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.

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.

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 can’t remember exactly where I got this game from, it was probably one of the many hundreds of second hand games that I got from car boot sales and bargain bins. Anyway, for a long time it was just one of those games that I owned but hadn’t gotten around to play untill one night when I was looking for something to play and decided to give it a go – and was hooked for 6 hours or so.

Final conflict is a strategic game of global nuclear war that will appeal to arcade fans more than die-hard wargamers. It comes with a few pre-programmed scenarios : east vs west, the middle east etc or you can choose to conquer the world. A basic game goes like this – use espionage to locate your enemy’s factorys, cities etc and then obliterate them with nuclear ICBMs. Then move in the troops and either obliterate what it left or occupy and use their resources for your advantage. There is also a rather simplistic diplomatic model in which you can convince nations to join your cause. It’s all rather simplistic but as long as you don’t expect anything to deep you should have some fun with it.

It is when enemies launch nuclear weapons against you that the game switches to arcade mode. You have to defend your cities and facilities from incoming warheads using star-wars type weaponry – if you’ve ever played the classic Atari game Missile Command then you’ll be right at home.

For the average gamer this will provide a few hours of enjoyment, die hard strategy gamers will give up out of disgust.

Fun, but nothing special

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

Hero Quest (along with Space Crusade) was Games Workshop’s attempt to gain a foothold in the mainstream board games market. After an extensive advertising campaign the games and there add-ons gained a fair bit of popularity and it was inevitable that computerised version would be released.

And here we are

Sooooooo horrible things have befallen the land. Plague, pestilence, fire, brimstone, gophers. In times like this who are you gonna call? A barbarian, a dwarf, an elf and a wizard that’s who dagnabbit! Our party must enter the terrible dungeons of Morcar and complete 15 quests, each more horrible and sticky than the last. Find treasure, kill green things and rescue people who are too retarded to rescue themselves.

Fun fun fun eh?

Each character can be controlled in turn by a different player. Each starts in a separate corner of the dungeon/board, after a random dice roll to determine the order of play its off we go and each little spod goes and does whatever thing that heroes do (rescuing maidens and headbutting orcs I should imagine).

Play goes like this – each character gets one movement and one action per turn. The amount of movement depends on the value that the player has rolled (with a dice.. go figure) and action is carried out before or after each movement. Actions are fighting, casting spells, disarming traps searching for treasure.. that type of thing. The dungeon consists of rooms and passages, with the contents of each room unknown to the player, who must search them using their actions.

Monsters – yep, the dungeon contains nasty things that want to hurt you. Goblins, Orcs, Skeletons, Chaos Warriors (my favourite) all intent on being mean to you =( Each player/monster has body points and mind points. The dwarf and barbarian are dumb but strong, while the elf and wizard are weedy but brainy. As a general rule of thumb high mind points means that you can do magic, and high body points means that you can hit things in the face… hard. The amount of points available to each player can be changed with various potions found in the dungeon… or obviously by walking face first into a trap.

At the end of each quest you get to spend all that lovely treasure that you found (you did find some right?) and buy swords, shields and spells to aid in your quest.

So yeah, you should know the score now

If this sounds like your bag (yeah baby!) then download it you fool (FOOL!).

Movie tie-ins for the most part suck arsehole. They are little more than rushed, buggy attempts to cash in on a successful franchise. Hook is a movie tie-in, and while I wouldn’t go as far to say that the game is terrible, it is certainly not a true classic.

So why have I put it on the site you may ask, well

1) It was one of the few games that I bought for the Atari ST ( I got this and The Secret of Monkey Island at the same time, guess which game I prefer )
2) I worked damn hard to complete it, god knows why but I did. Now i’m going to push others to do the same.

If you’ve never seen the movie then you are going to be at a loss as to what is going on. You play Peter Banning who doesn’t know that he is (or was) Peter Pan. Your children have been kidnapped by the evil Captain Hook and it is up to you to journey to Nevernever land to rescue them.

My biggest probelm with Hook is that it could have been a damn good game, but it tries to follow the movie too closely. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but Hook fails badly at it. I can’t help but feel if the game had either done more to follow the movie (there were some pretty emotional bits in it… not that I cried or anything.. nu uh!) or had gone in a completely different direction with the story it could have been a decent adventure. Instead, on completing the game I was left feeling.. well, nothing. I had no desire to play it again, no feeling of accomplishment, nothing at all.

OK, i’ve panned the game enough, is there anything good i can say about it? Well, some of the earlier puzzles are quite fun to solve (especialy one involving an anchor and some rope), the game looks very nice and at least Robin Williams doesn’t have body hair to rival a cro-magnon primate (if you haven’t seen the movie then accept that what I just said was funny and move on. who cares if it make no sense to you).

It’s a shame because part of me really wants to reccomend the game, but the serious adventure gamer part of me just wants to dump on it. I think that newbies to point ‘n’ click adventures or young kids might get a kick out of it, and maybe everyone else should try it just so they can form their own opinion.

Just keep your expectations low.

The following quote from Home of the Underdogs effectively sums up this game:

Interphase is an average action game from Mirrorsoft that disappointingly squanders the license of Neuromancer, classic cyberpunk novel it was based on.

Interphase is a first person shoot-em-up taking place in cyberspace (a visual simulation of the inside of a computer system). The problem is that it doesn’t know that it’s a FPS – it desperately wants to be a simulation or deep hacking game instead. But what it boils down to is that Interphase is a shoot-em-up just like Quake is a shoot-em-up. It has levels, obstacles and objectives just like any other FPS and it’s just a shame (for Interphase) that they probably forked out a hefty sum for the Neuromancer licence to produce this game.

Ok, enough of dumping on the game I think, lets be a bit more positive now because Interphase IS in fact, rather fun. As I said before the bulk of the game takes place in cyberspace with you being required to complete certain objectives – track down and destroy a bothersome piece of software or disable a security system for example. There are some quite interesting puzzles to solve in the game, thought they do get a little “samey”. The controls and interface can be a slightly awkward at times but it doesn’t affect the game too much.

All in all Interphase, while definately worth taking a look at, is nothing special. There are much better FPS’ and hacking games out there.

Oh yeah baby. Hehe, such an adorable game. If you’ve read my other reviews for Slicks, or Race you’ll probably begin to understand that I happen to have a soft spot for cute little racing games

Ironman Offroad (a.k.a. Offroad) is so cool. You are these little offroad 4×4 things that race around the track. You bounce, crash, crash some more, hit walls, crash and then crash. It’s all good fun. You can have 1 v 1+ sharing the kb (see Slicks for multiplayer keyboard sharing strategies e.g. biting, pushing, yelling, stealing the keyboard and running away). Groovy baby

This game has a lot of options when it comes to playing. You can play against the computer with up to 4 players total, you can play against others on the same keyboard as mentioned above. You can do one race, or a championship.

Oh, did I mention the nitro? NITRO!! You hit the nitro button; out comes some smoke and brooooom, you get a nitro boost. Of course nitro is not free, so as you travel around the tracks, you can get money, and special stuff.

It’s got great graphics and sound for its time. Little cute cars etc. It’s a lot like Micro Machines with its little trucks.

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Note from Marrsy : She’s right, this game kicks arse. Download 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.

A TV station management game, quite a novel idea that is well executed. Lots of humour (some of the animations will at least make you chuckle), good AI and a decent economics model (if that’s what yings your yang).

May be one to check out.

Broooom.. sweet Did you ever have any of the Micro Machines toys? You know the ones, the tiny little cars, trucks, boats or planes that were only about 2cm long? I had a tiny little purple truck. Okaay, now you’re probably wondering just what kind of butch chick I am, but I also had a Barbie doll so :p~~

This game is great. When I was taking the screenshots I took heaps, because I just kept playing it. And boy did I kick ass

The first level you are in a little jetboat, and you are racing in the bathtub or sink, amongst the bubbles. Then you progress to racecars amongst the waffles, milk spillage and spoons of the breakfast table. You also get to race little trucks and other types of cars, all in funny settings around the house

When you pick who you want to play, there are many characters to chose from. You also pick which race you would like to race in, or cycle through the tracks. There is a scale up the side (see screenshot) which starts of with 5 dots for you, and 5 dots for your opponent. To win a race you have to get to the other side of the screen from the opponent 5 times, every time you do that, then one of their dots becomes one of yours. Of course if they have 9 and you have one, you have to win 9 times to win the race overall. It’s a lot of fun, and can make races last a long time if you have met your match.

This game looks excellent. The graphics are very good. I played as a girl with pigtails and when I won she would fling her head around like a little kid and stuff – great animations. The racing and stuff also looks great, the scenes etc. I didn’t play with sounds though, so I can’t comment there.

Definitely worth a try, play vs. the computer or against someone else multiplayer. They so need to make an online version of this game, so I can kick gords arse