This game may have the Mario brand, but it’s also a very comprehensive typing tutor. It only had one fault I could find, it wouldn’t let me skip ahead to more advanced levels if I felt I was advanced enough to start further ahead. I had to go through each of the easy levels to see what was happening up ahead.

The first step is to create yourself a profile. Give yourself a name and choose if you want to play as Mario, Luigi or Princess Peach. Then you’re off starting your lessons.

There are five lessons, each contains different sets, such as numbers, letters, top keys, bottom keys, symbols and the entire keyboard. Each lesson is themed, the first being standard Mario head-butting blocks, plus under the sea, in the castle and typing a letter (of gobbledy-gook).

I’m not a huge Mario fan, but I did enjoy this typing tutor. It was addictive and it worked damnit! It’s a really good typing tutor. If you want to refine your skills so you can get that super-secretary job, or you want to be able to say more on IRC in a shorter span of time, then definitely have a turn with this. It’s abandonware, so it’s free. And one of the best free ones out there I’m sure.

There are over 100 different categories of words which you can select from, plus this game also has a special function – you can create your own word lists to use. There is a manual included in the game, plus a small manual available below with instructions.

By default the puzzles are quite large, and it can be a bit time consuming trying to differentiate the letters in that oldschool font. A great feature of this programme is that you can save your games and continue them later.

You can configure the puzzles so they are a bit smaller, use different colours etc. If you are playing on the screen you can have from 10×10 to 24×50 letters. You can also play print games (it’ll send the puzzle to the printer) ranging from 10×10 to 40×80. If you want to keep those kids busy then just generate a random puzzle to the printer. Great for making wordfind books for your Nana too.

I have made a small text file with the keys to use. I was playing this game on a laptop and there was no numberpad. It pays to know the keys if you’re going to be discovering words diagonally.

If you play in DOSBox then I recommend playing this game fullscreen, otherwise you might end up straining your eye-balls!

Another worthy Tetris clone. Well, more like a Beyond Columns clone, because there aren’t funky shapes, only blocks three long. I just had to play this because Beyond Columns was one of my favourite games.

The idea is simple, the blocks fall from the sky, you have to get three in a row to get the points, get four or more and you get even more points. Press spacebar and it’ll toggle the blocks around. Left, right and down do what you would expect them to.

This game has some nice touches, the music is brilliant. You can change what the blocks look like. I like the sparklies one, but there are faces, dice, kinetics, plasma, blobs, all kinds of things! It takes ages to play the game and play them all. It’ll always be exciting

There is a two player option in this game, it is fun to play with others too. A bit like local Tetrinet! The keys for P2 are “w” to toggle the pieces, “c” for left, “b” for right and “v” for down.

If you did like Beyond Columns like I did then you’ll love this

This game was really popular in the arcades over here. Fortunately the PC version isn’t a lame imitation, it was developed the same as the arcade version. I’m glad they did make it for Atari, Amiga and DOS because it’s so damn addictive.

This game is like tetris with a twist. If you aren’t good at 3D or distinguishing colours then you’re gonna be in trouble. The blocks come down a conveyer belt towards you, and you have to collect them and deposit them into the slots below. Sort of like Tubes! However you can only hold a certain amount before they start slipping through. You can only let three slip through and then the level is over. You do get a few chances however. But you’re going to need them for the harder levels.

You are given tasks which you need to complete, such as getting 3 sets of diagonals or 10,000 points. As you play the levels they get faster, so the sooner you accomplish the tasks the better.

I really did enjoy this game. I ended up playing it for hours! Tetris is one of the best games ever made (I have about three different versions on my cellphone). So, if you enjoy tetris, you’ll love this game.

It’s basically the nice graphics that makes the game. Other than that it’s a general platformer, you jump around collecting fruit and stars, and spend the rest of the time avoiding enemies and chasms. You get to shoot your enemies with a bouncy blue rubber ball. There are rabbits, flies, bugs and small elephants.. random.

According to Mobygames you are a “simpleton”, which is why it’s called Doofus. I’m not so sure about that, when I was in control he was quite okay!
What makes it slightly different however, is that you have your dog with you. So you have to be sure that he doesn’t get hurt. That requires timing your jumping properly and making sure you dispose of all the enemies. If your dog gets hit then you are told to “Look after your dog” and have to try again.

Be sure to press “down” and raise the red flags when you see them. They are the checkpoints and if you die or your dog gets hurt then you can start from the last raised flag.

I wasn’t the only one impressed with the fact that a game like this comes in a package smaller than 800kb.

Good game, it’ll keep you occupied for a while

At first glimpse it seems very simple, boring, crappy, mundane and well, crappy. But it’s not. Like a Transformer, there is “more than meets the eye”.

Great challenges face thee who takes on the role of King Abmis the Lion. Battle your way through puzzle riddled levels saving your potatoes. Yes, Sly Fox has stolen the Kings potatoes.

While on your quest you can collect weapons to throw (I think some of them are coconuts and .. water things). But you must avoid all the incredibly dangerous island inhabitants like crabs. You collect items which you can trade for other items, weapons and keys.

There’s also food to be had! This game is quite difficult. I did finish it when I was younger, but I have to admit I needed to ask someone in #oldgames for help just to get past the first level this time -_-

A bit about the specs? Good old PC speaker beeping away, plus stunning VGA graphics What more could you ask for? Well, unfortunately you could ask for more from a 1996 game, it’s a bit of a let-down. But the infuriating puzzles should distract you from that…

Climb aboard your turtle to Sly Fox’s island and save those potatoes!

The first thing I noticed about this game is the totally funky music. To put a very personal slant on this, I didn’t like the game at all, but I did like the music, and I did like the lovely background and imagery at the top of the screen.

Press spacebar to select a difficulty of Regular, Unleaded or Premium. Ha-ha. Nice touch! Great cartoons between the levels. Shame there is only eight levels though.
Good adlib sound, nice VGA graphics, but pretty lame game-play. If I really knew how to play it then I’d probably be okay. Otherwise I just… don’t know what to say.

Chip is a mega-nerd. And he wants to join the Bit Busters, which is a club for… nerds. The problem is the club is run by Melinda the Mental Marvel, and there is a rigorous test you must pass to be eligible to join.

To take up this much desired memberhship Chip has to collect all the computer chips in her tree house, which is a huge maze of levels over 140 levels tall! That is one HUGE treehouse! And it’s a really dodgy tricky treehouse with magic walls, strange doors, teleports, open fires, invisible walls and scary monsters. (Who leaves unattended fires in a treehouse?)

This game is great. I have never made it to the end, but I’ve given it a damn good go. The levels get more challenging quite quickly. Every level has a yellow question mark on the floor, if you stand on that then you get a hint about the level and what you should do.

Some levels you have to do in certain times, you can pause the game to think. Always use the hints you are given. And read the ingame help, because they have a really good “Strategy and Hints” section!

The good news is that if you are having a really tough time trying to figure out a level sometimes Melinda will let you through to the next one. But you really have to deserve it!

Stunts, possibly a game every oldgamer knows. Its about racing, stunting and designing your own stunt tracks. That is probably the most interesting bit in the game, creating your own tracks and let others race it and laugh about their mistakes. I’ve played this game a million times, together with friends or your brother, or anyone. I started out with this game on our XT, it already run on that pretty well, but it went ofcourse a lot better when we had our 286. Nowadays it runs like a charm on DosBOX and you dont need a very powerful computer either. There are lots of supported graphic modes, Hercules, CGA, EGA, MCGA 256-color and Tandy. Same goes for the sound, PC Speaker, Adlib and Roland MT-32. Although the sound isnt too interesting, you have to do it from the gameplay.

The graphics are in 3D polygon style, no sprites are being used, apart from the dashboard view, so everything is “true” 3D. The viewing range limit is maybe a bit too near, so you have to react pretty fast when a sharp corner is coming up, or the road is blocked with .. uhm .. blocks. They seam to just pop into view, it can frustrate once in a while.

There are two different race types, race against an opponent or race against the clock. Racing against an opponent is always a computer player, so its never with two people. Thats something I think lacks in the game, playing against a human opponent, it would be awesome if you could race with two players, or with more players networked. Its really a bit you miss when you play it a while. The computer players are ranging in AI from newbie till professional, allthough you can win on some tracks pretty easily from the pro AI player. The AI makes a lot of driving errors and you can easily take advantage over that. Yes, a human is more clever than the AI most of the time. So you usually and up being the first one to finish, when the AI decided to run into a blockade and crash. It makes you giggle though and you think .. “What a stupid error to make”. Racing against time is the other option and that is more fun when you’re playing in turns with a friend, just to see who is better on one of the default tracks or on the self made ones.

When you go for a race, you can choose from a variety of different cars, theres a Ferrari, a few Lamborghinis, a few Porsches, a Jaguar, an Audi, a Lancia and a few others, like an F1 racing car. If you’re racing against the newbie AI, give him the F1, for hilarious fun And you can choose your favorite color. All the cars have a different dashboard view and different drive styles.

Yeah, you heard it right, self made tracks. The game comes with a fairly simple editor, to make your own tracks. You can choose from a variety of pre-made objects, roads, bendy roads, muddy roads, icey roads, bridges, jumps, loopings, scenery, etc, and place them in one of the few different landscapes. You can make super short tracks or highly complex circuits and you can then use them in both the racing against opponents and racing against time game modes. The AI always knows the shortest route though, so when you’re making multiple branched tracks, then the AI is always the most clever one in finding the right route to the finish. But when racing against time with your friends, you’re always in for a good laugh when your friend takes the long route, or the difficult one when there is an easy road till the finish. Fun guaranteed.

Overall a pretty fun game, it will last forever when you’re playing in turns with friends and make the oddest and wierdest routes and going for the best time. Already told you the goods and the bads of the AI, so you can judge that for yourself, but I hardly used that racing option. The music is only available in the menus, so you only hear “exciting” racing sounds while driving and I think the MT-32 racing sounds arent too bad either. Its just that every car sounds alike, theres no difference in sound between an Audi Quattro or the F1 car. But thats not something thats very important in this game. The track editor is probably the best thing in the game and if it wasnt there, then it probably would be the most boring game ever. But for this one, two thumbs up!

I’m not sure what makes the deluxe version better than the normal version, but this game sure did feel “deluxe” Could be all the options in the menu, could be the lovely big scrabble pieces… I’m not sure.

This game has so many options! You can play up to four players, any combination of human and computer. You also get to select the ability of the computer players from novice to professional, then kick off the game.

Player 1 goes first, which is probably you, start from the star in the middle. When the subsequent players have their turn their tiles will appear along the bottom. When you get towards the end of the game it gets a bit slow, the computer takes more time to think because everyone is left with V’s, Q’s, Z’s and X’s usually.

A timer is available if you want to turn it on, that stops the computer thinking too long and forces them to pass. A useful feature if you’re hot-seating too and want to make sure your retarded brother doesn’t take too long. Also, you can turn of “s-words”, which is when someone dumps an “S” onto the end of the word and plurals it. You can turn off the “2-letter” words too, which can add a challenge.

There are some useful tools available to help during the game. One of the most useful would definitely be the anagram solver. Enter your letters, or a combination of letters and it’ll recommend words. There is a crossword solver (erm, if you’re doing a crossword sometime it might be useful…) There’s also a definition feature, if you want to find out what a word means. The computer doesn’t cheat though, so you don’t need to worry. However, don’t YOU be attempted to cheat, because yes, you can add words to the dictionary.

There are so many other features and configurations for this game. I’d be here all day listing them all. This game is magnificent. If you can’t get people at home to play Scrabble with you, or you don’t think it’s worth forking out $40 for the board game then you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this.

One thing I found quite unusable was the initial menu. There were no text rollovers or anything for the menu items. I took the spanner and hammer combination to be “setup” and I was right, I could choose which card deck to use and configure the sound. The one with the graph I took a guess at and got wrong, it is actually some sort of scoring thing. The clock icon is used to set a time limit for answering the questions. The little gloved hands in the middle is where you can change the player setup – who plays as what colour, add more players etc. Of course the bottom icon is the “Let’s start the game!” icon

So like the board game, you roll the dice and move your piece. You are asked the question from the card corresponding with your colour, but you do not type in or select the answer, you choose it in your head. Once you have decided the answer, push the “reveal” button and then you get to put in whether you got it right or not. So realistically this game is designed for you to play with your friends around a table (erm, around a computer). I think it must have been purely for those who didn’t have the board game but wanted to play, not for people home alone that want to play vs a computer. There is no computer player option, so you better make sure you have some friends to play with.

The little bird guy that comes out and asks you the question is very cool. He takes you into themed rooms and asks you your question. I enjoyed his sarcastic sense of humour too! He kept accusing me of guessing it correctly when I got it right.

Really, you have to play against humans otherwise it’s not going to work I’ve been cheating the entire time I’ve played this…

First, a big thanks to Oyn who found this game for me. I was looking for it for many years. I used to play this game at Intermediate school on the class computer, because we were there earlier than school started. After all these years I could only remember a game set in the middle ages, and that there was arm wrestling, archery and galloping a horse between towns. So I described this dream game to Oyn and he went hunting, and sure enough he found it – he finds everything. Thanks Oyn! (k)

This game was way before it’s time. It was enthralling, stunning, fun and adventurous. I have always had a fascination with all things medieval.

So, where to start? You are a knight who has returned from afar, only to find that your uncle has an army approaching to conquer your lands and your home has been ravaged. Your castle is a ruin and you need to amass an army to defend the lands. A bit like the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner? The problem is that you’ve been gone so long that nobody really cares who you are, so you need to go around doing archery and arm wrestling and other things to gather enough respect and money to get the army together.

So you get on your faithful steed and face the county map. You ride your horse from town to town and other inhibited areas and do all that is required to save your land from the oncoming slaughter.

The first town you’ll come across is Chatany Malabry, where you spend most of the game trying to conquer the annual archery contest. I totally sucked at the archery. You have to gauge the angle up, down, side-to-side, force etc. You get 6 rounds. It was quite difficult! I also managed to pick up some supplies from the store to aid me in my quest.

The town of Lorando is to the west, where there is a used-car salesman and an optimistic barman. It’s a quaint town, where people are friendly and they have a lot of… shrubbery.

Knights Templar Abbey isn’t a town, but it’s another area you can visit. I was confuddled here, seemed a good place to just purchase things. I thought it was awesome that there were Knights Templar, very medieval. Shame they weren’t ready to rally to my cause just yet.

The best place to visit though is Torantek, the restless city of scoundrels and people without morals or faith. Wow, careful not to be mugged I say. People tend to stare at me and don’t like me. I did find some mercenaries but they didn’t like me either. It was a very interesting place to be. Some nice shady characters for you to take your moods out on.

But that’s not all, there are many other places to visit and see, other challenges, people to meet and talk to, buy things from etc.

I really recommend this game, it’s just brilliant. So popular it was ported to nearly any platform you can think of!

The highlight of this game is when you play in “3D” mode, you get to witness actual battles between the pieces. I love watching the castle eat the queen, very cool. Each different combination of pieces have a unique battle, which is very fun to watch. It’s almost worth losing a few of the games so you can see all the different wars going on between pieces. Apparently one set is red and the other is blue, but it’s really pink and blue when I play. Gotta love those oldschool graphics.

If you aren’t into the whole waiting for battles then there is also a 2D mode, where you can look down on the pieces, very old school normal chess. Not half as exciting as full on Battle Chess.

A very impressive feature of this game was the ability play over a modem. Yes, back in 1989! How awesome is that? You can go and battle with your neighbour.

There’s another lovely feature, called “Setup Board”. You can arrange the pieces how you want, and then you play. I guess it’s a bit like cheating, but it’s a good way to see the different battles. Plus it’s good to test out certain moves. Probably helpful if you’re learning, I only used it to watch the pieces fight!

There are difficulty levels, from Novice through to Level 9. You can also set a time limit for moves. So, there are a lot of awesome features in this game. They really did think through what people would want to do in this game, obviously a lot of user requirements were gathered.

The sound effects are brilliant. No need to settle for lame sounds anymore! You can live it up with swords, knights clinking around in armour etc. Adds another dimension.

If you like chess, are good at chess and just like watching little wars, then you’re going to love this game. If you don’t like chess, then it might help you get into chess!

This is another one of my bought ‘games’. Its not really a game, its more of an educational application. In Cartooners its all about making cartoons. There are no real game elements in this application, its just letting your creativity flow.

When you start Cartooners, you get into the main menu where you can choose a couple of options. Look, Play, Create and Quit.

Look
In ‘Look’ you are at the theatre, you can click on the tickets to play a short movie. The movies already listed are the default movies which came with the application. These movies show off what you can do with the software.

Play
‘Play’ is about the same as the ‘Look’ option, however when the movie ends when you just watched one, you dont return to the theatre, but you stay in the editor where you can edit the movie and add bits.

Create
‘Create’ is the most interesting option, here you can do whatever comes to mind, to make the ultimate cartoon. When you start ‘Create’, you’ll start in a blank screen where you can start making your cartoon. First of all you can load scenes. The scenes can be anything from the default list, but you can also load your own pictures, saved from LBM files. I just loaded the ‘graveyard’ setting and added a bunny to the scene. You can place the bunny everywhere in the scene, but it makes the most sense when you put him/her on the ground. You can set it just far right, one pixel away from the border and you can make it ‘Act’. For instance, you can make the Bunny hop into the view. Then press record and it starts recording frame for frame in (faster than) real time. When it has hopped past from right to left and off the screen, you can slide the frame marker back to the beginning and press play. Now you see the bunny hop from right to left, your first cartoon has been made! To add music go back to the first frame and select a tune from the ‘Music’ menu. Select the ‘spooky’ music and press record again until your bunny has hopped out of the screen again. Now when you slide the frame marker back again and press play, your cartoon will play with spooky music playing This is just an example of what you can do with Cartooners.

There are lots and lots more actors to play around with, that can do (act) different things, like dancing and flying and landing and walk and move in all sorts of ways. You can load more than one scene, switch scenes as you go, add sound effects and music, work in multiple layers and add scenes and actors of your own. Speech and exclamation balloons help you with clearing up things. Its just a program to let your creativity run wild.

Its lots of fun making your own cartoons, but its too bad you cant add digital effects and the program only supports LBM files. However the program does support CGA, EGA, VGA, Tandy and various soundcards: Adlib, CMS Gameblaster, Roland MT-32, PC Speaker and Tandy.

It will keep you entertained for a while, but it wont last long anymore these days.

It sure takes me back to when I was about 15 and I played it for the first time. It reminded me a lot of Jumpman, Lode Runner and other little platforms out at that time. I loved Jumpman (it’s one of my favourite games of all time). So you can probably guess I adored Magic Maycabs, even though I found it excruciatingly hard at times.

According to the author Dan, Magic Maycabs is based on Magic Mushroom, which was an awesome game for the BBC Micro. (I remember that game!). Well, the reason you play a car in his PC version here, is because he couldn’t draw the best looking person I think that’s a good enough reason! Besides, it gives the game it’s own twist, and also lends to the name of the game – Maycabs. Named after a fictional taxi firm – it’s a long story I’m sure

Back to the plot, you are a car, a magical car that can jump. Maybe that is where the “Magic” comes into it. You have to drive around the level, collecting all the mushrooms. There are certain parts of the level which are fatal if your car goes into them. There are also enemies which you need to avoid, and they are clever enough to be attracted to your car too. A bit like possums and headlights? Or maybe dogs which chase cars…

Just when you thought that was bad enough – and trust me it is. There is also a time limit on each level. So you have to get all the mushrooms, avoid the enemies, and make it to the exit block before you run out of time on the clock. Much easier said than done… this game is damn hard. Or maybe we are all so into our modern games we’ve become useful at platform games.

Version 1.1 is shareware and available below (for memories sake). Version 2.0 is the registered full version, and it is also available as the main download below. This version has been made available by the creator Dan Lester for free! Version 2.0 also contains a level editor, which is easy to use and can keep you occupied for hours (just ask my family). You can use the level editor to create easier levels… hehe.

I want to say thanks to Swizzle for his part in getting this game out to everyone. And a really big thanks to Dan Lester for making this game free for everyone to enjoy.

You may be wondering how this manages to be a game, or an abandonware game. Well, it is! And it’s actually fun. I have been playing it while watching a movie on television. Finding different colours to fill in the pictures the best way.

The plot, well, there is no plot. But the idea is very simple. Scenes and characters are taken from the FernGully: The Last Rainforest movie. If you haven’t seen that movie then you should.

I love that movie, and it’s what attracted me to this “game” in the first place.

You are given a palette of colours, and if you press on the key icon in the bottom right when you’re on a colour you get a new palette which is based upon your selected colour. It took me a while to figure that out, and once I did my colouring-in got so much better. The game has a free-for-all mode, where you can just draw things.

There is an undo button for when you do an oopsie. Unfortunately you can only undo once. But you can also colour overtop of previous colours, so it’s basically impossible to stuff it up

If you have young kids, they’ll also love this game. I tried to give Charlotte a turn, but she didn’t quite understand what to do.

You can even print out your masterpieces and hang them on the fridge.

P.S. Send me your artwork and I’ll put it up here for the world to see.

Before we’re getting into nostalgia, lets talk about this golfing game. Its actually my first experience into the sport and golf genre on the pc. It was just fun going through the golf courses with a couple of friends, going in turns, trying to get as low as possible under par. Well usually it was just trying to get as low as possible with the points, because we never made it under par. Only with luck. Yes, this is another multiplayer game on the same computer, also known as Hot Seat. But at that time that term wasnt invented yet. So we just went in turns and hit our balls

In the game you can choose three different difficulties, ranging from kids until pro. Actually I never recognized any difference in difficulty between those three settings, but perhaps I could be wrong. Next you can choose the number of holes you like to play, 18, 36, 54 or 72. Well, when you’re playing with four people, you could be playing a single game for hours and hours if you play all the 72 holes. Its already playing for hours when you’re playing single player. So I usually just pick playing 18 holes. Its just enough for a quick game.

You usually try to get under par, or if that doesnt work, on par. If even that doesnt work, we’ll just keep on playing until you’re so embarrased that you stop playing all together. You have a number of wood and iron sticks to choose from, then just whack the ball into the right direction. Well you obviously have to counter balance for the wind speed, or your ball will fly off the screen, into the trees, the rough, the bunker or into the water. If you keep your ball onto the fairway, everything will be okay and you got your game under or on par. The lower your score, the better you do!

The graphics are limited to 16 colors EGA in a resolution of 320×200. I think it just looks reasonable for a 1988 game, although theres not too much detail. Maybe its just good, to keep a clear look onto the ball into the field. Its also possible to play the game in 4 color CGA and then it will use two palettes. The cyan/purple/white/black scheme for the menus, green/red/brown/blue scheme for in-game. Just like a Sierra AGI adventure. Its looking very retro, and I just love to play it that way. When the game is ‘rendering’ the golf course, you see it getting drawed. Layer for layer, and trees are getting added as the last layer. On an XT it takes a while to draw, although I found that fascinating. On DosBox, you still see it getting drawed, although its much faster than on a real old computer I think its nice to watch that. It does that with every ‘scene’ though, so every view has to be re-rendered. For some, annoying as heck, for me, kinda nostalgic. I just love it.

The sound is pretty awesome for its time. It was one of the very first PC games actually playing digital sound effects and speech over the PC Speaker. They called the technology RealSound. When you start the game and you’re in the main screen, you hear birds singing. When you start the game and you’re actually in the game, you’ll hear crickets chirping randomly and when you’re playing on a course with water surrounding it, you will hear frogs croaking at random times. It really sets the mood. When you’re playing the game and hitting the ball just right and it lands on the fairway, you’ll hear the reporter making remarks. Although the reporters vocabulary is somewhat limited, its still nice for a game that old. Try hitting the ball into the water, I love it when the ball disappears and you’ll hear a splash The sounds are making this game definately a great game. Because most the games and applications at that time were limited at making the pc speaker just beep one voice at a time, this game sets the golfing mood so much better with the digital sounds! When you’re putting your ball, and put it right into the hole, you will hear a public applause. Even though you dont see any people surrounding you. They must be your imaginary friends

This game is just about winning and stragically choosing your sticks and checking the wind speed and slamming the ball at the right speed and angle. Do it alone or do it with friends. Its more fun with friends anyhow. Its a good laugh garantueed. Just having fun with this fairly easy golfing game. It will keep you entertained, but the longer the games get, the sooner you will go bored. Its nice for a change, but not for playing hours and hours at a time.

The third incarnation in the Lotus series, but this one was the first appearing on the PC platform. The first two episodes where available on Commodore Amiga and a various of other platforms. This game is really one of the ultimate racing games on the PC. I remembered playing it on my friends Amiga 500, where its name was Lotus III – The Ultimate Challenge. The fabulous music and the engine noises, it was all great. So I was kind of excited when it first came out on the PC, even so excited because I bought it. It came on one 1.44MB floppy and was playable from the 286 and on. And its still playable on nowadays computers, so the timing was good in this game. The game was copy protected with a spinning wheel. Matching helmets.

In this game you can choose from three different cars, all Lotuses for some reason The Lotus Esprit S4, the Lotus Elan and the M200 concept car. All I wanted to drive was the Lotus Esprit, because it was one of my favorite cars at that particular moment in time. If I ever can get my paws on a real Lotus Esprit, I would certainly go for it! As long as I can fit behind the wheel, cos thats a little problem when you’re 6’9. Anyhow, back to the game. Theres not much of a story to tell, its just an arcade racer, but its great great fun, especially when you’re with two people. Yes, you can drive with two people on one computer. It gets a little crowdy behind the keyboard, but its fun nonetheless.

You can drive a couple of presetted circuits, they all take place in various enviroments, one on the highway, the forest, the desert, at night, on a road with a lot of roadworks, the mountains a la testdrive, windy roads, snowy roads, you can even race in the future. Every enviroment has its own set of unique properties, for example, racing in the future has highspeed roads, if you drive on them, you’ll get automatically boosted to the topspeed, however its hard to slowdown on that part of the road, so you have to dodge cars once in a while. On the normal roads you can ride into beams of light flickering across the road, those will get you to a complete halt if you drive into them. Every enviroment has its unique set of properties which will get you fascinated. Its a nice addition to sucha fine arcade racer.

Besides racing presetted circuits, you can start making your own as well! This game features a very easy and simple editor, its so easy anyone can do it. Its called RECS and that stands for Racing Enviroment Constuction System. They claim it can produce up to 5 trillion different racing experiences, I didnt try them all, but its nice to fiddle around with it. If you set your racing mode to RECS, you’ll get a list of tracks, to fill in a code to create a game, nine to be exact. You can enter a 9 character code and a 2 digit difficultiness, or go to the editor and fiddle around with the graphical bars. So I always just thought up random words to fill in and play those. Hilarious at times, definately when playing with two people.

The music on the Amiga was fabulous as I said before, the PC version is a little bit less interesting, but a wide broad of soundboards are supported. You can choose (if you have the hardware ofcourse) between PC Speaker (standard), Adlib, Soundblaster and Roland MT-32. The last two ones are the most interesting, although you might choose the Soundblaster instead. The SB included several digitalized sound effects, like howling winds on the windy roads. Its a nice addition, however it would’ve been more fun if they just did it all digitized just like on the Amiga. The musics are interesting, but you might just listen to the engine sounds when playing the game, because you really miss those when playing the game just listening to the music. The music gets set on repeat too, so it will drive you mad after some time of playing long tracks / circuits. The Roland MT-32 music is very nicely done, but it just uses the standard instruments, they didnt make their own. It would sound much better if they did that instead. The sound effects on the MT-32 arent very interesting, better use the Soundblaster for that. The PC Speaker is highly irritating with the bleepy music, but still, nicely done for the one voice PC Speaker ..

The graphics are pretty. Pretty as in VGA 256 color 320×200. I think it looks better on PC than on Amiga. Its also the only graphical mode supported by the game. CGA, EGA, Hercules owners were out of luck. The game itself was in 3D, created with sprites, there were no 3D accelerators in 1993, so even Michelle can play it.

Multiplayer is limited to two players on the same computer. The screen will get horizontal divided and you have to fiddle around with who is who. Its not very clear to see when you’re both driving the same car. The keyboard is supported for two players, but if you have a joystick, it works with that as well. I prefer the keyboard. RECS works with two players too, so its fun just thinking up random words and driving those random tracks

Are there any weaknesses in the game ? Apart from the things I already mentioned with the music and seeing who is who in two player mode, not much. Not much at all. I cant really think up any. Its a great game and still playable on modern computers. No, this game will keep you entertained for quite a while. Its highly playable on DosBox, lots of fun with two people on one computer and playing random thought-up tracks and circuits!

The guys who made the PC game conversion are: Cygnus Software Ltd.

Now THIS is an interesting game… interesting and strange, but totally brilliant!

The story? You and your band of heroes need to save Megalopolis from five dangerous criminals who have done a prison break. Battle through the streets (well, a strange city of platforms and ladders and keys) and get them baddies. There are 50 levels in the full version, so you get to face one every 10 levels.

Play as the Rocketress, Leadman, The Flea, The Drip, Spaced Cadet, The Flying Squirrel and Gumwad. You don’t need to worry about choosing, because once one gets into trouble you can use any of the others to help you out! Very handy. Being able to play as seven different characters. Your standard platform game with a twist. Yes, you still have to jump and climb and shoot etc, but your different characters have different specialties. The Rocketress has a rocket, The Drip turns into a pool of water, you get the idea. I wouldn’t want to ruin the strange surprises Their individual shots (they all just shoot little balls of “stuff”) do different things to the various enemies. The Drip took out the fire when I used him… I hope that was on purpose!

The characters also have different abilities. Gumwad can climb walls (I guess it’s because he’s so sticky), The Flying Squirrel didn’t mind going in the water, Does this remind you of a certain television show? I wonder if any of these characters can heal on their own, I didn’t discover if any of them could. None of them seem to be wearing any cheerleader costumes or are Asians called Hiro.

The highlight of this game is the objects you collect to gather points! Yes, you get gems you can use and keys etc, but that’s not as fun as gathering baseballs, diskettes, stamps and toilet paper. Oh, that gave me the giggles. I had to pause the game and show everyone in my family.

The game works wonderfully in DOSBox. The controls are simple, nice and standard DOS game stuff. ALT to shoot, CTRL to fire. I love that. Nice, predictable and easy-to-use.

Music is provided a mash-up of Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven and Bach. This creates quite an ambient if not rather strange atmosphere. But hey, they were thinking when they chose that, royalty free music Sounding very funky on the PC speaker! It actually goes quite well, is a nice change from the beeep-beeeeep-bip-bip-beep-whine soundtrack you normally get with PC speaking platformers.

Initally when this game was released in 1993 and didn’t do too well, a publisher picked the game up and it was released as shareware in 1994. The shareware version was called Heroes 1/4: The Tantalizing Trio (I’ve made that available to download as a resource, just for the hell of it). A big hats off to the creator of this game Jeffrey Fullerton for releasing the full version as freeware. He knows how to preserve his good work for all future generations.

Beware the vicious bunnies. Vicious! Yes, you will have to kill them. When bunnies go bad, eh? *sniff*

Here are some screenshots from the shareware version, Heroes 1/4: The Tantalizing Trio:

The four games are all included in the one download from this site, for your pleasure. They are:

• Xmas Lemmings (1991)
• Xmas Lemmings (1992)
• Christmas/Holiday Lemmings (1993)
• Christmas/Holiday Lemmings (1994)

A bit about the games then eh? So, in true Lemming style you had to guide the lemmings from the entry to the exit. Overcoming all barriers using things like digging, steps, etc. Nominating lemmings to do the tasks.

The first two games had very few levels and were considered demo’s. The latter two were full games with 16 levels each. If I recall correctly the 1991 Xmas Lemmings had less levels than the 1992 Xmas Lemmings, because it included a couple of levels from the Oh No! More Lemmings game. You check that out and let me know.

All four games have the Christmas theme going on, from the little suits the lemmings wear to the halls decked out with bells and holly. They battle their way through ice and snow laying down their planks of wood true lemmings-style.

If you expected something different, then apart from visually and musically you will be let down. But if you’re into puzzle gaming, enjoyed the Lemmings games and want something fun for the festive season then by all means download these cool titles.

Oh, they are so cute with their little hats on, and as they are walking along they go boing, boing, boing, and the music is just brilliant!!

Ugh!

The aim? Simple, fight your way through 30 levels of mysterious mazes while being bombarded by little red men, skeletons, big red teddy bears (erm, iruno) and then multitudes of dragons. And then funny big dragons which look like vampires, so end up looking like some sort of emo-dragon-vampire. But you can’t be assured it’s going to cut itself, so just shoot the crap out of it.

You can shoot with nukes or bombs. You gather those while running around, they look like little scroll things. Also potions – remember you can use the spacebar for that as well as “P”. There are shortcut keys all over. Also doors will need unlocking so collect keys.

One thing I remembered – to my amazement – is the secrets. If you shoot certain parts of the catacomb walls you will reveal passage ways to lovely prizes, or portals to higher levels (heeey, saves time!). I guess I used to play this game way too much when I was younger.

I’m kind of gutted that if you die you have to start again. I’ve not managed to make it past the 18th level in my latest attempt (and did I mention I’ve been playing for three days?!). Don’t worry, I’ll get there soon…

Oh, hint: Great sounding game, POW POW POW oldschool.

The game all starts with a game of baseball. Brad and his sister Jenny are playing a game of baseball, Brad goes to hit the homer and *zap*… wakes up hanging upside down in a cold, damp dungeon. A long way from the modern time he lives in. The reason? Well, a land full of wicked greedy witches who want to cast a rejuvination spell to make them eternally young and hot. The thing though is that the spell needs a male to complete it, and there are no boys in their dimension, hence the bewitched baseball field.

So I’m sure we agree, a very unique plot to base a game upon.

Anyhoo, where were we? Yes, hanging from a dungeon wall, upside down. This is where it all starts. It’s your job Brad to find your way out of the dungeon, and to the edge of the world and beyond. Battle with fiersome beasts like electric eels, vampires and the evil witch.

Like I said, the controls are hard to use. It takes a while to get used to them, as you need to do a combination of about four controls to get Brad to just give someone a worm. And sometimes you need to do the most bizarre things (I won’t give anything away or I’ll spoil it), which you would never consider doing – so you end up sitting there stuck for a while thinking of what to do next. Oh right, we WEAR the suntan lotion *rolleyes*.

But I did enjoy this game. The sounds were most excellent. Brad yelling for help was superb. The graphics are really good for an oldschool classic adventure game. All the attention to detail has really paid off, it’s just stunning. Right up there at LucasArts quality

Play this game in DOSBox as you’re going to need sound.

Lunar Command is a newer version of Moonbase that can run on your modern PC. I had a dig around and really, I can see no difference except for I think maybe airlocks weren’t available in the other version, but I’m not sure. Plus,it now runs on computers properly and the menu’s are in English as opposed to gibberish.

Lunar Command like Moonbase was not very popular, yet is one of the best sim games I have ever played. You create a base on the moon and then mine minerals (or create electronics and material) which you sell back to earth. You have to get producing/mining goods to sell right away because NASA withdraw their support very early on in your mission.

I’ve added the manual as a link below which I got from HOTU. I figured I could redirect you over there to get it and you can, visit www.the-underdogs.info or you can save their bandwidth and download it here.

View my Moonbase review for further information about this game.

But it’s so much more. It’s not just Bob the hamster! You can play two games within this one game, you can also be Vlad the Impaler.

As Bob it is your task to navigate around the screen and collect the carrots, avoiding the monsters. You can shoot the monsters with your drop of water. But be warned, your drop of water needs to replenish before you can shoot again.

Vlad on the other hand has to run around collecting coins to fund his army. You get to shoot knives!

The game is visually appealing for what it is. It uses real speaking to congratulate you when you finish a level. There are options where you can turn this off if it freaks you out! I enjoyed this game, it wasted a good couple of ours. Then a few more when I discovered a whole new game as Vlad.

Good fun times!

A very addictive action/puzzle hybrid with a low learning curve and tons of playability. The plot is not important (kill the big baddie, rescue the girl), just fight your way through a series of mazes, dropping timed bombs to clear out all the monsters. As you progress through the game you will get powerups which will at the very least make your bombs more powerful.

The single player game is good, the multiplayer game is great. Compete against friends trying to blow eachother up (tricking them into walking into an explosion is always the most fun ).

All in all a very simple, but very addictive way to waste a few hours

This game is quite unique if you ask me, you play as a dolphin, not a dolphin that has a gun, not a dolphin that can fly or walk on land, just a dolphin that happens to be in the right place at the right time.

You are Ecco (yes that’s Ecco not Echo) and you lose the rest of your pod in a freak storm, you must literally travel the world and time and space to get them back. Yes I know this sounds a little cheesy but it is done in such as way as to grab you in and you get engrossed in this game.

The controls can be a little hard to get used to as you are a dolphin swimming in water, and thus you do have a small turning circle, but once you get it sorted you can be as elegant as the dolphins themselves .

This game is beautifully done, from the opening sequence to the amazing music that flows through the game almost seamlessly, if your looking for a game that isn’t just another action game, and will take you in for days if not weeks then this is the game for you.

Personally I enjoy Ecco the Dolphin 2: the Tides of Time, but that was rather large in size and I’m sure you can get it from many other places. Nether the less you should play the first in the series first, if just to get acquainted with the amazing storyline and the characters that are involved with this game if I gave out rankings to the games I reviews for this place I would give it 10/10 but alas I don’t so I’ll just give it a cookie

Woohoo!! I looked all day for this game, and finally found it. I went and asked my cousin, and thankfully he remembered the name. EGA Trek – a completely cool clone of a very early Star Trek game, but better than any of the Star Trek games I’ve ever tried (which is near to about 0 or 2, so that might not say much). But yes, this was and continues to be a great game, I played it for years when it came out. Admittedly when you look at it and have a go you might get put off, but once you get the hang of it and start to really get into it, you’ll find you get hooked.

Basically there are evil Mongols in the galaxy, and your job is to travel around the sectors and exterminate the lot. The Mongols pose a threat to the Union (yeah a take off of that wonderful phenomenon that we call Star Trek). Yeah it sounds rather fun and easy, but it’s not that easy. There are many complications that come with exterminating Mongols .

You are a pretty little yellow ship, and you can see yourself on the lovely blue grid. The Mongol ships are blue, green or red or a variety of colours really, the different colours sybmolise different ships that would therefore have different strengths. There are Mongol bases you can find, and it’s a good idea to kill these, as it will prevent more Mongols threatening your existence. Also in addition to Mongols, there are Vandals. They fly around in very cool looking ships, but you also want to kill them, because they are evil too

There are also really cool things in the galaxy of sectors though, like planets and friendly ships and space bases, where you can repair and restock your supplies and your fuel – you do not want to run out of fuel while saving the galaxy! (I’m getting Tradewars déj� vu). There are stars, but beware the novas and black holes. The friendly bases or ships might send out distress calls, which you can go and save them and be the hero.

I managed to save the galaxy on the first three difficulty settings, but there are five. And they get VERY hard – trust me.

You’ll need something to slow down your computer when playing this game, see our Utilities page in the menu for a variety of slow down utilities that can be used. Marrsy would recommend Turbo . But other than that, because this is a text-based interface, it runs in CGA and VGA and runs fine on old and new computers.

There is a deluxe version of this game, but I heard that it is no different to the shareware version besides some annoying screen (I don’t remember finding anything annoying so this could be the deluxe?). I give this game a 10/10 for addiction, I honestly played it for years and years until my computer got the Junkie virus and died *sniff* so its great to have it again! Download and have a play, it kicks some serious arse.

I was looking through my old games collection, wondering what game to review when this one popped up. I just had to add it to the site! This game is a total classic.

I laughed when I found out who designed it. There is a guy here at work called David Bayliss, but I’m sure he’s no relation. David Bayliss ran a one-man company called Wordworks, him being the one man in it. Wordworks has only released two freeware titles that I am aware of – Elevator and X-Fighter.

Anyhoo, seeing as I am reviewing the game, I should actually talk about the game! This game is great. By looking at the title of the name “Elevator” you can safely assume this game has an elevator in it. It sure does, in fact it’s all about elevators.

You are this cute little dude, who has to ride the elevators around the level and collect all the bags of gold. Once you have done that you can go onto the next level. Seems easy you say? It is no way near as easy as it seems. Timing is critical, those lifts get faster and it gets harder and harder. As with all old games the character isn’t nice and responsive like they are in modern games, you need to use pure skill. One slip and ‘ahhhhhhhhh’ down the elevator shaft you fall. You only get so many lives, so it pays to ration them.

The graphics aren’t all that bad, just what you would expect from an older game – yellow red and green gracing the screen. However, the colours do suit the simplicity of the game, and are not hard on the eyes. They are quite good.

This game is excellent. You really should give it a whirl, and see if you have the pure skill required. I really I do recommend it to all lovers of the old platform games, especially if you enjoyed Lode Runner and Jumpman!

Command your Cobra space ship in a fantastic voyage of discovery and adventure, a supreme test of your combat, navigational and entrepreneurial skills.

Trade between countless planets, using the proceeds to equip your ship with heat-seeking missiles, beam lasers and other weapons – corporate states can be approached without risk, but unruly anarchies may be swarming with space pirates.

Black market trading can be lucrative but could result in skirmishes with local police and a price on your head!

However you make your money, by fair means or foul, you must blast onwards through space annihilating pirate ships and hostile aliens as you strive to earn your reputation as one of the Elite!

The following statement is by no means an exageration, or solely my opinion:

Elite is quite possibly the best game ever created, a masterpiece of design and gameplay.

While the game is immense (remember that word!) the concept is simple: you are a freelance space pilot… that’s it! The game has 8 galaxies to explore, each containing approximately 500 unique planets. You can be a choose to be a trader and ferry goods between worlds, or a pirate who attacks ships and takes their cargo. Or a bounty hunter, or an asteroid miner or… you get the idea Earn money, upgrade your ship, undertake missions, maybe even go after the evil Thargoids (the big bad aliens in the game). What you do is entirely up to you.

Emulation fans may want to try out the original BBC Micro version of the game, or the Archimedes version – regarded by many (myself included) as the best version. Or if you’d rather stick to the PC version then get a copy of Elite +, the remake that has updated graphics and sound.

This game truly is a classic, two thumbs and a leg up!