, and you can collect more of them as you explore the base. There’s nothing original about the game at all; the graphics are very good and very colourful, which I like, but the amount of aliens is overwhelming, and it’s quite difficult to select the right power-ups in the middle of a battle.
Tau Ceti
(CRL, 1986)
The former colony of Tau Ceti lies desolate after an epidemic, and then a meteor smash. It has been decided to re-colonise Tau Ceti, but the robots remaining there have run amok. You have to disable them by finding nuclear rods and shutting down the main reactor. The cities on Tau Ceti are navigated using jump pads situated at the corners of each city, and there are buildings you can enter and search. Of course, you’ll have to watch out for the robots, and some cities have better defence systems than others! This is the sort of game that takes a long time to work out, but it’s worth sticking with it.
See also: Academy.
Taulellets
(Vicente Javier Jiménez Vázquez, 2018)
A great example of how some games with very rudimentary presentation can turn out to be a lot of fun to play. You’re a green block, and on each of the 25 levels there is a set of interconnected lines, all of which are initially red. You have to move around the lines and paint them yellow. To make things more difficult, there are enemies in the form of blue blocks that also move around the screen, and if you come into contact with them, you lose a life. The amount of paint you can hold is limited, so you’ll have to retrace your steps and obtain more paint on a regular basis. This game finished 17th in the 2018 #CPCRetroDev Game Creation Contest, which in my opinion is very disappointing. Yes, the graphics are extremely basic, there is no music and almost no sound, but the gameplay has that something that makes you want to have just one more go again and again.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by: Amstrad CPC World.
Technician Ted
(Hewson, 1984)
Ted starts his shift in the chip factory at 8:30am, and has to finish 21 tasks before he clocks off again at 5:00pm – but the tasks must be completed in a certain order, and before a certain time is reached. The ‘tasks’ involve pressing one or two flashing buttons in a room in the right order; actually reaching them is another matter altogether. This is a very old platform game and it really shows, with its primitive graphics and simple sound effects. Bizarrely, this actually makes it a bit appealing, but unfortunately, it’s really difficult to complete any of the tasks.
See also: Costa Capers.
Techno Cop
(Gremlin Graphics, 1988)
You’re a police cop in the 21st century, and you must force your way through the ranks by arresting and killing criminals. Each level has two parts; you have to drive to the building and arrive on time, and then seek the criminal before he leaves. If you obey the orders you’re given, you can collect power-ups for your car. The game is OK – the graphics are reasonable (check out the digitised pictures of the criminals on the bottom of the screen!), as are the sound effects, but there’s not a lot of variety in the game, and the part where you drive to the building does get tedious.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by: Xyphoe.
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
(Image Works, 1990)
The Foot Clan have kidnapped the Turtles’ friend, April O’Neil, and their mentor, Splinter, and the four Turtles – Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Donatello – have to rescue both of them by fighting monsters in the sewers and exploring buildings. You can change which Turtle you control at any time. The graphics are colourful and are actually rather impressive, but there are very few sound effects and they’re rubbish, anyway. The game is also too easy; many of the sewers have pizzas for the turtles to eat, and there’s another pizza waiting for them each time they enter that sewer. It’s still worth a few goes, though.
See also: Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: The Coin-Op.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by: Axelino, ChinnyVision, GameHammer Classic Gaming, jgonza, Xyphoe.