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The aim of this game is what the title implies; escape from a laboratory where there has been an explosion! Avoid all the hazards and help the bug you control to find a way out. Beginning with the graphics, they are vivid and colourful although not too detailed. The sprites move fast and smoothly, while the collision detection is great. The prominent colours used in this MODE 0 game are blue and red. The sound is very good with an atmospheric tune playing continuously, something which contributes to the creation of a tense atmosphere in this game! The gameplay is simple, old-fashioned and entertaining, although perhaps there should be a time limit. The grab factor is above average; most probably you will give it multiple tries. Overall, an entertaining and enjoyable game.
Lala is a student witch who lost her filters around the witch academy. Take control of her and help her acquire keys and open doors, avoid spiders, bats and other obstacles in order to recover her filters. In this fast-paced arcade adventure, the graphics are quite detailed, since they use the four-colour MODE 1. Prominent colours used are brown and green, and although this might tire out the player's eyes, it is the best choice, since it contributes to the atmosphere of being in a witchcraft academy. Sound is OK; a 'schoolish' tune plays throughout the game and there are some effects as well. The gameplay is satisfying and amusing. The game is big, Lala responds accurately to the keys, and the collision detection works fine. The grab factor is well above average. Overall, a satisfying, well designed game.
This is a turn-based strategy game where tactics are everything. You'll need to buy the right weapons and position and move your squad (led by Corporal Hansen) effectively if you're going to defeat the rebel Space Marines. In each turn, your men have a number of action points, with every possible action using some action points – so you've got to think carefully, or you may run out and be caught in the line of fire of an alien! There are five missions in total, all of them extremely challenging, and seven difficulty levels. If that still isn't enough, an expansion kit with two extra scenarios is also available. Trust me; you'll like this game a lot.
See also: Rebelstar.
The Master is threatening to take over the galaxy, and you must stop him. Before you can battle against him, though, you must prove that you are a worthy opponent by fighting your way through eight waves of alien creatures, ranging from whirling dervishes to space mines, interstellar pogos, and hyper space chickens! Of course, it's just another simple clone of Space Invaders with primitive graphics and sound effects, and unexciting gameplay, and there's nothing else for me to say about it.
The beautiful Princess Sheeta has been abducted by the Golden Tribe, and you must battle through six levels in your neutron-powered car and galactic hoverplane. You start the first level in your car, and swap between the car and the hoverplane for every level. A second player can also join the action, although he or she can only use the hoverplane. First impressions of the game are good; the first level moves at a pretty fast pace and there's a lot of action. Unfortunately the pace of the second level slows down significantly, and it therefore takes a lot longer to reach the end of the level. The graphics are very nice indeed – detailed, with effective use of colour – but the sound effects are irritating and the music is poor, and the game would be better if the levels in which you fly the hoverplane were faster and shorter.
Your mission is to reach the surface of the complex in one piece. Your tank's turret pod (which looks like a red pill) can detach and fly around, which comes in handy, as barriers block the tank's progress. Flying around this flip-screen world depletes your turret pod's power and your laser can overheat, so be careful. A strange tune plays on the title screen with some pleasing sound effects added to the game. Colourful and smooth graphics make this an enjoyable blast.
Defeated but not destroyed, the shogun Kunitoki has managed to travel through time and space from feudal Japan to Manhattan in the 20th century. The ninja master Armakuni is sent by the gods in an attempt to destroy Kunitoki forever. Last Ninja 2 (as far as I know, the first part wasn't released on the CPC) is an awesome adventure, with very detailed isometric graphics, great character animations and lots of tricky puzzles. The graphics are black and white, the only sound you'll listen to is an awful tune and the game is quite difficult, but these are only minor drawbacks to a unique game.
You only have a few minutes to enter an underground shelter before an atomic bomb is launched. So drive your V8 as fast as possible, even if the track is dangerously winding. Well, this is a really addictive game. The soundtrack is great (I think the main tune is one of the best ever heard on our favourite computer) and the action is hard enough to keep you concentrated. The time you're given is really short, though, and the road has many dead ends and getting out of it means the end of the game. The biggest flaw is the size of the playing window, which is really tiny. The controls are a bit awkward too. Anyway, it is a good game, although it's very challenging for the nerves.
This game contains a selection of casino games (black jack, craps, baccarat and roulette) for you to fritter away your money – well, maybe not in reality, but you know what I mean! You start with £250, and can make bets in each of the games from £1 to £5000. I'm not going to explain the rules for each of the games here, but this game isn't entertaining at all. The controls are strange – for instance, rather than simply entering the size of your bet, you have to select it by making stacks of chips representing units, tens, hundreds and thousands. The graphics are basic and there are no sound effects or music whatsoever.
This tennis game (which was actually released as Grand Prix Tennis) is both basic and mediocre. For a start, there are no options to allow you to customise the game, so you are restricted to playing a singles match on a grass court. The two players, who the game refers to as Bjorn and Lee, don't even swap ends during the match! The problems don't end there, though. It's easy to serve aces and score lots of points, but at the same time, the isometric viewpoint makes it difficult to determine where the ball is going and to position yourself accordingly. The graphics are OK, and the music on the menu is rather nice, but it's not an enjoyable game to play at all, especially if you're using the keyboard controls rather than the joystick.
In the year 3010, Lazer Tag is the ultimate sport. You are a new recruit at the Lazer Tag training school, aiming to progress through the ranks. Each level of the game consists of two stages – a shoot-out, in which you must shoot all the other players and reach the other side of the arena before your time runs out, and a target section, in which you move along a fixed path and try to be as accurate as possible in shooting the other players. The arena is made up of mirrors and walls which deflect your laser beams, and in some cases multiply them. The graphics are colourful while not being brilliant, although the music quickly becomes irritating and doesn't really suit the nature of the game. It's a reasonable game and fun for a while, although ultimately, all the levels are very similar.
Leader Board took golfing to new heights in the 1980s and quite possibly was the franchise that made golfing computer games popular. The Amstrad CPC version, while resembling the original, is lacking in quite a few departments, as it looks and sounds rather bland in comparison. You pick up your clubs and can play from 18 holes up to 72, by yourself or with up to three other players, and you can choose from novice, amateur or professional level of difficulty. It's rather slow going drawing the hole on the screen and then re-drawing it for your next shot. Everything seems easy enough, selecting clubs and judging your power and swing on each shot, but putting is quite a challenge and this is probably where you will pick up your monitor and throw it out the window. If you manage to master all four courses, there's another set of courses available in Leader Board Tournament.
See also: World Class Leaderboard.
Starting in an Ohio bar in 1936, and stopping only for a quick lavatory break, you are quickly incarcerated by the Leather Goddesses of Phobos as part of their grand plan to turn the Earth into their personal pleasure dome – and only you can stop them. Renowned for their adult-themed adventures, Infocom went the extra mile by making a game packed with sexual references that allowed you to play either a male or female protagonist (depending on your choice of bathroom at the beginning). As ever, Infocom's adventure is not limited to what you see on the screen; the original package included a comic and a 'scratch and sniff' card (that thankfully remains tasteful). With no graphics to rely on, the game depends on the quality of the text and here it excels, jam-packed with humour that keeps you coming back for one more go. Worth a go.
This French shoot-'em-up (known as Bob Morane: Science Fiction over there) takes place in a space station, where you must shoot enemy soldiers and various dangerous creatures before they attack you. The gameplay is much like that of Prohibition from the same developer. A little arrow on your cursor indicates the position of your targets. You only have a few seconds to spot and kill them before they open fire. There are many levels, which are very similar; only the background colour and a few details change from one screen to the next. The speed increases as you progress forward, making the game more and more difficult. The graphics are very good and the scrolling is really smooth. Overall, this is a good shooting game that unfortunately lacks variety and quickly becomes boring.
The cowboy Luke Warme is broke, but after hearing tales of gold around the Indian burial ground, he sets off in pursuit of riches. After being captured by Apache Indians, he finds himself and his horse in their settlement. This is a text adventure written using GAC – in fact, it's one of the adventures that Incentive sold in order to showcase how good the program really is. The graphics are fine by GAC standards, and it's an easy adventure to get into, although one rather annoying feature is that most objects can't be examined – instead the message "You see nothing special" is displayed. It's still OK for newcomers to text adventures to play, though.
Princess Kiri was walking in the forest with a young ninja called Kage when she was kidnapped by the evil Dragon King. Now Kage must journey to the Dragon King's palace and rescue her. Your quest begins in the forest, where you must kill twenty ninjas and face the Dragon King himself several times. Then you travel to the palace and must defeat ten more ninjas before you can scale the walls and confront the Dragon King for the final time. First impressions of this game are quite good; the screen scrolls smoothly, Kage jumps from tree to tree with gravity-defying ease, there's a nice lightning effect that lights up the sky, and the music suits the game well. However, if you lose a life, you have to restart the level all over again, which is very annoying indeed. The difficulty of the first level will put a lot of players off.
Everyone has heard of this game, which came out on nearly every computer there is. It also scored 97% in Amstrad Action – their highest rating ever. In hindsight, it doesn't deserve that much. In each of the 60 levels, lemmings fall out of a box and just walk around until you tell them to do something. You have to get a certain number of lemmings to the exit to complete the level. It's fun to play, although it does move at a rather leisurely pace, and even though the lemmings themselves are extremely blocky, the graphics are great, and if you have 128K of memory, there are over a dozen excellent tunes to hum to.
This isometric space shoot-'em-up was apparently inspired by the music video for ZZ Top's song Rough Boy – though it's difficult to see what inspiration the authors drew from it. You control the Leviathan spaceship, and you must shoot waves of aliens as they appear on the screen. You are also armed with a small number of smart bombs which destroy all the aliens on the screen. You'll also need to replenish your fuel by shooting spinning cubes. To add a little variety, you can choose one of three landscapes to fly around – Moonscape, Cityscape and Greekscape. However, there just isn't enough in this game to keep you interested; it can often seem like ages before another wave of aliens appears, and your spaceship is incredibly awkward to handle, making it difficult to fire at, and avoid, the aliens. The only good aspect of this game is the excellent music (which doesn't sound remotely like ZZ Top!).
Once again, Earth has been invaded by an alien army who have somehow arrived undetected – until now. Armed with an automatic machine gun that you managed to wrestle from one of the alien soldiers, you must reach their underground control centre and destroy it. This horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up takes place over three levels, and right from the start, a relentless stream of aliens will attack you from both sides. The sheer number of them severely hinders your progress as you are continually turning around to fire at them. There are power-ups available, but you'll be concentrating so much on firing at the aliens that they'll disappear before you can collect them! It's a shame that the difficulty level is so high, because the graphics are quite colourful, albeit cartoon-like.
James Bond is on the trail of the drugs baron Franz Sanchez, after his friend Felix Leiter is kidnapped at his own wedding. In doing so, M, the head of MI6, revokes his Licence to Kill. The game consists of five levels, each based on a scene from the film. Among the scenes are a helicopter chase where you blow up Sanchez's jeep while dodging bullets, a shoot-'em-up section in the grounds of a warehouse in which you try to scare off Sanchez's henchmen (the best bit of the game, which requires some strategic thinking), and the tanker chase in which you must ram the tankers transporting Sanchez's drugs. This is the best of the five James Bond games that were released for the CPC, with great graphics and music, and a wide variety of action-packed gameplay, although the first level is a bit too tough.
See also: Live and Let Die, The Living Daylights, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill.
Tron has always been a classic game, but this is an uninspiring version of it. You have to play against the computer light cycles and try to trap them and cause them to crash into their own trails. The first level contains only one light cycle, with another being added until there are five; after that, you play the five levels again, but at a slightly faster pace. The graphics are good when you consider other versions of this game, but it's much too easy, since the computer-controlled light cycles are quite stupid and will trap themselves without you having to do it for them.
In the year 3147, Jake Stalin was sent to the planetoid of Souzel to serve a life sentence for murder, and he now wants to escape... but how is he going to do it? This is a text adventure created using GAC, and let's just say that it's not very good at all. The locations are laid out in a very illogical manner and it's easy to get lost, and the first few commands that you need to type to make any progress are really obscure (the answers are to send an SOS, lock the pilot in the store, and send the droid to the ship – so now you know). The graphics are OK but it's very hard to know what you should do.
Breakout gets a twist here as you bounce a ball down a never-ending corridor full of barriers and obstacles. Along the way, there are several types of power-ups to collect, and every four levels, there's a task to be solved, such as aiming the ball at a target, or hitting it several times; only when you complete it within the time limit can you progress to the next set of corridors. The graphics are impressive, and if you have 128K of memory, there are several excellent tunes, and you even get some digitised speech. In addition, there's the facility to design your own corridors, and a code for each corridor means that you won't have to play the ones you've completed over again. One other thing – select 'fast control' from the options menu; the game is much easier if you use this.
The planet of Regulus is under attack by alien forces, so the GEM council sends out their entire army, which consists of exactly one Lightforce fighter, to destroy the aliens. Guess who the pilot of this fighter is? This is a vertically scrolling space shoot-'em-up which is full of action from start to finish. There is a wide variety of aliens which approach in waves, and thankfully it's easy to learn their formations and the best way to defeat them. Control centres also appear every so often, and shooting them all gives you extra lives at the end of each of the four levels. The graphics and sound effects are both excellent, and it's a challenging game, whether you're a novice or a hardened shoot-'em-up fan.
You've infiltrated enemy lines and captured their secret, high-power machine gun unit – but now you're going to need to use the weapon to fight your way out, as you enter the line of fire. The game uses a perspective view, and enemy soldiers and vehicles come towards you. You must simply shoot them, or use smart bombs to kill everything on the screen, although you only have two of these available at the start of the game. However, more can be collected by shooting caskets, and shooting first aid kits allows you to recover some of your energy. The graphics are poor and very messy, and the scrolling is slow and jerky. The few sound effects that exist are also bad (although the music on the menu is good), and all of this makes the game dull and unexciting.
There are bizarre games, and then there's this one – but can you call it a game at all? When you first run the game, you are assigned your own Little Computer Person (it's always male), and you watch him and his dog move into his house and settle in. Then, in subsequent sessions, you just leave the computer switched on as he goes about life, doing exercises, watching TV, playing the piano, using the telephone (who does he talk to?), and so on. You'll also have to watch his food and water supply, and you can also type in commands to get him to play games or write a letter to you. It is fun to watch him at first, but the novelty will wear off sooner or later.
Little Puff went to explore Dragonland, but he has become lost and wants to go home. However, two guards won't let him home unless he finds four pieces of a pass and pays a toll. This is an arcade adventure which is similar to the Dizzy series – but it's not as good. Working out what objects are needed isn't difficult, although there are several objects which have no use. The ugly, Spectrum-like graphics are a bit off-putting, despite some clever techniques being used to display extra colours on the screen. The main reason why the game isn't that good, however, is that you only have one life, and it is so easy for Puff to be killed – a mistimed jump, or a fall into one of the many traps. It would be much better if you were given three lives.
See also: DJ Puff.
A drugs baron called Dr. Kananga has killed three British agents, and it's up to James Bond to find him and destroy his drug processing plant. The only real link to the film in this game is the use of a speedboat. You can choose one of three missions in the Arctic, the Sahara or New Orleans, although it might be best to start with the practice level in which you fire at targets. Each of the missions sees you piloting the speedboat along a river, firing at enemy speedboats and 'planes, and dodging rocks and mines. You also need to collect fuel canisters regularly. The graphics are good and the scrolling is fast and smooth, but for some reason, the gameplay seems to be fairly average and lacks something.
See also: Licence to Kill, The Living Daylights, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill.
Liverpool FC is one of the most famous football clubs in England, so it would seem appropriate to licence their name for a computer game. Sadly, the result is nothing short of an insult to the club's name. Obviously, you always play as Liverpool, and can play a friendly with another team, or participate in a league with several other teams. The graphics are poor and very blocky, and the animation of the players is awful; the goalkeeper can only move up and down, and as you're traversing the pitch, most of the other players seem to be frozen. Aiming the ball and scoring goals is very difficult as well, but the worst aspect of the game is that it is really slow. It's likely that you'll switch off and play something else before the match reaches full time.
James Bond is hunting Brad Whittaker, an arms dealer who is supplying the Russian defector General Georgi Koskov. The game involves running and shooting your way through eight levels. As James Bond, you travel around the world in pursuit of Whittaker, starting in Gibraltar and then going to Russia, the United Kingdom, Morocco and Afghanistan. Before each level (except the first and last ones), you must choose another weapon to use, and during the game, you can change your weapon by pointing your crosshairs at the bottom of the screen. The graphics are very good indeed, with some nice trickery used to provide extra colours, and the music and sound are also excellent. However, the levels are all very similar, and some of them are very short as well.
See also: Licence to Kill, Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill.
You're Stanley, the famous explorer, and you must find Dr. Livingstone in a jungle full of traps. Snakes, coconut-throwing monkeys, and pits are part of the joys of your trip. You can use a knife, a pole, grenades and a boomerang to clear your way. Well, this is a nice, colourful and funny game. Of course, it is much too hard (like any Spanish game), because every time you're struck by a coconut, an eagle catches you and brings you back to the beginning of the level. There are also creatures that appear randomly in the caves, and you can't avoid them, which is rather despairing. It's a funny game, anyway...
See also: Livingstone Supongo II.
Morton Stanley is back in the jungle – this time geared with a whip, grenades, a boomerang and of course, a pole. The game has two parts which load separately. On the first one, you have to collect several sacred stones. Then, you'll have to meet the sorcerer of a tribe. The graphics of this game are just great – large, colourful, well animated and featuring multi-directional scrolling. The music is almost the same that played in the first game, and the sound effects are quite good. However, keep in mind who released this game (the same guys who programmed Mutan Zone, Sol Negro and Ulises), and be prepared to lose your temper when a monkey suddenly steals your pole, or when you lose all your lives trying to jump on to the back of a hippopotamus.
See also: Livingstone.
We've all met those sliding tile puzzle games. In this game, however, the tiles contain bits of railway track that have to be joined together so that a train can get from one side of the screen to the other. Unfortunately, there's hardly any time for you to make decisions as the train moves too fast, and even the panic button, where the train temporarily stops so you can get on with creating a track, doesn't last long enough. Simple graphics and very good sound effects can't cover the fact that this game is far too difficult.
Not a lot of people know this, but this all-time classic game was released for the CPC, albeit much later than its original release back in 1983. I don't recall it being released in the UK, though. Anyway, you are Jake Peril, and must collect all the treasure on each screen – and there are 150 screens to work your way through! The treasure is guarded by the Mad Monks, who will follow you as you walk along the platforms and climb up and down the ladders. However, after a few goes, you may be able to find out how to avoid them. You can also dig holes so that the monks fall into them, but be careful that you don't fall into them yourself! The graphics have been enhanced, but they still retain the feel of the original game. The same goes for the gameplay, which still retains all of its charm.
A puzzle game where your aim is, as the name suggests, to create loops out of various shapes – L-, S- and U-shaped wedges and straight lines, big and small. There are three types of game to play; a free-for-all where you can simply create whatever loops you want, another where you must achieve a certain target score to progress to the next level, and one where on each level, you are shown a more complex loop, and have to reconnect some pieces which are removed from it. This latter game is the real test, and after the first ten levels, you'll need a really good memory to put the loop back together again. Needless to say, if you're not a fan of puzzle games, this game isn't going to interest you, but the graphics are fairly good, there are three tunes to listen to, and there's a password system as well.
Lop Ears is a little bunny who ventured out to play, but he wandered a long way from home. Sadly, the authorities have built a bypass across the land, and poor little Lop Ears has to find another way home – so can you help him? Now, come on, you can't leave a lovely bunny rabbit all on his own! This is an arcade adventure in which you collect objects and try to find uses for them, much like the Dizzy series. Watch out for other animals, such as dogs, squirrels and weasels, who will deplete your energy – even other rabbits don't like you. That's not very nice, is it? The graphics are quite good, although they lack colour, but the animation is marvellous. There is also no sound at all during the game. However, there are enough puzzles to keep you occupied for a while, although there are some annoying situations where you can die instantly.
Lorna is a sexy blonde girl who is the creation of the Spanish artist Alfonso Azpiri. She starred in a few Spanish comics, which were certainly not suitable for children! Well, she has huge breasts and wears almost nothing... As Lorna, you have to battle her way through a swamp, a cave and a forest, to reach a temple. Once you enter the temple, you must find the six pieces of Lorna's robot and then assemble them. On three of these levels, you are armed with a gun. There are a lot of aliens to kill, and you can use either the butt of the gun, or shoot them – although your ammunition is very limited. This makes the game rather difficult. The graphics are colourful, but there is very little sound and the gameplay becomes slightly tedious after a few goes.
You take control of a three-man squad of the LA SWAT team, who have been pressed into action to ease the riots occurring in the streets. Several criminals have taken over the streets and must be stopped. This game was released as a budget title, and a poor one it was. Poor presentation leads to a slow push-scroll affair where you move upwards trying to shoot and avoid the randomly generated criminals. After around two full screens of sluggish scrolling, a stand-off occurs, leading to a new level that looks like the last. Did I mention there's no sound!
Written by Amstrad Action's Adam Waring, this is a maze game where you have to collect ten diamonds, whilst avoiding the falling boulders which you have to set loose during your explorations. There are also lots of guardians on the lookout for you. One version of the game has a built-in cheat to let you select any level you want, which is a good thing, as it's impossible to get off the first level – and indeed, all the others. There are some good graphics and the tune is reasonable, but the guardians are far too hard to avoid.
Get ready to compete in the Lotus Challenge with fifteen other competitors as you attempt to score points in various tracks in every corner of the world. There are three difficulty levels with seven, ten and fifteen tracks in each respectively, and each has their own characteristics. You'll need to be really good to win races, although it's possible to win the championship without winning any races! On some tracks, you might need to pit for fuel as well. In short, this is the best racing game on the CPC. The graphics may not be stunning, but the scrolling is really fast and you really feel like you're doing 140mph. The music and sound effects are good as well.
An early entry into the CPC's catalogue of fruit machine simulators. Feature-wise, everything's there that you would associate with such a game for the time it was released. Presentation-wise, this one, although colourful, looks a little basic. In fact, soon after playing this game you begin to sniff a BASIC program that, although does a good job, just doesn't cut the mustard. Simple and sparse sound effects just increase the desire to look elsewhere for a more pleasing choice of game.
A railway is being built that will run east to west across America, and Lucky Luke has the task of guarding a train that is carrying a cargo of explosive nitroglycerine. Based on one of the many comic books featuring the cowboy Lucky Luke, this game consists of five episodes with varying styles of gameplay, such as moving around a screen trying to perform actions in the correct order, shooting bandits as they slowly appear from doorways, searching for the stolen nitroglycerine, and solving a complex puzzle by pulling levers to move railway tracks. The graphics are colourful, although they are often quite blocky and look somewhat messy. The music is also not particularly good. As for the gameplay, all of the episodes, with the exception of the puzzle-solving section, are much too easy to complete.
You've come to the computer centre at GUE Tech and are in the terminal room, with only a hacker for company, trying to get your essay finished for tomorrow morning. There's a huge blizzard outside and you're stuck here for the night, but something much more sinister is afoot... This was one of the last of Infocom's text adventures to be released for the CPC, and I reckon it's their best one. The text descriptions really create a tense and frightening atmosphere as you skulk around the corridors of GUE Tech, and the characters that you will meet are rather scary as well, such as the ghoulish caretaker and the professor of alchemy. This isn't just my favourite Infocom game; it's one of my favourite text adventures of all time.