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!

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.

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!!

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

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.

Story :

In the year 2077, the planet Venus was the new frontier for an overcrowded, exhausted, and nearly desperate Earth. Named for the roman goddess of love and beauty, this hostile world was no paradise. Colonists and explorers had to adapt to average temperatures of 900 degrees, a surface pressure of 94 atmospheres and a dense planetwide cloud cover made up of sulphuric acid. The real reason for mankind’s interest in Venus lay beneath the howling windstorms and acid clouds, under the planets jagged, parched and hellishly hot surface; a buried secret that held seemingly infinite promise.

Someone had come and gone before humans set foot on Venus. The planet was criss-crossed with tunnels carved out of the crust 500,000 years ago by a long vanished high technology society. The vanished aliens were a source of intense curiosity and hope for the twenty billion inhabitants of Earth. Wave after wave of explorers descended into the alien tunnels in search of advanced technology that might have been left behind by the so-called “Heechee”. Most of the artifacts discovered on Venus had no practical use and were little more than curiosities. The Heechee had cleaned out most of their useful technology – or so it seemed until a crotchety old tunnel explorer named Sylvester Macklin found a fully functional spacecraft in a sealed-off tunnel. Instead of reporting his find to the authorities, Macklin decided to try and figure out how to make the strange ship work. He climbed inside and began to fiddle with the controls.

Eventually Macklin found the right button. Rocket engines ignited and the ancient ship climbed out of the atmosphere of Venus on a plume of white fire. As soon as the ship was clear of the planet, the thrusters stopped and the ship disappeared into what is now known as Tau space.

When the ship returned to normal space, Macklin was delighted to find that he was still in Earth’s solar system. He was even more delighted to find himself docking with an immense Heechee artifact, a huge space station circling the sun between Venus and Mercury. Macklin’s ship parked itself inside a hangar filled with other ships of similar construction. Macklin left his ship to explore his sensational new find with a sense of awe and anticipation.

The bad news was that Macklin could not reset the guidance system of his ship and get it to go anywhere. He was stuck without food or water. He wrestled desperately with the controls as he became more hungry and thirsty. Towards the end Macklin knew that he wasn’t going home. He redirected his efforts toward a new goal…
Macklin decided that if he couldn’t go back, he could at least signal his discovery to humanity. His death would not be in vain. Macklin figured out how to detonate the fuel cells in his ship. The resulting flash was sighted by NASA and a mission was sent out to explore. The NASA mission arrived at the Heechee artifact and found hundreds of working faster-than-light Heechee starships, a priceless treasure that made the Heechee station mankind’s gateway to the stars. Thus the alien starship-parking garage earned its name: Gateway.

After a series of military confrontations and a narrowly averted war, the governments of the Major powers on Earth realized that Gateway was too valuable to be given you any one government. The governments agreed to establish a multinational corporation called Gateway Enterprises (often referred to as “The Corporation”) that would occupy Gateway and exploit the technology of the Heechee.

The FTL starships on Gateway are now used for a new form of high tech prospecting: human volunteers ride the alien ships in the hope that they will visit other worlds and bring back Heechee machines, tools and other potentially useful items. Because human scientists still don’t know how the ships guidance systems work, the destinations of these prospecting missions are unknown. For obvious reasons these missions carry an extraordinary degree of risk: 15% of prospector missions don’t come back and 80% return with little or nothing. The remaining 5% make the risks worthwhile, and can turn ordinary people into instant millionaires.

You won the local lottery on December 23. 2101. The prize was a one way ticket to gateway worth $238,575, including a limited partnership in Gateway Enterprises, transportation to gateway itself, a class in Heechee ship handling, and an invitation to go on the first available ship after graduation.

A week after you turned in your winning lottery ticket, you boarded an interplanetary ship travelling from Earth to Gateway.

It is now Wed, May 17, 2102, and you have been aboard Gateway for less than a day. You have been assigned living quarters and a proctor to show you around and get you settled in. Your first ship handling class starts later today.

You are about to become a gateway prospector.

There is something about Legend Entertainment adventures that I just really like. I first cut my teeth on the Spellcasting series (101,201,301) and had a whale of a time (although that was probably due to the *ahem* mature subject matter.)

Anyway, for those who have never seen a Legend adventure before I should probably start by saying that this is a text adventure (cue the sound of browsers being closed and Quake 3 being loaded up.) Yes a text adventure, you type in commands such as “Go west”, “Pick up gun” or “shoot reviewer in the face for making me read this crap”. IMHO this is the perfect medium for an adaptation of Pohl’s books, as it allows the story to be presented in such a way that you cannot help but be immersed.

The story? Well for those who didn’t take the time to read what I generously provided above (it only took me an hour to extract and type that, damnit) Gateway sees you cast in the role of a “Prospector”, one of the brave souls who pilots alien starships to unknown destinations in the hope of finding valuable artifacts to loot. A successful mission means fame and, more importantly, fortune, while an unsuccessful mission can mean anything form simple disappointment to agonizing death at the hands (hands?) of a huge alien insect. From this simple premise of exploring the unknown, the plot soon expands into a tale of a vastly powerful alien race hell-bent on the destruction of all sentient life (bit of a plot spoiler there.)

For the most part the puzzles in the game are excellent (especially the virtual reality ones), but I did find that on the whole they were a bit too easy. Which brings me to the game major failing, that fact that it only took me a few hours to complete it. Usually it takes a dumbass like me several days to get through a game like this (even with walkthrough in hand) so I can only conclude that the game’s difficulty level has been set WAY too low.

Apart from that it’s hard to find much wrong with the game; logical (easy) puzzles and a very good story add up to a very enjoyable game. AND the best thing of all is that the game is freeware, so you needn’t have any guilt about downloading it

Llamatron? Llama’s? You’re probably thinking “what next huh?” Even the name of this game is enough to make you giggle and really want to play it. Llamatron: 2112 is a whole heap of fun that will no doubt make you giggle more than once.

This old classic was brought you to by a llama-lover from way back – Jeff Minter. He was quite popular for the part he played in the development of C64 titles, and of course for his love of llamas and yaks which he has shown in the games produced by Llamasoft, his own software development company. If you have ever heard of the game “Attack of the Mutant Camels” then you have Jeff Minter to thank for that little beauty too!

Basically, you are a llama. Don’t take that the wrong way! In the game you are a llama, and your job is to rescue the other llamas. You llama around shooting everything that gets in the way. The game is pretty much predictable in that sense. I think the main selling point of the game is the humorous aspect, not the gameplay.

The graphics are standard CGA pink, purple and blue. The fonts are hard to read, and the actual enemies and your own llama look a bit, shoddy. :\ The graphics aren’t all that great, and it is a shame that the game is 1992, and is still such poor quality.

Give the game a shot, as it’s still a barrel of laughs. Even if the graphics do try to ruin it, and the gameplay is kind of lacking, you’ll still find it a real hoot.

Ragnorak is a ASCII based dungeon exploration RPG in the style of the seminal Rogue (a game from the 80′s). You (the hero, either a warrior, blacksmith, woodsmith, rogue, sage, or a conjurer) must aid the good Norse gods in their battle against the evil Norse gods (Rangnarok is the Norse version of Armageddon).

Of all the “Rogue-like” RPGs, Ragnarok is probably one of the best (Morder: Depths of Dejenol also springs to mind). The sheer bulk of items and equiptment that is available to the player is amazing, add to this the fact that the game world is different every time you start the game and you have almost endless replayability.

Groovy eh?

Yes the graphics are very primitive, but this is more than made up for in depth and gameplay.

The words do not exist that describe just how obscenely good this game is!

System shock is a 2D/3D adventure game (think Ultima Underworld or Normality) but set in a realistic Sci-Fi environment. The initial plot is standard cyberpunk bollocks – you are a hacker who was caught gaining illegal access to the system of a major corporation (major corporations are bad dontcha know, haven’t you ever played Syndicate?) The corps. CEO gives you a choice, be cyberneticaly enhanced and work for him, or its off to prison for you.

Not having testicles for brains, you choose the former.

After a few odd-jobs you are sent to Citadel, a gigantic corporate space station managed by an artificial intelligence called SHODAN (duh duh duuuuh!) Upon awakening from cryogenic suspension you find the station in chaos. The crew is dead.. or worse (yes WORSE!) and your only clues to what is going on are fragments of the crews personal logs and emails.

Visually the game is very nice, with rich VGA (or if you’re lucky, SVGA) graphics and atmospheric 3D environments (tho the enemies and moving objects in the game are 2D sprites ala DOOM). The heads up display works well (though it will confuse the hell out of you for the first five minutes) and can be customised so that you can choose what is displayed on screen.

It’s the plot and atmosphere that really stands out in SS though. Right from the beginning you are pushed through the game by various events – log fragments, emails, messages from SHODAN (its?)self. There is a tremendous feeling of decay all around you. Computer screens show nothing but snow, control panels spark, debris covers the floors and every so often you will come across the obligatory message written in blood (wooooOOOOO!!!)

Um.. what else (thinks) well, there a few very nice features in the game. One being that you can afford to die once in a while. Once you find and activate the healing booths that are on each level you will be automatically brought back to life should something nasty get the better of you, groovy huh?

OOOOH YES.. Cyberspace! Have you ever seen that movie Lawnmower Man? yeah me too, it fricken sucked didn’t it? But anyway, y’know the 3d environments used to represent cyberspace in the movie? well.. SS has those too.. they just aren’t as pretty. Find an access point and ‘jack in’ and you will be transported to a strange world filled with tunnels and geometric shapes. You can figure the rest out yourself because that’s half the fun

I can’t really think of much else to comment on. Combat is standard fare, either shoot things, blow them up or twat them over the head, the game has um.. puzzles.. and er.. zombies and.. and .. JUST PLAY IT!

I promise you that this is one game that you can’t afford to miss.

This game is amazing to look at. The colours are stunning, and the graphics are awesome. Some may consider it too bright, but I think it looks way cool.

Ok, so you’re wondering what trolls are. You ever see them little plastic dolls, with the colourful hair and no clothes (yes, this is not a n3kkid troll game). I had a collection with different costumes on and stuff. I still have the doctor one and one in pyjama’s on top of my dresser! :O I’m a big baby

This side-scrolling platform game is like most others. You jump on your enemies to kill them, and some of them you better avoid or they will kill you first. Your task is to run around the levels collecting the baby trolls, stomping on enemies and getting through the levels. There are these cool balloons, and when you run into them they pop and you get cool items.

There are many levels, and there are also secret places that you can find. You can play the game again and again just because it’s so darn cute looking. You’re bound to never find all the secrets, but you can try and not get bored . A totally excellent game!

I’m have “issues” with this game, yes it was the first real time strategy game, and it is undeniably fun to play, but IMHO too many liberties have been taken with Frank Herbert’s universe. I can’t decide whether this game is based on the movie or the book (I have read the book and seen the movie and I would go with the latter) but it seems that the game is more of an adaptation than it is based on the Dune universe. I think this was done to enhance gameplay – for instance the Ordos don’t appear in the movie or the book (it has been a while so maybe I’m wrong) although I did read while doing research for the game that they do appear briefly at some point, possibly in one of the later books. There are a couple of other little things that I could bitch about but I think you get the general idea (yes i’m anal, no I don’t care).

Sooooo on to the review

For those of you who have never read the book or seen the movie: This is the story of a planet named Dune. A pretty inhospitable place which is only important because it is the only source in the universe for the spice Melange. Spice is the most valuable substance in the universe; it can prolong life and makes space travel possible, so whoever controls spice – controls the universe.

In the game you take control of one of three groups or “houses”, the Peaceful Atreides, the savage Harkonnen, or stealthy Ordos. You must battle the other houses across the face of Dune, all the while harvesting spice which can in-turn be converted into credits. So the more spice you harvest, the more units and buildings you can buy. However, there is one other obstacle to your efforts, the “sandworms”. These are huge creatures native to Dune that like nothing more than to emerge from the sand and grab a unit or two. The only protection against the worms is solid rock, so no buildings can be built, and no unit can be sure of being safe on the deserts sands.

Playing the game will be easy to those who own Command and Conquer or WarCraft as the controls are almost identical – press the M key to move, the A key to attack etc. Unfortunately you can’t give orders to more than one unit at once like you can in later games of this type, but this isn’t such a big deal, if anything it makes you concentrate less on rush attacks and more on tactics. The AI is good considering that this was the first real-time strategy game, and the enemy does surprise you at times – especially on the later missions when the game gets really hard. I should also mention the in-game help section in the form of you advisor or “Mentat”, whenever you need information on any part of the game just click the Mentat button and ask away.

This is one of the few games of its type that I have played all-the-way thru (the others being StarCraft and total Annihilation.) If you’ve never played the game before I ask you not to be put off by the fact that it’s old, I can think of 5 other real time strategy games that, although they where released later, come no where near the standard of Dune 2.

Just try to ignore all the “new” things that have been added by Westwood

All your CD’s have been stolen and stashed all over Hawaii. It’s your task to go and find them, and get them back! For some unknown reason, stealing your CD’s will assist the badass in taking over the world. Hey, I just played the game; I wouldn’t know the logic behind it!

You can do what dragons to best and breathe fire at the enemies, singing them real nice like. You do this while running around the levels and collecting CD’s. You have to get a certain number of CD’s to progress to the next level. Generally DJ Puff is a lot like most platform games, and you can pretty much predict what to do.

The graphics are okay. You can see the enemies and it’s all pretty and colourful. I found it a little bit lame, but we can’t be expecting too much from the older games. The sound is ok too , I give it a pass.

Fast food dizzy was another of codemasters attempts at milking the dizzy franchise, and man was this one sooo see through or what! It’s basically a Dizzy version of Pac-Man with cool cut scenes in the middle of every few stages. There’s not any kind of plot to describe as well cos ummm yea dizzy now works in a fast food joint that’s inhabited by ghosts… i guess. anyway the graphics aren’t anything to boast about. its a refreshing change from the dreary pac-man series that never seems to end (how they have made so many games that are exactly the same apart from a bow or something apples and got away with it is a mystery to me).

if you’re into pac-man type games then you will prolly like this, and if you’re just looking for some time to waste for 15 mins while you wait for your TV program to start then this is prolly the game for you

The sequel of sorts to the higly popular (in the UK at least) Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker, AMP uses the exact same engine as the first game, the only obvious difference being the switch from snooker to pool. You are given a choice of either UK 8-ball (REAL pool biatch), US 8-ball or US 9-ball and the option to play either matches or tournaments against friends or AI players (of which there are over 20).

The graphics are nice and clear, the interface is simple and well thought out and the physics model is spot on. It’s hard to criticise AMP because it is a damn good simulation of the real thing.

Oh, and for a little surprise leave the mouse pointer static for a few moments and keep your eye on the balls – it always cracks me up