World Cup Soccer: Italia ’90
(Virgin Games, 1990)
After US Gold’s shameful World Cup Carnival in 1986, it was Virgin Games’ turn to release the official World Cup computer game for the 1990 tournament. The result is good, but somewhat flawed. For some reason, you can only choose to play as one of four teams – England, Belgium, Italy or Spain. What about all the other teams? You also discover that no matter what team you choose, you always play in purple, and your opponents always play in white. Each match always lasts four minutes, but the teams do not swap sides at half time. The animation of the players is very good, but the game feels strangely silent with an almost total lack of sound effects, and it had the potential to be much better and more enjoyable than it is.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
jgonza,
Novabug,
Xyphoe.
In 1987 the world felt like a much larger place; air travel was expensive and there was no World Wide Web, so titles like World Games were how we learned about the rest of the planet! There are quite a few events here, so let’s start with my gold medallists: Russian weightlifting and Mexican cliff diving. These are both great fun with smooth gameplay where you can feel the challenge rising as you improve. Silver medals go to German barrel jumping, French slalom skiing and American bull riding, which are not bad but lack finesse. Japanese sumo wrestling is sluggish and unresponsive, so a bronze here. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get the hang of Scottish caber tossing or Canadian log rolling, despite many attempts, so they’re disqualified! Overall, this is a nice collection of mini-games with some great graphics, amusing animations, and suitably international music and atmosphere.
World of Sports is a cartridge game that makes good use of the extra features of the Plus machines. Graphically it looks very impressive with fantastic use of colours and well drawn sprites, and there is also an excellent tune. The gameplay is quite fast and smooth. I really enjoyed seeing how fast the gameplay and movement of sprites were; it felt like I wasn’t playing an Amstrad CPC game, and this is what sets it apart from many other CPC games, especially in the multi-sporting event genre. However I do feel somewhat disappointed by the staying power. While you can choose to practice an event or play all them one after the other, there are only four events – BMX stunt riding, slalom skiing, surfing and cliff diving – and they feel like mini-games. It’s over very swiftly and you are given only three attempts on each event.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
ChinnyVision,
Xyphoe.
World Series Baseball
(Imagine, 1985)
Baseball may not have much of a following beyond America, but this game certainly makes it fun. You can play either against the computer or with a friend, as you play nine innings and take it in turns to bat and bowl in alternate innings. The rules are well implemented, and you can even choose how you want to bowl – fast or slow, high or low. Scoring home runs is a great feeling, too! The graphics are good and colourful for a game as old as this one, and the sound and music are both good as well, especially the applause from the crowd. I don’t like the way the game goes straight into demo mode as soon as it’s loaded, though.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Xyphoe.
World Soccer League
(E&J, 1990)
Compete in the World Soccer League against 31 other well known teams. You can choose any of six British teams, although you can change the name of your team. There are also five skill levels. As far as football management games go, it’s not the most advanced of the lot; there aren’t many options, and you can’t train your players or make decisions on team formation and tactics. Furthermore, there are absolutely no graphics to speak of; everything is presented in a text-only format, with no effort made to even change the default colours – and you even have to press the CAPS LOCK key before the game starts! It doesn’t give a great impression, but some people like simple football management games, and this is one such example.
The World War Simulator: Part II
(Retrobytes Productions, 2018)
It is the year 3000. You are Richard Burton, and you have transported yourself into a virtual world where you must infiltrate Adolf Hitler’s bunker and shoot him and his colleagues before he commits suicide. I really don’t understand the plot at all, but anyway... The game is viewed from a top-down perspective. You must explore the bunker and kill any soldiers that get in your way. However, you have to use stealth; if a soldier sees you, he’ll shoot you first, so you must be patient and wait in the right position until a soldier enters your line of fire. This creates a real sense of tension, and the music helps to increase the tension even more. The graphics are colourful and well drawn, although the ending screen that appears if you score 100% and achieve all of the game’s objectives is totally inappropriate, and if it is intended to be a joke, I don’t find it funny.
The finale of the Silicon Dream trilogy is arguably one of the most adult-themed text adventures to grace the CPC. A broadside on the politics of the day, The Worm in Paradise begins with a symbolic dream sequence after which you find yourself in a Utopian ‘paradise’ – but are things what they seem to be? Taking the best of the previous instalments, The Worm in Paradise is not as oppressively difficult as Return to Eden but it is still a tougher prospect than Snowball. The graphics haven’t improved much either, but the storyline is where The Worm in Paradise excels, creating what feels like a real world and exploring ideas not generally touched on by computer games of that time. Be warned, though; the game’s transport system is guaranteed to frustrate and it will take a long time to complete this game without resorting to cheating!
See also: Return to Eden, Snowball.
Wrath of Olympus
(Alpha Omega, 1986)
The setting is ancient Greece. You are one of the gods of Greek mythology who has incurred the wrath of the all-powerful god Zeus. As a punishment, Zeus has cast a curse of forgetfulness upon you, and now you don’t even know who you are. The only way to restore your memory is to enter the realm of Hades and drink the water from the Pool of Remembrance. This is a text adventure written with GAC, and the storyline is quite interesting, with all these great tales involving the gods. Many Olympian gods and other mythical creatures appear in the game, and pictures have been sacrificed for a larger map and more descriptive text. However, it’s difficult to see what the puzzles are and how to solve them. Maybe you’re supposed to have a good grasp of Greek mythology to play the game properly, but not a lot of people do.
Wreckless Roger
(Blaby Computer Games, 1986)
Roger has crashed his rocket, the Millennium Sparrow, on an inhospitable planet and must retrieve the five pieces which are scattered about a maze of rooms. Starting in one of the rooms, you must shoot all the flying objects before you can teleport to another room and continue the search for the parts of your rocket. As you may imagine, this is boring. Not being able to leave a room until you’ve shot all the objects is silly, and when you do find a rocket part, you have to search again for the exit to the next level. The graphics and sound effects are dire as well; just avoid playing this game!
Wrestling Superstars
(Code Masters, 1993)
Can the Darling Dude become a wrestling superstar? You take control of this wrestler as he fights, and hopefully defeats, four opponents – Skullbasher Bob, Knucklebuster Nik, the Masked Marauder, and the Golden Guy. You must win two rounds in order to fight the next opponent. The usual wrestling fare is involved here, although a lot of joystick waggling is required. This was one of the last games that Code Masters released for the CPC, yet hardly anyone knew about it at the time! The graphics and music are quite good, but the moves you can make are rather limited, and the difficulty level increases too sharply when you come to fight the third opponent. It’s also a shame that there is no two-player option.