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Table Football is a table-top football game for two players. Player one plays the red team and player two controls the blue team. After listening to the pleasant title music, you and a friend begin the match. The controls are simple enough; move up or down and kick to the left or to the right. They respond well as the large football moves along the pitch in what can soon become a nerve-racking game. The graphics are smooth, colourful and a tad slow but overall they work well. Overall, an average but enjoyable two-player challenge that begs for a computer opponent.
Tag Team Wrestling is a two-versus-two wrestling game. You can choose from eight different teams and fight your way to the championship. The graphics are average – not much detail on the sprites and in the background. Besides that, all the teams look the same in the ring! There is a small variety of moves; one kick, one grab, one punch, and that's all. You can also run and execute a flying kick, but you will never hit the target. The gameplay suffers; you will probably be badly beaten by the computer, and because of the small variety of moves, you will become bored easily. The sound is almost absent, just like the grab factor. Overally, this game is light years behind WWF Wrestlemania and it is a hasty job.
The evil Sultan of Saladin has captured Prince Imrahil's sister and taken her to Baghdad, and you must rescue her. Starting on one of the Sultan's ships, you must collect seven jugs in the correct order, spelling out the word 'Arabian', before you can travel along the river Anhil to a cavern, where you encounter some genies and must again collect seven jugs. Once you've done that, you fly across the desert to the gates of Baghdad to – you've guessed it – collect seven more jugs. This is a mediocre platform game that has dated badly. The graphics and music are fairly primitive, but the collision detection is poor and ruins the game completely, and the second and fourth levels are far too easy.
Another horizontally scrolling space shoot-'em-up to look at and play. What's this one like, then? Erm... it's not that good. Just control your spacecraft and fire at the oncoming waves of aliens, spaceships and rocks, while facing the occasional large alien which will take a lot of shots to kill, and collecting a few power-ups on the way (which seem to have little effect). I've seen it all before. The graphics are OK – they're rather colourful – but the sound effects are rather basic, and the scrolling is relatively slow and jerky.
Tank is a shoot-'em-up based on the SNK coin-op game. The evil dictator has gone way too far, and it's up to you to make your way through his defences and put an end to his régime. This entails travelling over (very large) beaches, jungles, villages and military installations while shooting everything that moves. Your tank is initially equipped with machine guns and a cannon, but there are various letters scattered around which power up your armoured vehicle. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes with some very tricky bosses to defeat. The graphics are varied and colourful, with jumpy scrolling that doesn't spoil the game too much. Apart from the short tune playing on the title screen, the in-game effects are limited to shots and explosion noises. Tank is easy to get into and it gradually gets more and more difficult.
You've somehow been marooned on another world and have to shoot all the blue objects to escape. However, there are tanks who are out to get you, and each time you shoot one, another will appear. On the screen, you can see a radar map showing the location of the tank and any missiles it fires. Unfortunately, since the graphics are so minimal, finding that last crystal can be frustrating, but in fact you should be able to complete any game in under ten minutes. Despite it being one of the easiest games I've played, there's still something about it which makes me go for it whenever I feel like a quick blast.
Your mission is to rescue agents stranded within the battle zone. You travel in your tank, crawling over many types of terrain in a 2D map setting. Enemy tanks, trucks and turrets lie in wait, and when sighted, pressing the fire button activates the battle mode. Here the game changes to 3D view where you elevate your gun to the correct angle in order to score a direct hit. The loading screen is well drawn in MODE 1, making good use of colour. Game-wise, the graphics for the map are varied and colourful. The battle mode is also detailed, displaying mountains, hills, fields, etc. Sound effects are limited to shots and explosions. An interesting game that carries just the right difficulty level.
Can you help the bartender serve all the customers as they flow continually into your bar? The bar consists of four long tables, and customers move along the tables. Once any of them reach the bar, you lose a life, and the way to avoid this is to throw a mug of beer along the table to the customer, which hopefully will send them out of the bar altogether; if you completely clear the bar of customers, you go to the next level. You also have to collect empty mugs as the customers throw them back to you. The action is frantic, but the controls are rather unresponsive when there is a lot of action on the screen, and by the third level, the amount of customers becomes so overwhelming that it seems to be impossible to progress any further. Still, it's an entertaining game with colourful graphics.
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, Renegade III: The Final Chapter.
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. Grahpically 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!
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.
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.
You have decided to replace your current spacecraft with a new, state-of-the-art one – the Foourd T-Bird. You go to the nearest dealer and ask for a test drive – but you have taken a wrong turning somewhere and ended up in the heat of battle against some nasty aliens! Four levels await you in this space shoot-'em-up. The action is viewed in perspective, with the waves of aliens coming out of the screen towards you. If you shoot all of the aliens in a wave, you can collect a pod which gives you a power-up, or you can ignore it and select another power-up the next time you collect a pod. The graphics are quite good and the scrolling is fast, but there is no music and hardly any sound effects. Overall, it's a fairly average shoot-'em-up.
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.
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.
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.
Cowabunga, dudes! This game is radical, as the Turtles would say! As the title suggests, this is a port of the great arcade game by Konami, and you'll be surprised how near to the original it is! The basic plot has no surprises; as any of the Turtles (or any two, as this game has one of the best two-player modes the CPC has ever seen) you must walk the corridors, streets and sewers and rescue your master Splinter and your friend April O'Neil from the clutches of Shredder, beating up his henchmen along the way. Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang... all the old favourites are here! The graphics are great and colourful, the difficulty level is perfect and the two-player mode is brilliant. The sound could be better, but even so this is an absolute blinder of a game.
See also: Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.
Take three guesses as to what sort of game this might be. Yes, it's strip poker! Actually, this game has much better graphics than the other strip poker offerings on the CPC (and how do I know that?). As with all other strip poker games, when the girl loses all her money, she takes off an item of clothing and you get to see a picture of her. As I've already said, the graphics are very good indeed, and a soothing bit of music on the title screen sets the atmosphere well. However, I'm no good at any type of poker, anyway – and why are only 32 cards used by both players instead of 52?
The hyperspatial wireways have been invaded by aliens, and it's your job to eliminate them all – not an easy task when there are 99 of them! You control a zapper which moves along the rim at one end of each wireway, while the aliens appear at the other end and move towards you. You must merrily unleash a hail of bullets at them, trying to prevent any of them reaching your end of the wireway. If you feel overwhelmed, you can use a super zapper, but you only have one of these on each level. This game was a classic in the arcades, and it has been converted very well, with great vector graphics, marvellous sound effects, and addictive gameplay. It's excellent!
This is Loriciel's second tennis game for the CPC, and it's a pretty good one as well. Although you can't play in any tournaments, the game allows you to customise the abilities of both yourself and your opponent in several areas – namely service, forehand, backhand and volleys. You can also choose whether to play on a cement, clay or grass court. The game uses a split-screen technique which shows the view of the court from both ends, which is very useful in two-player mode, where both players have a clear view of their own end of the court. Although the graphics lack colour – and the colour schemes that are used have not been chosen well – the animation of the players is excellent, and after a few practice sessions, it's a very playable game as well.
See also: Tennis Cup II.
A very polished and impressive tennis game, making good use of the Plus' capabilities. It is indeed one of the most in-depth tennis games on the CPC. The graphics and sound effects are very good and the game has so many options to select from – one- and two-player modes, training and practicing different shots, playing on different surfaces such as clay, grass and hard court, taking on other countries in the Davis Cup, or playing the Grand Slam tournaments. You can configure options such as the match length (1, 3 or 5 sets) and game speeds, and you can also select split-screen or normal single-screen viewing mode. But wait; there's even more! There is a credits system to change the attributes of your player, giving them more or less ability in things like serving, passing shots and smashes.
See also: Tennis Cup.
Another bowling game hits the CPC. Upon loading, you are met with a request to enter your name. You then choose the weight of the ball and the skill level before the game begins. Choosing your start position leads to selecting the spin used when releasing the ball. Pressing fire animates the player sprite in slow, flickery motion. The ball then travels along until it goes out of view. Once you've done all of this, you realise that this game wasn't thought out too well. Its poorly defined graphics and screen format, mixed with dismal effects, just add to a very dull game indeed.
There aren't many ten-pin bowling simulations around for the CPC, but this is one of them, and it's really rather average. Up to eight players can take part in either open or league bowling, and there are three skill levels – kids, amateur and pro. First you align your player, and then use a cursor to aim your shot. The animations of the bowler are impressive, but the colour scheme is garish, the sound effects are dreadful, and getting a strike seems to be difficult even on the kids skill level.
Teodoro No Sabe Volar is a great arcade adventure game that features great graphics, fast-paced gameplay and strong grab factor. The graphics are really cool; something between Rick Dangerous II and Phantomas Saga: Infinity, they have great colours, smooth animation and great sprite design. The scenery is also very detailed. A minus here is the small playing screen. The sound is not the strong point of this game but it is adequate and fairly supports the game. The gameplay is excellent; assisted by the graphics and the good collision detection, the scenery keeps evolving and changing until the game is completed. This is a magnificent, albeit short, gem.
A robot, T1000, has been sent back in time to terminate a young boy called John Connor, but some humans have sent another robot, T101 (that's you) to protect him. The game has seven levels which rotate around three styles of gameplay – beat-'em-ups (levels 1, 4 and 7), driving from an overhead view (levels 2 and 6), and puzzles where you must slide tiles to create a picture (levels 3 and 5). Thankfully the puzzles are only bonus levels, and it isn't necessary to complete the puzzles in order to go to the next level. It's a big game with marvellous graphics – check out T1000's face on the fifth level – but the gameplay is definitely also there.
It's the year 5027, and Brain, the leader of a rebellious teenage gang called the Wanglers, has been captured and is being held on the prison planet of Terminus. The remaining four Wanglers – Mobod, Xann, Spex and Magno – must find him, in a huge maze consisting of 512 screens. Each Wangler behaves in a different way, and you control one Wangler at a time. There are teleport stations that allow you to select another Wangler, and they also act as a restart position if a Wangler is killed. This is a very colourful game with awesome graphics, especially when you consider the year it was released. The sound isn't all that good, but the gameplay and the urge to explore the maze make up for this. The Wanglers are cute, too!
A group of three mining engineers have been exploring a planet, but now they must escape in their spaceship. This was one of the first games that Codemasters released for the CPC. It's a vertically scrolling space shoot-'em-up with graphics which are at times horrible, but thankfully the gameplay compensates for this. Steer your spaceship through the obstacle course and avoid walls, force fields, droids, and time shift blocks which will take your ship all the way back to the start – very annoying when you've come so far! You also need to collect fuel regularly, and extra lives can also be collected. There's nothing at all which makes this different from any other space shoot-'em-up, and it can sometimes be hard to distinguish what is a wall and what isn't, but it's still fun to play.
The name means 'Lands and Conquerors' in English, and it's a huge battle between Eric the Red and Georg the Tyrant and their hordes of armies. This is a turn-based strategy game where you must move your own pieces and attack your opponent's, using skill, tactics and a bit of luck to defeat your opponent and conquer the land. It'll take something to beat the computer, since it seems to have a built-in advantage that allows it to inflict more damage on you than you can on it! The graphics are excellent, and the game comes with twelve scenarios, and you can even create your own as well.
You've booked a two-week package holiday to the Spanish resort of Terrormolinos with your family – but as you may have guessed, it's going to be the holiday from hell! You must first dash around the house and pack your suitcase with everything you need before you head to the airport. Once you're in Spain, you must take ten photographs of your stay to prove to your friends back home that you survived. This is a text adventure which turns out to be fairly easy to progress in, despite the rather limited parser. The pictures that are displayed are quite humorous, but they are very crudely drawn indeed and look like your CPC has become a Spectrum! The numerous game-ending mishaps that can happen to you also become quite frustrating and spoil what could have been a great adventure.
The planet Colian is a desolate place that is rich in vital metals, minerals and gemstones. The empire has several bases upon the surface that the Federation is not happy about. Thus, you have been sent to destroy these bases in your Defence Strategy Vehicle. Scattered along the planet's surface are various buildings; some offer power-ups while others recharge your vehicle. Deadly Terrorpods patrol and defend the area and can be very difficult to destroy. There are a lot of controls to master in this strategy/shoot-'em-up game which will put a lot of people off. The graphics look good and move with a very impressive 3D effect that's let down by the sluggish frame rate. Targeting is a hit and miss affair that quickly becomes frustrating to the point where you're no longer bothered about your mission.
It's the game that helped to sell huge numbers of Nintendo Gameboys, and everyone knows how to play it; make full rows of blocks by slotting together pieces which fall from the top of the screen. Unfortunately, this version doesn't fare well at all; the graphics are garish, and the striped background is confusing. Add some terrible music and clumsy controls which can't be redefined, and you don't get a fun game. Thankfully, there are far better versions in the public domain.
The forces of the underworld must be defeated by the mighty dragon, Thanatos the Destroyer. It's not often that you get the chance to play a dragon in a computer game. However, in order to complete your mission, you must first find and collect the beautiful sorceress Eros, and then fly onwards to find her spell book, and finally, fly to her cauldron where the spell can be cast. These are all to be found in locked castles, but the wooden entrance door can be burnt down. Your supply of fire is limited, and can be replenished by landing next to a witch, grabbing the knight from his horse and killing him, then eating the witch! There are many other unique things about this game; the parallax scrolling and animation of the dragon and the many opponents you can face are stunning, and the eight skill levels add a lot of replay value to this fantastic game.
This is a wargame taking place during the Cold War era. You can choose your side (NATO or the Warsaw Pact) and the difficulty level. Then you move your units on a map representing Europe (which is really well drawn, by the way). When you select a battle, the screen turns into a little arcade game where you must shoot tanks and aircraft. It doesn't have a big influence on the results of the battles, however. At a certain point of the campaign, you can decide to use chemical or nuclear weapons, but this will often result in the complete destruction of the planet, so think twice before using them! A good, although a bit too repetitive, strategic game.
Thing has been assigned to deliver The Ball to the Dingalinger Overlord. However, Thing must complete ten tasks before he is allowed to meet the Overlord. That's definitely one of the weirdest plots I've heard for a game! The planet that Thing wanders is divided into 26 zones which he can teleport between using a telephone box. There are lots of objects scattered over these zones, and it's up to you to discover which ones are used to complete tasks – but you are not informed when you have completed any! You must also avoid contact with the bouncing gargoyles which will cost you one of your five lives. The graphics tell you instantly that this game is a Spectrum port, and Thing moves at such a snail-like pace that the aim of the game seems to be to try to stay awake.
Thing is on a mission to locate parts of a computer program which will stop the production of evil toys that the factory he's in is churning out. Now this is no easy task, as not only is the game immense, and not only are there typically weird bad guys everywhere, but also Thing, only being able to jump, is one of the hardest game characters ever to control! On the plus side, though, the graphics are great – lots of detail and very colourful, and Thing is a cute little guy – and the sound is OK too; nothing great, but serviceable. In fact, the game is way above average; it's just so hard! But just suspend the belief that you'll ever finish it, and you'll find a pretty fun game here. It's got everything a platform gamer could desire.
See also: Thing on a Spring.
The evil Goblin is causing chaos by casting spells and banishing the Earth's treasures to his underground lair. Only one thing can break the spell – completing a magical jigsaw – and only one hero can do the job – Thing on a Spring! Great... I guess we can kiss the Earth's treasures goodbye then. Joking aside, though, this game is seriously frustrating. Not only are the jigsaw pieces scattered around in some of the most out-of-the-way corners of the Goblin's lair, but Thing has one of the hardest-to-control jumps in gaming history. Add to this the large number of seemingly unavoidable enemies and the many instances where you get stuck with no way of progressing, and you have a seriously annoying game. There's a great catchy tune, but the sequel is an improvement in every way.
See also: Thing Bounces Back.
You've been told to go down to the second-hand shop and find £60 to buy a computer. Starting in your own bedroom, you search the house collecting £1 coins and avoiding the enemies that wander about the rooms. Then it's off into the garden and the forest, through to more sets of mazes, more coins to collect, and more enemies to avoid. It's a really simple kind of game with awful graphics that look as though it's written in BASIC (although it isn't), and the less said about the tune, the better. It's a game that will only be remembered for its extremely silly name.
This is a board game for two players using a 6×6 grid. Each player must try to align four of their counters in a row either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. However, instead of placing counters on to any tile, a counter must be pushed on to one of the squares at the bottom or right of the board, and all the other counters in that row or column are shifted upwards or to the left as appropriate. The rules are very simple, but it makes for an extremely challenging game which requires a lot of thinking – hence the name. There are several different modes of play, including a tutorial mode and several problem-solving puzzles in which the board is already laid out for you. This is an excellent game for the intellectuals out there.
Thomas has to complete seven tasks, such as taking oil to a refinery, delivering letters to the nearby city, or taking some children to the beach. You've got to find the carriage first and reach your destination before sunset. On the easy mode, you won't face any dangers apart from the odd train, and it's easy to complete. However, the so-called normal mode sees you facing more trains, as well as blocked tracks, and since it's far too difficult, you won't be playing this game for too long once you've completed the easy mode. The graphics and sound effects are mediocre, too, although the rendition of the theme tune on the menu is welcome.
Enter the boxing ring and defeat six fighters (including one called Roland!) to become champion and win the Amsoft belt. In each round, you have three minutes to knock out your opponent. The graphics aren't bad and the fighters are large and well animated. A jolly tune plays on the menu screen, but the game itself is limited to a few sound effects, and some of these are rather poor, particularly when one of the fighters is hit. Playing the game is quite frustrating; the controls are awkward and punching your opponent is tricky. The collision detection is inaccurate, and your opponent can randomly land a knockout blow on you, regardless of how much energy you have.
Stranded at the bottom of the sea, you must find or construct a submarine that will rescue you and take you back to the surface. The sea bed is littered with objects that you can collect. Some of them are hidden from view by larger objects that can be pushed out of the way. You will also find Eric the Eel, who can squeeze into gaps that you cannot fit into – but watch out for the octopuses, who will steal your oxygen tanks if you're not careful! This isometric arcade adventure with some lovely graphics and a pleasant rendition of a tune that will be familiar to British ears. However, the controls are awkward, and it's quite difficult to work out what you're supposed to do with the objects you can collect.
Once again, you must save the Earth from evil aliens. Flying over a blue chequered surface, you'll have to destroy waves of hostile spaceships. Well, as with many games containing "3D" in their title, we shouldn't expect much of this game. First, it is very difficult to aim accurately at the incoming aliens because the perspective is rather deceptive. Then, you have to collect fuel (by firing at it!) very often, which makes your task even harder. You'll soon be lost in a cloud of enemy bullets (or whatever it is), trying to find an oil tank – and you'll press the CONTROL, SHIFT and ESCAPE keys!
This early Formula 1 game sees you racing around eight tracks. In order to qualify for the next track, you must finish third or higher. After playing for a while, it's clear that this is much more of an arcade game than a proper motor racing simulation. Although you start on pole position on a grid of 23 cars, other cars will appear randomly in front of you even if you're in the lead and on the first lap! Despite this, it remains a fairly enjoyable game after all these years, and you get a sense of speed while driving around the tracks.
It's Space Invaders in 3D, would you believe? The Quarks are invading and you have to shoot as many of them as you can. You move your laser cannon about a grid of squares and try to dodge the aliens' fire as they move slowly – very slowly – left and right. It's really difficult to aim your laser at the aliens and your laser bolts nearly always seem to go right through them. The game is mostly written in BASIC and so it is excruciatingly slow, and the graphics, sound effects, and of course the game itself, are all abysmal.
Hunt through three floors of a maze to find a key, then use it to disarm a stink bomb (!), and return to your home base. There are seven keys in total, and you must also beware of the bat that flies round each floor, although there is a supply of grenades you can use to kill it. This game ranks as one of the worst I have ever had the misfortune to play. It is horrifically sluggish, and pressing keys often does nothing. The graphics are equally terrible, and the game is extremely boring, anyway; playing it for more than two minutes will seriously test your sanity!
The problem with most snooker and pool games is that you can't move around the table, but you can in this game. You can take part in a tournament against several other players, all battling to face the champion, Maltese Joe. Alternatively, you can practice, or even try out fifteen trick shots – you can design your own as well. The 3D nature of the game makes it a little difficult to aim your shots, and it isn't helped by the other players being pretty good. The graphics are blocky and a bit slow, despite the four-colour mode being used, and there are hardly any sound effects and music, but it's still not a bad game.
After the fighting of the Proxima war, the enemy has blasted tunnels in the Quasar defence system. You have been sent to fly along these tunnels in your Tarantula C1 spaceship and have to shoot all the enemy craft. It's tough going right from the start – even with only one enemy coming towards you at a time, you'll need to be alert. You'll soon find that it's really tough, and soon you're overwhelmed; if you can survive for more than a minute, you're doing well! It might be worth a few goes if you're looking for a very short game to play, but there isn't any variety in it at all, and the tunnel is too narrow.
Most snooker games view the board from above. This one dares to be different by viewing it from one end and adding some perspective. However, it just doesn't work. Aiming your ball is like most other snooker games – you move crosshairs about the table and fire. The perspective makes aiming the ball accurately impossible, especially when you're aiming for a ball at the far end of the table. It also uses only four colours, so working out the other coloured balls can be tricky. The 3D graphics are a reasonable attempt, but I'll say again that it doesn't work in a snooker game.
Prepare for a biased review – this is in my top three favourite CPC games ever! There is so much to this game, I can't do it justice in such a small space. You play a special agent whose mission is to deliver the CHAOS weapon (Complete Hostile Alien Obliteration System) to the scientists of a distant planet overrun by hostile aliens. But things aren't that simple and you'll find yourself making many trips to other planets before you eventually deliver the weapon. The game itself is a 3D shoot-'em-up where you must shoot the rapidly approaching alien ships using a set of crosshairs, before they crash into you and drain your shields. The graphics are fairly simple but still good, the sound is excellent (cue the Codemasters trademark sampled speech!) and this game is just brilliant fun!
Take on the enemy Outsider spaceships in your advanced Starstrike spaceship, and penetrate and destroy their reactors hidden deep beneath the surface of the Outsiders' moons. This 3D space shoot-'em-up features fast and colourful wireframe graphics and non-stop action – whether it's shooting the Outsider spaceships and their plasma bolts, dodging towers as you fly towards the enemy base, or avoiding the catwalks as you zoom along the equatorial ducts leading to the reactors, you'll need to have quick reflexes and a good aim! While the gameplay may ultimately be a little repetitive, it's still great fun to play and an excellent choice if you're looking for a quick session of blasting aliens.
See also: Starstrike II.
With hindsight, it's amazing that people could sell full-price games that were as bad as this. The only thing to do here is trying to jump with your bike over double-decker buses (which proudly bear the inscription 'AMSTRAD'). The problem is that you must start your jump exactly at the right speed, if you don't want to crash either on the buses or on the landing track. And when I say exactly at the right speed, that's exactly! 25mph instead of 23mph won't do. Add to that the impossibility of controlling accurately the speed of your bike, and you obtain an extremely irritating game, even if the graphics are rather good!
Aliens have destroyed your home planet, and you must rid your galaxy of them. The galaxy consists of 64 sectors laid out in an 8×8 grid, and you must explore the sectors and search for the aliens using your long range sensors. Once you find a sector containing a wave of aliens, you have to shoot a few of them by moving a cursor around the screen, and then you can teleport to another sector to continue your mission. There are also planets where you can restore some energy, but only if you land your spacecraft successfully. This is a very simple game with basic graphics. The gameplay requires very little skill and offers little variety, and it won't be long before you'll become bored of it.
To enjoy Three Weeks in Paradise, you must be a fan of 'Dizzy-like' games and be ready to rack your brains to solve complicated riddles. Your goal is to release your friends who have been caught by a tribe of cannibals. To this purpose, you must collect items and find how to use them. The game has good MODE 0 graphics and nice animation. Unfortunately the sound is a bit weak, and above all, the game is very hard. Nonetheless, there is a peculiar compulsion to try to go further into the game.
See also: Everyone's a Wally, Pyjamarama.
Throne of Fire is a one- or two-player game where you choose from a roster of three identical Princes, and must explore the many rooms of the vast Burning Citadel, fencing with rival knights, in search of the ultimate symbol of power, the Throne of Fire. The various rooms are colour-coded in a small map to signify which Princes control which rooms, with the aim being to control all the rooms, by defeating the knights therein, before seeking the fabled Throne. It doesn't look too bad for a Spectrum port, and the difficulty is set about right, but the sound is abysmal, it's too sluggish, the sword-fighting element is flawed, and it's just not hugely interesting.
Boni the skull has been taken away below the trap door, and as Berk, you have to rescue him. This time, you can take control of both Berk and Drutt, who have to work together to make progress. Unfortunately, the game isn't as good as The Trap Door; for whatever reason, it's not as much fun. Berk may move faster, and there may be more monsters to encounter, but once you get to the second level, you'll find that things become much too difficult.
See also: The Trap Door.
The resistance has captured some spaceships in preparation for an attack against the Intergalactic Empire. However, they need to collect some Klystron pods for the spaceships to be useful. You control a spaceship and have to enter an underground passageway to collect a Klystron pod on each level, and then fly to the surface again with the pod in tow. However, each passageway contains guns which will fire at you, and the levels quickly become harder, with narrower passageways, more guns, and even reverse gravity and invisible walls. This simple little game is in fact one of the all-time classics. Despite its very retro graphics, it's unbelievably addictive, and if you haven't played it, you haven't lived.
See also: Thrust II.
After collecting all the Klystron pods, the resistance decides to settle on the planet P2112, but there's something wrong with the weather. There's a maze of underground passageways to explore, and you must once again collect sixteen pods and bring them to the surface in order to fix the planet's atmosphere. In other words, it's very similar to the previous game, but the graphics have improved considerably (although the line-based graphics in Thrust had their own appeal), and your spaceship is a lot harder to manoeuvre, especially when you're towing a pod. For this reason, I don't think this game is as good as its predecessor, but it's still a fun and challenging game to play.
See also: Thrust.
If you didn't already know it, Thunderbirds is a hugely popular puppet-based TV show with a cult following. The whole premise of the Thunderbirds is being good people helping rescue others in perilous situations and saving the world from bad guys, namely the Hood who wants to destroy the world. In this game you take on the role of the famous International Rescue team in four different daring rescue adventures, but you can only choose two different objects at the beginning of each mission to help you complete these very dangerous time-limited rescue missions. The graphics and colours chosen are very Spectrum-looking and not worthy of the International Rescue team, as the TV show does feature some very colourful and spiffy-looking outfits. If you love Thunderbirds you will most likely enjoy this graphic arcade adventure.
You're on a mission to destroy an enemy fortress, but the enemy aren't going to take to that. The mission consists of four sections divided into three sub-sections, which see you flying over cities, deserts and the sea. As well as the enemy's fire, you've also got to dodge skyscrapers when you're in the cities. The game is let down a bit by its silly controls; to accelerate and slow down, you have to hold down the fire button as you press up or down, and you often find yourself slowing down when you want to change height, leaving you exposed to enemy fire. Despite this, it's still possible to progress, but it's not exactly enthralling.
This is a poor 3D shoot-'em-up in which you control a robot that can metamorphose into a fighter 'plane at will. Enemies fly towards you, and you can shoot them or avoid them. If you're flying, you'll also need to avoid the scenery on the ground. You'll also need to collect spheres to maintain your fuel levels. So why is the game poor, then? Your firepower is mediocre and you can only shoot enemies at very close range, and collecting spheres is almost impossible; by the time you realise that there is a sphere nearby, it's too late to collect it, and your fuel runs out very quickly. The graphics are actually very good, although the colour scheme makes the game look dull – and it is a dull game to play.
Thunder, thunder, you know the rest. A blatant cash-in on the cheesy kids' cartoon. As Lion-O, your task is to recover the lost eye of Thundera – the power behind the Sword of Omens from the clutches of Thundercat nemesis the vile Mumm-Ra, "the ever living". A simple hack-'n'-slash platformer; you have to reach the end of every level as fast as possible within the given time limit and in your way are an infinite number of Mumm-Ra's mutants to stop you. As well as picking points to rack up your score, you must rescue your fellow felines along the way. A dull repetitive affair, it looks as bad as it plays. One for fans of the show only.
The evil scientist Madame Q is threatening to take over the world by creating armies of mutants. You must infiltrate her underwater fortress and kill her. The game consists of four levels which are divided into two parts. In the first part, you must swim underwater, avoiding any hazardous objects, to reach one of Madame Q's bases. The second part is a platform-cum-shoot-'em-up affair. Most parts have a very large enemy to defeat at the end, but none of them are particularly challenging. The same can be said for the rest of the game, which is so easy that I completed it on my first attempt! The graphics are very good and well drawn, but the underwater sections are fairly dull and you are given far too many credits. You'll complete the game quickly and then forget about it.
Ryu Ken Oh has kidnapped all the children from your village, so someone – you, of course – must rescue them. You are Lee Wong, a student of the Oh Rin temple, and on your journey along the Tiger Road, you will encounter all sorts of ninja, samurai and other warriors. The levels are all rather short, but each one is different, and it's nice to have the action divided into neat segments. Every few levels, you will meet a particularly nasty enemy that must be defeated before you can continue. You can smash urns to collect different types of weapon, and some enemies will be almost impossible to defeat unless you possess the correct weapon. The graphics aren't that good, and Lee Wong looks rather strange, but the music is wonderful and the game itself is fairly decent.
In this game our ridiculously named hero, the Schroedeldoedel, is on a mission to find and kill Mr. X. You find yourself trapped within his lair, a place full of nasties and deadly traps. To progress you must shoot or avoid everything (even the walls are deadly) and make your way to the next screen. Sadly, the joystick controls are often unresponsive, with a hero that moves very slowly. To make matters worse, you can only shoot sideways or diagonally. Due to these issues Time becomes a very frustrating experience that makes finding Mr. X impossible. Drab and sluggish-looking in-game visuals do nothing to save this one. Try it out and see how long it takes for you to lose your temper.
There's very little information on what this maze exploration game is about. It seems that you're on the planet of Oxijenless and must find several pieces of some sort of ornament; the ornament's name and purpose is unknown. Anyway, it's a totally ordinary, mediocre game. You simply wander around the maze, looking for the pieces and other things that will boost your limited supply of oxygen, and trying to minimise contact with the various monsters in each room. The graphics are poor and garish, and the animation, particularly of the main character, is awful. The same goes for the sound effects. It's a boring game which isn't worthy of your attention.
My, oh my! Pinball games don't come much better than this little baby. Four tables await you, all of them armed to the teeth with bells and whistles and each one based on a different time zone. This game has the lot – the ball bangs and whizzes about, the graphics and animations are clear and detailed, there's a different tune for each table, and the difficulty is just right; although you get a very generous amount of credits (five of them, with five balls for each credit), it'll take practice to reach the last table. This is one game that I'll be coming back to often.
All is not well in the kingdom of Albareth. The High King Valwyn has disappeared, and the land is in turmoil. You are the hero – either a knight, a valkyrie or a barbarian – who can restore Albareth to its former glory, by undertaking various quests and ultimately retrieving the three magical artefacts that allow the kingdom to be governed effectively. This is a fantastic role-playing game with lots of towns to visit, characters to talk to, inns to stay in, and terrain to explore – Albareth covers a very large area! The presentation is stunning, especially the introductory sequences, and with so much to do, you'll soon become totally immersed in the game. However, there is one annoyance; it's very easy to accidentally hit a villager and ruin the rest of the game as a result. Without this flaw, I would give this game ten out of ten.
Tintin and his friends, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus, are on a rocket heading for the Moon, but Colonel Boris has sabotaged the rocket and has planted several bombs. The game consists of five stages. In each stage, you first have to move the rocket and dodge meteors while collecting red and yellow balls, and then, as Tintin, defuse the bombs, put out the fires that Boris is creating, and capture Boris. This is actually very easy, and it won't be long before you complete the game. The introductory sequence is the best bit of the game, actually! Meanwhile, the cartridge version is exactly the same as the normal CPC version, except for a nice picture at the very start, before the introductory sequence.
I don't recall this game being released in the UK, but it's rather a change from the other two games featuring Skweek. You have to move the differently coloured Skweeks into their correct positions which are marked by circles. This isn't as easy as it seems, because once you move a Skweek, he won't stop until he hits a wall! There are also arrows and other bonuses to collect, but you'll need to plan carefully to complete most of the screens – and there are 101 of them! A password system means you don't have to play the levels you've already completed all over again.
See also: Skweek, Super Skweek.
The name means 'land of youth' in Gaelic, and as Cúchulainn the Great, your aim is to find the four parts of the Seal of Calum which have been scattered across the land, which is vast – you'll just walk in circles if you don't draw your own map! However, they are closely guarded, and you'll need to solve a lot of very abstract puzzles. The graphics are very detailed and the animation is stunning, but there is little action; you'll spend most of the game just walking around and doing not much else. If you're a real fan of adventures, then you should find this game very absorbing, but stay well clear if you're not.
See also: Dun Darach.
In the year 2114, Professor Hybrys has created a puzzle which taxes even the mightiest brains, and he has offered a prize of 1000 kronurs for anyone who completes it – which isn't much for the hell you have to go through. There are supposed to be 80 levels to conquer, although the cassette version only has 16. On each level, there are bricks to be destroyed by bouncing your ball off them using your racket, but most levels have skulls, and if the ball or the racket touches them, you lose one of your nine lives. There are several other special bricks as well. The graphics are amazing, and the scrolling is something else altogether; I've never seen any game scroll as fast! It's such a simple concept and it's so addictive.
A new diving suit which can withstand enormous pressures has been invented, and what better way to test it than exploring the wreck of the Titanic? This is an exploration game which is divided into two parts. In the first part, you must find the Titanic by travelling through a network of caves. In the second part, you explore inside the ship itself, trying to find a way of opening the safe which is located somewhere within it. Contact with some plants and fish depletes your oxygen, although other types of fish will kill you instantly and send you right back to the start – an annoying aspect which mars what is otherwise a reasonably good game with great graphics and a beautifully haunting piece of ambient music.
The prequel to this game, Blinky's Scary School, was sadly never released on the CPC. A wealthy businessman has paid lots of money for the Titanic to be raised, but it's infested with all sorts of creepy crawlies, and Blinky has to get rid of them. Starting on the outside deck, you must shoot all the whelks and collect notes (represented as flashing letters), and throw them down the ship's funnel to access the interior of the Titanic, where you must collect the diving gear to go underwater and reach another section... and so it goes on. The graphics are OK but blocky, but there are only two or three sound effects in the whole game; the silence is unnerving! Nonetheless, it's a reasonable little platform game, although it can sometimes crash.
Titus has to travel all the way from his home in the suburbs of Paris to Marrakesh to rescue his girlfriend who has been kidnapped; that's a long way away. Titus, if you're not aware, is the official mascot belonging to the software house of the same name, and this game was released as Les Aventures de Moktar in France, but using a different character in place of Titus. Anyway, it's the usual platform fare with eight levels. Titus hasn't got any weapons of his own, though; he'll need to use the various objects lying around to kill some of the enemies. The graphics are truly gorgeous, but all that is outweighed by the annoying music, and the fact that the game frequently slows to a snail's pace when there are more than two enemies on the screen at the same time.
The Toadrunner has been turned into a toad by the Stone Master, and he must find his Princess before he can regain his human form. You can carry up to four objects at a time, each of which is stored in a pocket, but only the object in the fourth pocket can be used. Most of the rooms are blocked by various creatures who can only be defeated with the right object – and in some cases, two objects are required. It's a matter of trial and error as to which object(s) to use, and if you get it wrong, you are killed instantly. Worse still, there are 'triple exits' where you must select one of three exits to go to another screen; choose the wrong one and you are again killed instantly! There are small clues to be found in the scenery as to which exit to use, but they're easy to miss and difficult to interpret. I couldn't really get anywhere in this game; it's far too frustrating.
Toi and his girlfriend Zoi were visiting a disco, dancing the night away to 1980s rave music, when the nasty Dr. Acid took her away. Obviously, Toi must now rescue her. This is a very dull game consisting of four parts, in which you collect smiley tokens and shoot lots of smileys in order to reach other areas of each level; collect enough of them and you can go to the next one. This game really immerses itself in rave culture and doesn't take itself too seriously. After leaving the disco, Toi visits a beach, a pirate ship, and a vampire's castle! However, the levels are very large and Toi walks very slowly, so the game quickly becomes boring. The graphics and colour scheme are truly awful, and this is a game to avoid. Actually, that's not quite true; the girl on the loading screen is a hot babe!
You are a member of a Tokyo street gang who has somehow found himself on a strange alien planet full of wandering monsters, undead fiends and other assorted menaces (these things happen, I guess). The aim is simply to travel from left to right (similiar to Vigilante or Ninja Warriors), jumping over, ducking from and nunchaku-ing anything that comes in your way, until you reach the end of the level, of which there are six. And that's easier said than done! Just one life, a rapidly-disappearing energy bar and a non-stop army of enemies means this is a typically impossible Spanish game! Yet it's still fun for a while, mainly due to the nice (though not very colourful) graphics and the way that every go takes you that little bit further.
A vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up which sees you flying a fighter jet over four levels, shooting targets in the air and on the ground. The playing area can also be scrolled left or right, since the area that you can see is rather small. Unfortunately it's annoyingly difficult; the bullets are large red circles which are hard to avoid, especially when they appear without warning from either side of the screen. The collision detection seems to be poor, and so are the graphics. The scrolling is slow and the sound is also lacking. There are better shoot-'em-ups available and it's best to avoid this one.
Biff and Jet are the Tube Dudes, preparing to go toobin' down the rapids in their inflatable tubes. The game can be played by one or two players, and the journey takes you through many different types of scenery. Of course, there are the usual assortment of enemies on the banks of the river which you must avoid, but you can also throw beer cans at them. You've got a very limited number of them, although more cans can be found along the river. Other obstacles include branches and logs which will burst your tube – and if you're too slow, the alligator will catch you! This is a reasonably good game, especially with two players; the music is absolutely marvellous, but the graphics could have been a lot better – and don't play the game using the keyboard!
Top Cat has offered Benny the Ball to a wealthy millionairess, but when she dies, her butler realises he can get the money if he can get rid of Benny. Top Cat decides to thwart the butler's plan. This is a game with three parts. The first part is set in the alleys, where TC (as he's also known) finds the four gang members and has to get past the dog guarding the exit. The second part is set in a leafy residential area, and you must find a way to get past Officer Dibble, before entering the mansion and finding and rescuing Benny. Like most of Hi-Tec's games, the graphics are colourful, although there are few sound effects. The playing area is quite big, so making a map will be helpful, but the game is hardly exciting and action-packed.
Strap yourself into the seat of an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet and fly into the danger zone! Your aim on each mission is to destroy three enemy fighters in a straightforward dogfight. Initially, this is relatively easy, but on subsequent missions, the enemy fighters become more manoeuvrable and will use their missiles against you. The game is a mixture of a flight simulator and a shoot-'em-up, but it lacks some of the necessary elements of both genres. As a flight simulation, the vector graphics are impressive and fast, but that's because there's no scenery at all! As a shoot-'em-up, there's very little variety, as each mission has exactly the same aim as the previous ones. The two-player game may offer more long-term enjoyment, but the one-player game won't.
It's 1930, and in two hours' time there will be a total eclipse, bringing about the effects of an ancient curse which will annihilate the Earth. You have to reach the top of a pyramid and destroy the statue there before the eclipse. This is one of the Freescape games and the 'true' 3D is quite impressive. Making a map of the pyramid is quite difficult, though! There isn't much sound – mainly gunshots and the constant beat of your heart – but it seems to make the tension that bit more realistic.
See also: Total Eclipse II: The Sphinx Jinx.
There's going to be another total eclipse soon! Twelve parts of the Sphinx have gone missing somewhere in the catacombs, and you have only one hour to find them. The gameplay, graphics and sound effects are all much the same as the original game, although there are a few new puzzles; try fathoming your way through the Jinx section, for instance! This game was originally only available as a bundle with Total Eclipse through the Home Computer Club, and it would be just as good as the original, but for one incredibly stupid room which contains an invisible maze, which is just impossible. You'll still have fun with the rest of the game, though.
See also: Total Eclipse.
Doug Quaid isn't sure who he really is, and after visiting a company called Rekall Incorporated which can implant memories into people, he goes to Mars to discover his true identity. The game consists of five levels which are based on the film of the same name. Three of them are platform games which also contain puzzles, where you must flick the correct switches to gain access to some areas. There are also some men (armed and unarmed) which you must kill. The other two levels are driving games with a shoot-'em-up element. The graphics are very good, particularly on the platform levels, and the two pieces of music are simply wonderful. However, the gameplay is rather difficult for my liking, particularly on the second level.
This game is a version of the Sega classic Columns with a distinctly Egyptian theme. Columns of three blocks, each engraved with a symbol, fall from the top of the screen, and you must create horizontal, vertical or diagonal lines of three or more matching symbols. It's a simple concept which is quite similar to Tetris. The graphics are beautifully drawn using the CPC's four-colour mode, and several playing modes are included – classical, stage mode (achieve a score within a set time limit), time attack (score as many points as possible within three minutes), and a two-player 'versus' mode. This is an excellent game and is much better than ESP Soft's previous version of Columns.
There are a lot of snooker simulators for the CPC and this is one of the earlier ones, which was later re-released by Codemasters as Professional Snooker Simulator. The first thing you'll notice about it is that it's in four colours, which is a bit strange when you need at least eight. Even though it says which ball is which on the screen, it is still confusing, and not only that, the method of aiming is awkward; instead of pointing a cursor at your target ball, you must rotate the cue about the white ball, and the strange controls make this tricky to get right. From all of this, you'd think there wasn't much reason to rate this game – and you'd be absolutely right.
Take part in a cycling race held over four stages, and try to amass the shortest time possible over all the stages. The first and last stages are viewed from the side and require a lot of joystick waggling to build up and maintain your speed, while the second and third stages are viewed from overhead, and don't require any joystick waggling. You have to finish within the top six to go to the next stage, although a training mode is also available. The graphics are brilliant and really colourful – I like the animation of the crowd cheering the cyclists – and there's a jolly tune to accompany all of the action if you have 128K of memory. You don't have to waggle the joystick really hard, though, and all in all, the game is good fun.
Based on Konami's 1983 coin-op game, the Amstrad CPC version by Ocean was released as part of their Game, Set and Match 2 compilation and comprises six sporting events to compete in – the 100-metre dash, the javelin, the long jump, the 110-metre hurdles, hammer throwing and the high jump. You can start at an easy level and progress through the events rather smoothly, hurdles probably being the hardest of the lot. Every time you reach a new world record, you are rewarded with it being shown up in lights. The qualifying times or distances are very reachable and when you complete all six events you start back at the first event and the qualifying times and distances become more challenging. I quite enjoyed playing the CPC version; the only problem is that it's one of those infuriating joystick waggling type of games.
Your country failed miserably in the World Cup, and having been appointed as the new manager, you must concentrate on the Nations Cup before preparing your team for the next World Cup. The game features all the players from over 50 countries, which is pretty good, although unless you play England, you're going to have to spend ages entering player details in. For some reason, a lot of people seemed to like this game. I don't; it's text only, for a start, and the match highlights go on for as long as ten minutes while a running commentary appears on the screen – not exciting stuff at all.
Anyone who has ever been to London (or any other city in England, for that matter) will know how bad the traffic jams can be. You've been appointed the head traffic controller, and have to change the traffic lights manually so that the traffic flows smoothly. Inevitably, queues of cars build up and go off the screen, and if they become too large, the game ends. What is a novel concept for a game gives way to frustration after about a quarter of an hour. The graphics are awful with the cars represented as boxes, the sound effects are equally bad, and the game quickly becomes very monotonous.
A colourful and exciting game in which you control a bouncing football and have to reach the other end of a course which is made up of coloured tiles – and lots of chasms, which of course you mustn't fall into. The tiles affect the ball in different ways depending on their colour. The course scrolls towards you so fast that you barely have time to look ahead, so remembering the layout of all fourteen courses is vital if you want to complete them. Fortunately, there's a practice mode which gives you lots of time to complete each course. The graphics are excellent and the scrolling is really fast and smooth, and the music only adds to the thrill and the tension – it's great stuff.
An expedition of robots went to explore the planet Magellanx. Unfortunately, they left little Trakers behind, and now he's got to find 10,000 credits to get back to Earth. As soon as you play it, you'll realise that the game is based on the Dizzy series, where objects can be collected and used to solve puzzles. However, there are also lots of creatures to avoid, and some of them are far too tricky. The graphics are nice and cute and the sound effects are OK, but you'll become very frustrated at how quickly you lose your nine lives.
Have you ever wanted to get lost in a trance and achieve a comatose state? Apparently, it can be achieved if you complete the six levels of this immensely challenging puzzle game. You have to fit twelve pentagonal shapes on to a sphere, and ensure that the numbers on each side of the pentagons match adjacent numbers in some way. It's every bit as confusing as it sounds! A prize was offered for the first person to complete this game, but I doubt if anyone ever did! I'm going to lie down and recover now (and get away from all those puns on the word 'trance')...
Billions of years in the future, the sun has turned into a red giant. The human race established cities deep beneath the Earth's surface in order to survive. Most of them were eventually sent to other solar systems, but you have returned to Earth in your Transmuter spaceship to destroy the remaining defence systems. This is a very poor space shoot-'em-up from Codemasters; frankly, it's one of the worst games they released for the CPC, and I expected much better from them. The graphics are ugly and have been taken straight from the Spectrum, and the scrolling is appallingly jerky. The music is brilliant, though; it's the only positive thing about this game.
Sumptious-looking game from 8-bit programming legend Dave Perry, who was also behind Beyond the Ice Palace and Savage. You are Trantor, the last stromtrooper, who must escape from the alien planet that your starship crashed on, killing all your comrades. Against the clock, you must shoot your way past the inhabitant aliens in order to collect the various letters of the password that are stored around the aliens' underground complex which will ultimately allow you to escape, while collecting ammo, health and time bonuses along the way. The graphics, gameplay and sound (including speech on the loading screen) are all outstanding.
Your home planet is being attacked by an ally that was once peaceful. The question is whether violent destruction can be justified in the name of peace. This is a space shoot-'em-up with the addition that on each level, you must shoot a certain number of aliens and laser barriers, and bomb a certain number of boats before you can land your spaceship. You also have to replenish your fuel very regularly indeed. Once you have landed, you walk along the surface shooting monsters and collecting orbs which you can use on later levels to buy a better spaceship. The graphics are fairly colourful, albeit a bit blocky, but all the levels are exactly the same, and most players will switch off once they've realised this.
Berk has to perform several tasks for 'him upstairs' by using the various bits and bobs lying around the castle, as well as requiring the assistance of some of the monsters lurking below the trapdoor. These tasks include preparing a can of worms, followed by boiled slimies, eyeball crush and fried eggs – yum! You'll need to watch out for the ghost who will scare you and take whatever you're currently holding if you're not careful! This is a fun little game which is geared towards children, although I'm sure the rest of you will also like it. The graphics are quite blocky but are still colourful, but there's almost no sound! Even so, the game really brings back memories of the children's TV cartoon that it's based on.
See also: Through the Trap Door.
Now you can find out what it's like to be a binman! As the binman, you must collect all the bins from each street within a certain time. You can also chat with some of the people living in the houses and get bonuses, but watch out for cyclists and fast cars when you're crossing the road! The graphics might not look appealing, but they are clear. There's no sound to speak of – white noise when a car runs into you, and some extremely lame 'barking' noises – but it's a humorous game, with a lot of awful Spectrum-related jokes.
The second of Dizzy's adventures sees him stranded on a treasure island. To get off the island, he has to buy all the equipment for a boat, and collect thirty coins. It's like all the other Dizzy adventures, really, but because the programmers seemed to think that the first game was a little too easy, they decided to give you only one life in this sequel. This ruins the game, to be honest, as it can be too easy to walk into one of the traps in the forest. It's also far too easy to accidentally drop the snorkel while you're underwater, which of course makes you drown instantly. However, the music is nice, and there's some digitised speech after the game loads as well.
See also: Bubble Dizzy, Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, Dizzy, Dizzy Down the Rapids, Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk, Fantasy World Dizzy, Fast Food, Kwik Snax, Magicland Dizzy, Panic Dizzy, Spellbound Dizzy.
Redhan the brave knight has entered a very dark fortress in search of the three Lights of Glaurung. These three jewels, when placed together, grant the owner victory in any battle. Redhan is searching for these jewels to rid the land of Taleria of foul creatures and dark magic. This is no easy task, as the fortress is full of knights, spiders, witches, wizards and a dragon named Glaurung. In this flip-screen platform game, you have a limited number of arrows to protect yourself with – although more can be found inside chests. These may also hide a random bonus or hindrance – such as transforming you into a pig! Overall, a comfortable game with average visuals and effects that gets tricky in places.
Legend tells of a pirate called Ali Gator whose treasure lies in a castle. You have gone to the castle to search for the treasure. It's a simple exploration game where you wander around a maze of only 49 rooms, but there are many traps to catch you out. The game is quite a departure for Lankhor, who specialised in text adventures on the CPC – and they should have stuck to what they knew best. It's written by Claude Le Moullec, who also wrote dozens of listings for French magazines, and in fact, it was originally intended to be a listing as well – and it shows. The graphics and sound effects are rather basic, and it's not very enjoyable to play, especially since everything is laid out at random each time you play.
A simple game written entirely in BASIC, in which you create a path for the player as he moves along collecting jewels. The joystick changes the pieces of this slide puzzle-like grid rearranging the routes ahead. Hitting a dead end loses one of your lives. Simple, dull-looking graphics and no sound. This is not a puzzle game you will come back to.
Can you tame the Tribbles? Although it's not related to Star Trek, this game is almost certainly inspired by the furry creatures that featured in one episode. The Tribbles are continually running around the screen, and you must capture them before they reach a shower unit that will spray deadly acid over them and kill them as a result. There is a cage at the top left of the screen, which you can use to capture the Tribbles one at a time by manoeuvring a set of crosshairs and dragging the cage into the Tribble's path. Naturally, additional hazards appear to make life harder for you as the game progresses, and once ten Tribbles are lost, the game is over. Initially, it's an appealing game and easy to get into, but the sound effects are very annoying, and there is no variety in the gameplay, so it soon becomes boring to play.
Welcome to Crazy Park – home to all sorts of gangsters, gunmen and thugs. This is a target shooting game that can only be played with MHT's Gunstick; unfortunately, you can't play it with a keyboard or joystick. The screen scrolls horizontally, alternating between right and left and revealing a little more of Crazy Park. Throughout the game, you are faced with a barrage of bullets, bombs and knives being thrown and fired at you. The park is certainly aptly named; you'll even encounter the occasional armed helicopter! The graphics are quite detailed, if lacking a little colour, and there's a jolly tune on the menu. Although it offers nothing new over other target shooting games, the difficulty level has been judged well, and it's arguably the best game that you can get for the Gunstick.
A bunch of aliens want to colonise a planet called Genus II. However, its inhabitants aren't very welcoming, and have set them a tough test, in the form of lots of questions. Like the board game, you have to collect six wedges before the final test, but instead of rolling a die, you can choose any of dozens of planets, each with its own scenery and category. It's hard to remember which planets you should re-visit, though, and you also don't know when you're going to get the chance to collect a wedge. Despite all this randomness, the game is still fun, with cute and colourful aliens and scenery all adding to the appeal – but it's not as good as the original. (The answer to the question in the screenshot is "Sweden", by the way.)
See also: Trivial Pursuit Genus Edition.
The ever-popular board game makes its way on to the CPC, featuring guest star TP. Up to six players can play, answering questions and attempting to collect wedges in all six categories. Instead of typing in the answer to each question, TP shows the answer, and you choose whether you got it right or not – no cheating, now! The graphics are a real treat and TP is cute and fun to watch and listen to; he talks in a really strange way! It's as much fun as the board game, and some questions also contain diagrams and music – things that aren't really possible in the board game. There are lots of extra questions with the game as well, and if you still can't get enough questions, you might also want to try the Baby Boomer Edition, the Young Players Edition, and for French players, the Edition Révolution. (The answer to the question in the screenshot is "hearing", by the way.)
See also: Trivial Pursuit: A New Beginning.
If your brain is filled with knowledge of TV, films, geography, history, literature, science and sport, then you might like this trivia quiz game. Then again, you might not. There is only one aim in this 'ultimate quest', and that is to accumulate as many points as possible. Each question you are given has three possible answers, and you must choose correctly before the time limit. If your choice is correct, you get a token, and if you collect 21 tokens, you score bonus points and start collecting tokens again. However, the clock becomes faster as you get more tokens, and the game is over if you answer three questions wrongly. Normally, I like quiz games, but this one looks appallingly ugly, which doesn't make me want to play it any more than other quiz games. (The answer to the question in the screenshot is "solid carbon dioxide", by the way.)
You take control of cute troglodyte Troglo, and must slide the rocks in your cave to squash the invading critters. That's right, it's another Pengo clone, albeit a Spanish attempt this time. The levels are randomly generated, the pace is quite hectic (more so than a similiar CPC game, Penggy, which is a tad slow at times), and you gain extra points depending on how quickly you clear a level. However, the graphics – though cute – aren't very interesting, and the whole thing gets very monotonous very quickly. There is a very catchy little ditty on the title screen, and it's fun for a quick blast, but apart from that, it doesn't have very much going for it, sadly.
Humgruffin the troll has been transported to a mysterious world called Narc – a strange land of crystal caverns populated by goblins. His only means of escape is to collect crystals. Each cavern has a floor and a ceiling, and by stepping on a pyramid, you will be transported between them. There are also magic holes which will transport you to another cavern; you can also create these holes yourself, and stepping on a toadstool allows you to change their behaviour. The first few times I played this game, I didn't know what I was doing. Eventually I began to understand it – and soon realised that it's not much fun to play. The music is very jolly indeed, but you seem to have little or no control over which cavern to go to when you step on a hole, so you find yourself revisiting the same ones again and again. The game is also very confusing to play when you are upside down on the ceiling of a cavern.
Wallie has popped down to the supermarket to collect his groceries. There are forty items on the list, but he can only carry five at a time, and has to stop at the cash desk several times to pay for his items. The supermarket consists of platforms, ladders, escalators, and lots of nasty flying creatures – it's certainly not your average shop! Sadly, the graphics are horrible and clash with each other, and it's slow and difficult to play, and you'll lose your five lives quickly. The music is well worth listening to, though.
A cheerful tune awaits you once this simulation has loaded. Navigating quickly to the main menu, you find lots of flashing options. Here you can do just about everything from customising your bike, tuning its performance, to choosing the track to race on. Your first attempts will always end with close studies of grass as you struggle to stay on the road, but with practice, skill and serious consideration of track conditions, etc., you will start to get the hang of things and catch up with your opponents. Once you master your bike, the adequate visuals and effects sit second fiddle to your newly developed biking skills.
The sultan's daughter is held captive somewhere in the Kashba. You play Yusuf, the captain of the sultan's personal guard. If you find her within three days, the reward is... the girl herself. In this complex adventure, your task begins gathering information, but this is only the beginning. You'll have to find where to sleep, eat, buy weapons and ammunition, cope with treacherous informers, make your way through hostile quarters (which means, among other things, becoming involved in shootings) and even steal money from peaceful people you come across. Sounds great, doesn't it? Personally, I find this game too difficult (the Kashba is huge indeed) and the gameplay a bit repetitive, but I also think it's worth giving it a try, so you can judge for yourself.
There are silly games, and then there are really silly games, of which this is one. From what I can make out, you walk and fly around a house, collecting as much money as you can. The monsters you come across are truly zany and some of them are extremely fast, too! It's a fast and furious game with absolutely no time to take a breather; you're constantly shooting monsters and trying to dodge the missiles they fire at you. Cute graphics and bouncy music add to this to make one of the most bizarre games I've ever played!
This game sees you controlling a GEN 19 combat droid who has been assigned the task of repairing Tujad – the main computer. You explore the interior of the supercomputer in search of fifty pieces of circuit board that will fix the fault. Defence droids are on high alert though, patrolling the vast computer complex and attacking anything that moves. The GEN 19 comes equipped with several weapons (with limited ammo) that destroy specific types of droid. It's here that the game demands some skill as certain areas cannot be passed unless you have ammunition. The sprites move and animate without any issues and are colourful. The graphics and sound work well, resulting in a playable challenge.
It's not a Codemasters release, but the use of the word 'simulator' is definitely misleading. You control a speedboat which has strayed into hostile enemy territory. There are eight levels, and on each of them, you must collect parts of a map that are dropped by the aeroplanes that fly overhead. You've also got to shoot or avoid submarines, 'planes and helicopters – if you are hit ten times by them, you lose one of your three lives. Crashing into the shore is not a good idea, either! The graphics are adequate and the sound effects are all right, although the music on the menu is fairly good, but it's too difficult to avoid taking hits, and the waterways are quite narrow as well.
This game isn't bad at all – in fact, it's really rather good. Fly your helicopter around 31 screens, destroying bricks, tanks, 'planes, guns and other things. There are two types of weapons you can use; there's the standard missiles, and bouncing bombs – but be careful with these, as they can easily bounce back at you! You've also got to squeeze your helicopter through some very narrow gaps and be very precise. It sounds like a difficult game, but a little practice will get you through the first few screens easily. The colourful graphics and good sound effects help to make this a simple but addictive game.
Endorsed by French rally driver René Metge, this racing game lets you get behind the steering wheel of a Porsche 944 and drive around four French tracks – Magny-Cours, Dijon, Nogaro and Paul Ricard – as fast as you can, and try to beat twenty other drivers. Firstly, you must qualify, and then the race itself consists of just two laps. Driving the car is fairly simple, although if you approach any corners too fast, you will spin off. Unfortunately only automatic gears can be used, but if you hold down the fire button, you can maintain your speed through the corners. The graphics and animation are excellent, especially when you crash, and although the computer-controlled drivers are rather unfair at times, this is still a great racing game and well worth a try.
Another average game with a sub-average plot. It's the usual futuristic shoot-'em-up, and the heroine who's out to save the day is some leather-clad biker chick – well, the loading screen certainly suggests that. Waves of spaceships and meteorites come at you, but you've also got to negotiate the network of platforms, pipes and walls. The breathtaking graphics and the nice music don't cover up the fact that it's ridiculously difficult, and getting off the first level seems to be almost impossible.
I like go-kart racing, but I do not like this game at all! As you might have guessed, you have to race your kart around four tracks and complete a set number of laps before your time runs out. Along the way, there are nine types of collectable bonuses which you can collect and use on your next visit to the pits. You've also got a small amount of nitro to boost your speed on the straights or catch up on your opponents. Any sense of enjoyment quickly disappears as you wince at how slow the game is, and the sound effects are abominable. 'Turbo'? No way!
Time for some more racing action across America in a Ferrari F-40. Like Out Run, the game is divided into stages, and you must reach the end of each stage before your time runs out. However, this time there are 16 stages, which are completed sequentially, and your car is now equipped with a turbo booster – but it overheats, so you can't use it often. You can upgrade your car after every four stages as well. If you fail to reach the checkpoint in time, you return to the start of the current stage and lose one of your five credits. This allows you to see quite a lot of the game even on your first go, although this doesn't mean that it's easy to complete. This game is a big improvement compared with the awful Out Run. The graphics are quite good and the scenery varies dramatically as you pass through each stage, and while the scrolling isn't all that fast, it's not sluggish either.
See also: Out Run, Out Run Europa.
The scientist Dr. Mulliner has sent Turbo the Tortoise on a mission through six time zones, to collect some ingredients for one of his latest experiments. This is a very good platform game, with all sorts of enemies, power-ups, chasms, and even hidden platforms which allow you to reach seemingly inaccessible locations. Most enemies can be killed by jumping on them once or twice, although if you find some missiles, you can shoot them instead. Hi-Tec originally released this game on the CPC, but they went bust shortly afterwards, and so Codemasters continued to sell it instead. Turbo is easy to control, and together with the colourful cartoon-style graphics and relatively easy gameplay, this is a thoroughly enjoyable game.
Turlogh has been summoned by Ydahaut, king of the land of Thoz. With the aid of his magical sphere, Ydahaut knows of a great threat to the kingdom. The citadel of Nuch'Quaryat is under attack by an army, and if the Kula Kangrih – the sacred tables – are stolen, the dark forces can be commanded and Thoz will fall! This adventure is based on a French cartoon strip, and the game is played like an interactive cartoon as well. Every so often, you must decide which of two options to choose, which affects the course of the game. There is also a lot of combat which is determined by the computer rolling dice for you. However, while the graphics are undoubtedly stunning, combat is much too difficult, which will eventually impede any further progress and lessen your enjoyment of the game.
An evil demon, Morgul, has returned from another dimension to haunt humankind. Your mission is to destroy him. You have to traverse levels filled with mutant hordes, jumping around exploring large areas, shooting enemies with a large arsenal available to you, while picking up various extra weapons along the way, all against the clock. Face some nasty bosses at the end of each stage and sometimes halfway through in order to proceed. Finding secret rooms laden with power-ups is a joy, as is unleashing your awesome special weapons on everything around you. Nothing in the way of music, but some nice sounds nonetheless. As it was converted by Probe, it's a very attractive game and a pleasure to play.
See also: Turrican II.
As Ben McGuire of the USS Freedom Forces, you must once more strap on your Turrican Assault Suit to destroy The Machine – a cyborg dictator who threatens galactic peace with his vast army of space mutants – and wreak revenge upon him for killing your fellow crew. Essentially following the same format as before, within a time limit our hero has to steer through more large levels consisting of various worlds with secret bonus-filled rooms and destroy some bad ass bosses at various stages, which as before have to be killed in a particular way. Again, you have a bevy of powerful upgraded weapons to utilise against the marauding aliens that come in all shapes and sizes and from all directions. Superb graphics, nice menu music, good effects and solid fun.
See also: Turrican.
In this side-scrolling adventure, you take the role of a brave explorer as you follow in your deceased father's footsteps on a quest to find the legendary Elephants' Graveyard, and lay claim to all that lovely ivory. You start your journey in a desert, and from there, you must find objects to help you in your quest (knife, gun, bullets etc.) while also solving puzzles along the way and fighting many a bad guy, from sword-wielding Arabs to scary zombies. Overall, the game has a nice Indiana Jones feel to it, but it's a tad too hard (you'll be walking along and a bad guy will leap at you with no warning, or a rock will just fall on your head!), and the graphics, while detailed, look like they've been ported straight from the Spectrum. Still, it's quite enjoyable, and there aren't many games like it on the CPC. Worth a blast.
Your name is Mohamed, and with your flying carpet, off you must venture, searching for six stone blocks. Placing these in the Valley of the Kings forms a mini-pyramid and will save the Pharaoh's life. Tut's Pyramid is a clone of the CPC classic Sorcery. The graphics are of a similar quality, and enemy sprites move smoothly, following fixed paths. Sound-wise, a pleasant tune plays throughout with some odd effects included. It's easy to play, and with six lives, you see a lot of the game, even though there is a time limit. A decent offering but nothing like the game it tries to be.
You're behind the wheels of one of the most powerful cars that money can buy – the Ferrari F40 – and you're racing it through five stages to beat the clock. Watch out for the other cars, though, and the scenery which lines the track! The game seems a bit easy at first – I reached the fourth stage on my first go – but it's not. However, it is extremely fast, which isn't surprising when you see how blocky the graphics are. The sound consists of engine acceleration noises, but there's a nice tune on the title screen.
Ulopa Cariken's family once owned a powerful magical amulet, but when he was just two years old, an evil druid called Maldur massacred his family and stole the amulet. It was then broken into 23 pieces which are scattered across the land of Gaspary. Ulopa is now 16 years old, and as Ulopa, you must retrieve all the pieces of the amulet. With 23 levels of platform action, and one piece to collect on each level, it won't be easy. The graphics are fantastic and there is a fairly wide variety of monsters to kill, although it can be difficult to spot them against the very detailed backgrounds. Sound effects are sadly lacking, but this doesn't detract from what is a really rather good platform game.
This game is one for die-hard football management fans only. It relies on text and statistics that display your team's welfare, ability, skill and position in the league. Matches can be played – or rather, a text table informs you of the score at half time and full time. It's all very simple-looking, and with other better versions out there that actually have graphics, you will soon tire of this ancient looking attempt by Cult. It plays similarly to their 1991 release of a similar name, 2 Player Soccer Squad.
This brain-bending puzzle game was originally released for mobile phones and quickly became extremely popular. You have to slide numbered tiles around a 4×4 grid, and when you combine two tiles of the same number, they merge and form a new tile whose number is double that of the original tiles. The aim is to obtain a tile with the number 2048. However, you have to move all the tiles on the grid in one go, and every time you move tiles, another one is introduced. It's extremely addictive, and if you haven't played it yet, you'll soon realise why the concept has been so successful. An excellent tune also plays throughout the game, although it can be turned off if you need to concentrate. My only criticism is that the graphics on the MODE 1 version of the game could have been a lot better, but the authors have also released a MODE 0 version with more colourful graphics.
Those of you who remember the arcade game Robotron: 2084 will recognise this shoot-'em-up. Trapped inside a small arena, you basically have to survive until your ship arrives to pick you up and take you to the next arena! Among the enemies to be destroyed are snakes which split in two when you shoot them (making it even tougher to survive), robots which shoot bullets at you or home in on you, lasers, and exploding bombs. If you somehow survive, there's a bonus level where you pilot your spacecraft through a meteor storm. The graphics are simple yet colourful, and the sound effects do their job. Each level is the same as the previous one, but if you're looking for a quick game, you should try this.
It's 2112 AD (as you might have guessed), and the computer that controls the entire city of London is behaving like a tyrant and oppressing its people. You must regain control of the computer by finding ten codes, labelled 0 to 9, and inserting them into the appropriate slots in the correct order. To help you, you have a robotic dog called Poddy – just make sure he doesn't run out of energy! Watch out for the droids; any contact with them will immobilise you. There are also many locked doors which will need to be opened, but the keys to open them aren't always obvious... This game involves a lot of walking to and fro, with little in the way of action and problem-solving. Some of the colour schemes used are horrendous, there is hardly any sound, and the need to look after Poddy makes this a rather dull and tedious game.
Take on the alien hordes in an F-14 fighter and a helicopter through five levels of destruction. It's strange how the aliens also use 'planes and helicopters just like those on Earth, but never mind. You're in a fighter 'plane for the first and fourth levels, flying into the screen and shooting a few formations of 'planes. These levels are fairly easy, although the collision detection is very dodgy. You're in a helicopter for the other three levels, which are vertically scrolling affairs. These levels are a bit tougher, with more enemies to contend with and bullets to avoid, although you can use bombs as well as bullets. The graphics are OK and the sound and music are both pretty good, and overall, it's a nice, albeit easy, shoot-'em-up.