Player Reviews

The Good
The 2600 version is surprisingly strong! You have all the arcade elements. At first the sno-bees seem kind of dumb. But survive a few rounds and they begin to buzz after you! It’s fun completing each round and trying to line up the diamonds for bonus.

The Bad
Trust me. The game sure is more fun without that awful background music riff. Thankfully, you can turn it off. And there are no intermissions. But, I didn’t really miss them.

The Bottom Line
I think Pengo on the VCS is one of the stronger of its arcade ports. I have a lot of fun with it.

The Good
For 1982, a good Asteroids clone. All the elements are there including hyperspace. Everything moves at a quick pace.

The Bad
Yah, it’s fast and rather loud. The speech byte doesn’t make sense. Your shooter is loud.

The Bottom Line
But that’s the thing. Everything is ramped up and makes for a great challenge warts and all. I love the hyperspace hesitating for a second to give you a heads up. Oh….it’s loud too. Fun for retro retro gamers like me.

The Good
Airstrike was popular at game shows due to its resemblance to the arcade game Scramble! With it’s high res colours and spacey sound effects, Airstrike was the first English Software title.

The Bad
You have to develop playmaking strategies but get by this difficult game.

The Bottom Line
Airstrike checks the boxes on a good early Scramble clone.

The Good
Seabed view in vector graphics style, in three dimensions, in 1989 must have been mind-blowing and is still definitely a highlight today. Also there's a certain level of comfort to be had from the map view when hunting for ships, avoiding detection and loading torpedoes.

The Bad
Pacing isn't great. The decision that you needed a code to launch the game and that you had to get it from your manual is a little obtuse. The mission briefing are overly long, I get what the devs were going for... but there was no need for that. Certain mechanics feel ancient by today's standards but that's to be expected for games that were made in this period.

The Bottom Line
Pleasurable and immersive experience but gets tiring quickly, although I enjoyed the zen nature of the map view and its basic mechanics. It hasn't sucked me in, but offered a good couple of evenings. There are many very good submarine simulator games out there, so consider your choices before dipping toes here. Real pacing issues so be ready for that.

The Good
Somehow, I love all Sierra AGI adventures -- spent a LOT of time on them as a kid on my Hercules-graphics PC --, but the original Space Quest may be my favourite. I mean, I'm just a sucker for silly humour, and even more than that, I love sci-fi stories, so this one is right up my alley.

It's hard -- nay, impossible! -- for me to be objective about this one, so I won't even try. Although I know it by heart, I still play it now and then, I just love to watch that blocky Roger Wilco sprite running around through the Arcada littered with dead bodies, I love hiding from those damn Sariens, I love pushing all those damn buttons (including the "Don't Touch" one), I love the little cutscenes where you're flying through space (especially the asteroid sequence), I love the cool world it is building (the Two Guys from Andromeda really know their sci-fi), hell I even love the damn arcade sequence and the damn gambling sequence, and most of all, I love all the wonderful ways you can get killed suddenly and brutally by the game. People complain a lot about this Sierra philosophy, but if it's done with so much humour and creativity as here, I'm 100% fine with it.

The Bad
I really can't think of anything bad. Objectively speaking, people who are used to "modern", post-Lucasfilm adventure standards will whine whining about the sudden deaths, the unfair puzzles (that damn piece of glass XD), and the fact that you can be soft blocked so very, very easily. (Spoiler: Don't leave the Arcada without a certain cartridge, and don't leave Ulence Flats without a certain jetpack XD)

The Bottom Line
So, first of all, it's an early Sierra game, so don't expect this to be show the great game design of Monkey Island etc. -- Sierra has always been rooted in the late 70s/early 80ss philosophy of game design, which makes up their charm. But if you want to check out one of the Sierra adventure, take this one (and probably Leisure Suit Larry I). If you don't like it, you just can't be helped. Or, more probably, it's me who can not be helped -- I just love this game.

The Good
One of these games why I love digging through those early CGA PC games. Yeah, the CGA palette sucks ass and always will, but I grew up with a Hercules Graphics Card so I'm kinda immune to those irrelevant little details.

So yeah, this is Pac-Man in 3D, you run through the maze in a first person view, gobbling pills, evading ghosts, and now and then chasing them after you ate one of those power pills. It's a great variation of the original concept, it totally works, and despite the simplistic 3D, it makes you feel you're really IN the maze -- so I'd say the immersion is even higher than in Pac-Man.

The author also though of including a radar so you know where the ghosts are relative to you, and a 2D map showing where there are still dots to be gobbled.

Finally, they didn't use the stupid BIOS routines to read keyboard input, so you can move smoothly and don't have to deal with this typematic stuff which makes so many early PC games unnecessarily hard to control. (Even later commercial games often didn't do it right, one notable example being the original Test Drive -- d'oh!)

The Bad
The graphics are workable, but as I said, the CGA palette sucks, at least on DOSBox. Luckily, you get nicer colors when you tell the game to use a monochrome display.

The Bottom Line
Definitely a highlight of any CGA arcade. I wouldn't call it an FPS progenitor as MobyGame's description says -- there's no shooting, your steps and your turns are discrete; I would still say Battlezone is the great-granddaddy of FPS's --, but it's a great twist on a famous game concept, it's executed really well, and it's still good for some arcade fun fourty years later. Check it out :D

The Good
The 5200 version is an excellent game with solid animation and gameplay.

The Bad
Why does this version have gravity? A helicopter normally doesn’t behave this way. Makes the the game a bit tougher.

The Bottom Line
Regardless of the gravity addition, still a recommended game.

The Good
Apple is indeed the lead format. Dan Gorin absolutely deserves acclaim for a wonderful game. But Atari was ported that same year 1982. It’s a beautiful game either in B & W or colour. The animation is indeed eye catching.

The Bad
The game becomes a bit difficult when the plane attacks.

The Bottom Line
Atari 800 deserves acclaim for it’s flawless early port.

The Good
Cute arcade clone including shoot the bear intermission. Some nice touches including a short nice rendition of Entrance of the Gladiators at the intro.

The Bad
Not immediately clear what the challenges are.

The Bottom Line
But stick with it. As you discover the rules, the game becomes a nice diversion.

The Good
Running the girl through the maze, gobbling pills and evading ghosts -- who could complain about this, wacka wacka wacka, even in glorious 4-color CGA.

The Bad
The keyboard controls are a bit clunky and work much better in the original Pac-Man conversion. Here, for example, if you press UP just a bit too early, my Ms. Pac-Man suddenly goes RIGHT instead of "storing" the keypress and going up when the time comes, as is standard in Pac-Man games, and as the original conversion did. This makes controlling Ms. Pac-Man unnecessarily touchy.

The Bottom Line
It's still fun to play, but the game just doesn't flow as it could with those messed-up controls. I much prefer the original Pac-Man, even if I can't play a girl there.

The Good
Well, it's the official PC conversion of an arcade classic. And Centipede is quite a unique and complex early arcade shooter, as it requires some strategy.

The Bad
Most of these early Atarisoft CGA arcade conversions are quite solid; however, this one isn't. Which is mainly due to the controls -- you just can't move smoothly. Combined with the complex and chaotic gameplay of the game itself, this makes this one pretty much unplayable.

The Bottom Line
It admit I didn't put much effort in trying to play this one, as I have never been a huge fan of Centipede. But if I'm in the mood for some CGA arcade, I have a lot of much better Atarisoft games to choose (Galaxian, Battlezone, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong or Robotron), as well as quite a few unofficial arcade versions, like those by Funsoft or Orion.

The Good
Despite its age and simplicity, this actually is quite fun and challenging to play. It's a bit like a 2D Game of Nim -- you take yellow dots off the board, but you have to do so in a way that prevents your opponent(s) to do the same.

The Bad
There is no computer opponent, and while you CAN play the game in single-player mode, it's pretty pointless because you can always get all dots.

The Bottom Line
An original little logic game concept that's still fun in multiplayer mode.

The Good
I kinda like many of these old BASIC simualations, and this one simulates -- or pretends to simulate -- survival in the Gobi desert. Each turn you can choose one of a handful of commands and see how far you go.

The Bad
Unfortunately, and unlike some of the better simulations, this one is very much a game of chance. It doesn't really matter what you decide, so the winning strategy seems to be to run like hell and just hope your camel doesn't die.

The Bottom Line
Interesting idea but really poor execution.

The Good
Pretty and Frictionless.

The Bad
A bit too frictionless perhaps?

The Bottom Line
It's hard to do something wrong in Europa. There are open areas but whichever path you choose you'll always head towards your goal. There are enemies, but it doesn't really matter if they hit you. There are high speed on-rails sections where you must dodge mines or debris, but again if you do hit them you are free to continue.

All this makes the game a very zen experience. The cute and pretty graphics help enforce this even further. The unique movement mechanics make walking around quite fun.

The puzzles start out rather boring, but get slightly more interesting near the end. Again they try not to offer any friction and thus stay quite easy and forgiving. The story told using a voice over failed to be very interesting. The method of storytelling wasn't very lively with only two characters, one of which is mute and the other who is long dead. But it suffices to keep some narrative thread going.

It's clear what the inspirations are for this game (Ghibli movies and Breath of the Wild), and sometimes it borrows a bit too much, like with the stationary laser guided enemies.

You'll have to go into this game with the right mindset of not expecting any challenge and just go with the flow and enjoy the scenery. It's about the right size, because if it had lasted longer I probably would've tuned out entirely.

The Good
Some cool ideas: telephone pole stops your platforming (must go up and down on opposite sides!), tons of music,etc.

The Bad
Why are games so fricken hard!? Was better with a speed cheat.

The Bottom Line
A good platformer with good ideas but very tough. I guess unlimited lives might actually work here to see all 17 levels. Although, the rendition of Beethoven’s 5Th is fantastic!

The Good
As about every other reviewer noted, Might and Magic I is an extremely challenging game. From the beginning right to the very end, there is a real chance of your party being wiped out at each and every step. This may not sound so hot to the casual gamer, and indeed this game is not meant for casual gaming -- you have to really dig into it. But once you do (and you have survived the insanely hard beginning), you'll realize how well this game is designed.

Leveling up really MEANS something here -- your party gets stronger, but it does so slowly, and your characters do not evolve into some kind of fantasy superheroes capable of slaying a handful of dragons with a single stroke. Loot is always something to carefully check out and never something you'll routinely just cust a Detect Magic on and let it lie -- gold is sparse and keeps being valuable throughout the game, so at least pick it up to sell it (but as the backpack sizes are very limited, you'll have to choose carefully).

The monsters and their powers are very varied, and you'll have to study them and prepare for combat as best you can. And even at the end of the game, you'll meet monsters that you should run away from.

The game is highly non-linear, so you'll have can (and have to) freely explore the vast world on your own. However, I found the difficulty levels of the areas well balanced, so that you'll quickly steer into the right (= not too difficult!) direction.

The user interface is easy to learn and effective to use after a few minutes, and even the graphics are nice -- not really colorful or opulent in any way, but the monsters are nicely pixeled, and the graphics never distract from the actual game play -- indeed, the game has, IMO, more atmosphere than MM2 or Bard's Tale due to the nearly abstract feel of the graphics.

The Bad
The only thing that comes to my mind is the beginning. It's INSANELY hard. Even after finding a good grinding place, it will take you hours to get your characters to level 2, allowing you to venture a bit further than just a few steps from the inn. It would be nice if Mr. Van Carneghem would provide the starting party some more gold to get some decent equipment instead of a few clubs and daggers.

The Bottom Line
Might and Magic 1 is definitely not something for beginners or for casual gamers. In the end, it's -- like any other good RPG -- a complex resource management game: You'll have to think and keep thinking about what to carry, and what to use when, and what to sell and buy, and how to improve your party.

It is highly difficult, but this means it provides a challenging experience for many, many hours -- it took me at least a hundred gaming hours to win this game, and even this with some help from walkthroughs. However, I never felt bored once -- once you get into it, it keeps staying a challenging, but highly rewarding experience.

I can heartily recommend this game to all those looking for a challenging early RPG. It could be seen as a great mix of Bard's Tale and Wizardry, taking the best elements of both and evading their weaknesses.

The Good
- Graphics - Sound - Multiplayer - Addictive arcade-style gameplay

The Bad
- Very short - Difficulty level can be frustrating

The Bottom Line
Recommendations for those who like arcade games like Mario Bros. or Breakout

The Good
- Graphics - Music - Humor - Fast paced - Very addictive gameplay in the style of Wario Land 4 and Pizza Tower - Great Level Design

The Bad
- Short game - Controls take some getting used to - Too difficult for beginners

The Bottom Line
Recommend it for those who liked Wario Land 4 or Pizza Tower

The Good
While I always found the King's Quest games a bit too nice and cutesy and serious, compared to Space Quest or Leisure Suit Larry, I really like the atmosphere of this one. Especially in the first half of the game, where you're trying to get rid of Manannan and win your freedom, it has a TON of atmosphere.

And I also love the whole magic spell shenanigans -- I know most people hate it, but actually, the fact that it is so picky does manage to make the magic feel real and dangerous, as it should.

The graphics again got a little better. It's still the good old blocky 160x200 AGI resolution, but the screens are beautifully drawn and make the game fun to explore.

The Bad
Like King's Quest 2, the ending of this one -- once you boarded the pirate ship and escaped to the island -- feels somewhat rushed. It's very linear, there's a lot of empty screens with barely any puzzles. The dragon looks cool though, and it's fun to finally come home.

And of course, it's a Sierra AGI adventure, so the parser isn't the best, there's frequent insta-death and some of the puzzles are a bit illogical and unfair.

The Bottom Line
In my opinion, this is still one of the best early Sierra adventures, and early PC adventures in general. It really has a great atmosphere and is beautiful to look at.

The Good
What I really like about KQ2 is the graphics. They are a huge step up compared to KQ1, and that country of Kolyma looks really beautiful and idyllic, and it's fun to explore it. And I really love that magic door concept. Like the first part, there are a few iconic moments, like riding the magic carpet or (everyone's favourite) killing fcking Dracula himself :)

The Bad*
The puzzles haven't gotten much better, and in generally they either very easy or very illogical -- but, well, you should know what you're getting into when you play those old Sierra AGI adventures. It is also much more linear than the first KQ.

Finally, once you get through that third door, the rest of the game seems to be just hastily slapped together. There are barely any puzzles, and there's a lot of rooms with nothing to do which is quite a letdown.

The Bottom Line
An okay sequel to the influential first part -- maybe a bit more accessible and easier for beginners. Would have been pretty good if they had fleshed out the last part of the game.

The Good
This may not look like much nowadays, but it's amazing if you compare it to other games of its time: An adventure game with full-screen 16-color animated graphics -- this was completely unheard of back then, and it's very understandable it was such a huge success and made Sierra the biggest game company for several years.

And it still holds up -- kinda. Although the graphics are a bit amateurish here and there, and the puzzles either easy or legendarily unfair (adventure game design was still in its infancy), I still find it entertaining to explore that cute fairy tale kingdom, killing the witch, climbing the damn beanstalk, diving into the well, and paying the leprechauns a visit. Compared to many later adventures, it's highly non-linear and open.

The Bad
As I said, seen from a modern adventure gamer's perspective (or, say, one that grew up with Monkey Island), the puzzles in this positively SUCK. That gnome's name puzzle is maybe the worst puzzle in adventure game history (it's actually etched into my brain because the solution is so absurd).

The Bottom Line
You have to approach this one appreciating that it's not quite up to later Sierra AGI standards, but it still holds up pretty well after 40 years.

If you want to check it out, play the 1987 DOS version which is much more comfortable.

The Good
Spectrum shows off its ability to produce fast smooth exciting games. Great explosion animation! May have to destroy several rounds before moving on to the next enemies.

The Bad
You also see some of Spectrums weaknesses: colour clash and beeper sounds.

The Bottom Line
For 1982, a powerful shooter on the Speccy.

The Good
This is my first text adventure (I'm going back to play Zork 1) the world is so descriptive and huge and there's so much to interact with!

The Bad
I get lost so much. idk what i would have done without save scumming

The Bottom Line
Zork is amazing. Zork is life.

The Good
It's an adaptation of the 1983 arcade hit, and the CGA 3D graphics would have been awesome for 1983.

The Bad
However, the game came out in 1989, and by then CGA already was really oldschool. Also, they obviously programmed this on a PC or XT and didn't think that it would be unplayably fast on an AT. Finally, you control your crosshair with O/P for left/right and Q/A for up/down.

The Bottom Line
This game would have been great for 1983, but for 1989, it really looks like an ancient relic. Broderbund usually publishes interesting stuff, I really wonder why they went for this one.

The Good
You can often knock your opponent on his keister. Then pass it to your teammate for a goal.

The Bad
Maybe a bit more audio would be nice!

The Bottom Line
Terrific Activision hockey game,

The Good

• Successfully conveys the Star Wars feel
• Nostalgically reminds me of the (far superior) Dark Forces series
• Nice variety in level types
• Cool story and cut-scenes

**The Bad**

• Limited control over the camera
• Some very bland and empty levels
• Badly thought out level bosses

**The Bottom Line**
At the time of this game's release my PC did not live up to the minimum requirements. So even though I was quite a Star Wars fan I had to let this title slip by. I did have the chance to play the first level at a friend, but it stayed at that. Until 2010 when I finally got around playing this game. Interestingly for an early Windows 95 game it installed without any problems whatsoever on my Windows XP machine. I could just jump straight into the action. Unfortunately I was staying at my parents where I did not have a gamepad at my disposal, so I was forced to play the game with mouse and keyboard. I must say that I preferred playing it with just the keyboard. Except for the boss fights where quick circle strafing seemed to be the dominant strategy. More on this later. The game sucks you in immediately with splendid Star Wars music and sound effects. The menu interface is obviously designed for consoles, but hey we're kind of used to that in 2010. Might have been a shock at the time. The first mission is immediately one of the best. It's a re-imagining of the Battle of Hoth from Star Wars Episode V. The player controls a Snow Speeder and has to take out Probe Droids, ATSTs and ATATs (2 legged and 4 legged walking tanks). The controls are very easy and very arcade like. And even with the keyboard it's quite easy to aim at your targets even with the lack of a cross-hair. The Snow Speeder scene is the only level in which you get to fly on land. There are some other missions where you fight in space, but most of the missions are third person shooter levels. Although the camera is configurable. It is also possible to play in first person, top-down or with a stationary camera. But even though I'm a big fan of first person perspectives I found that 3rd person works best for this game. Mainly because you can't look up and down. Dark Forces and its sequel Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight count themselves as some of my favourite games of all time. And I think that in the end those games are the reason I started liking this game. Because in reality it is far inferior to those two games. Continuously throughout the game I was welcomed by warm nostalgia. Textures and 3D models that were reused in Jedi Knight, rooms which had a very similar layout to rooms in Dark Forces and other similarities forced my mouth into a smiley at a regular interval. But while there was a lot of recognition and the art was quite good for the time, there's not much positive to be said about the actual level design. Most levels are very straight forward and plain to look at. There are some interesting levels that try to do something completely different. For example a train level in which you need to jump onto passing cargo trains. And some levels feature slightly more elaborate switch puzzles. But nothing to tease the mind. The controls for the third person sequences work, but pale in comparison to Quake, which was released some months earlier. The fact that you can't look up can be annoying, because often levels can be quite vertical. The vertical aspect is further explored in some of the levels where you have a jet pack to your disposal. This jet pack seems like a lot of fun at first, but soon turns out to be a chore. The reason for this is again that you can't look down or up. So you can't really see where you are going. The story of the game is pretty cool. It follows the story of the book and graphic novel of the same name and ties in nicely with the films. In-game the story is told in high quality rendered full motion videos which are quite a reward for finishing a level. The worst part of the game is arguably the level bosses. There's quite a few of them, but most battles don't seem very well thought out. Take the ATST for example. This mini-boss has to be defeated several time. The ATST has 1000 hit points and hitting it with the laser pistol does 1 damage. When circle strafing around the ATST it's impossible for it to hit the player. But it takes a couple minutes before your damage adds up to a thousand. The game usually assumes you still have some missiles left which do more damage, but that's not always the case. Often I missed a few of my missiles and got the ATST to 500 hit points. leaving me to circle strafe for two minutes before it would collapse. Many of the other bosses can be killed in the same way. They will never be able to hit you. Others can fly and you need to use your jet pack to get to the same height first. Which is again annoying due to the poor camera system. The final boss can be killed in three hits because at that time you find some really powerful weapon. The game sees re-playability through its different difficulty levels and the challenge points which can be found in each level. Frankly I didn't bother with them. The game is great for a single run-through, but doesn't really invite for a second play-through. The game is remarkably short. I finished it in roughly four hours. By no means is this a really good game. And quite frankly I think that people with no relationship with Star Wars will not find any satisfaction in this game. The main elements that make this game fun is how it reminds of Star Wars and Dark Forces similarly to the way Outlaws reminds of Dark Forces (compare the sewer levels for example). Hence the guilty pleasure. I had a lot of fun this weekend with this game even though there are so many better games around.

The Good
It's simple, but entertaining. The animation is good, and sometimes you have to get the timing right, which adds a nice touch to the difficulty.

The Bad
The difficulty escalates quickly and reaches a point where it is so difficult that it seems impossible, discouraging you from continuing to play.

The Bottom Line
Get it and try it out. It is a nice game to have when you need to kill a few minutes.

The Good
Not a game I personally owned, am using emulation here.

Let me reference Alec at Vitno,org January 2020:

Touted as Amiga’s answer to Sonic with blistering speed and smooth scrolling. Artwork, animation of high standard with beautiful multi-coloured gradients in background.

The Bad
Would have liked an option to explore at a slower pace. Same feeling with Sonic. Doesn’t really play like Sonic, but certainly plays fast!

The Bottom Line
A beautiful looking, blistering fast 2D platformer.

The Good
This isn't really a game, but it's still fun to design and test your own car. There probably have been car building sims since then, but I'm sure this is the first one.

You can choose chsases, engine, brakes, suspension, fuel tank etc for your car, and then you can also choose the body. My favourite feature is that you can finetune the shape of the body -- you can try to create a really aerodynamic car, but I found it even more fun to construct absolutely absurd shapes and see what the program has to see about that. And you can test your creation in a wind tunnel and on the road.

The Bad
I would have liked to have a little more info on what various elements do. As such, a lot of the program is guesswork -- thankfully, there is a manual out there which explains a bit.

The Bottom Line
Although it is over 40 years old, this is still a unique program that is still fun to play with. Would have been absolutely perfect if you were able to drive your creation :)

The Good
While this isn't Risk, it really looks and feels a lot like it. You're moving armies across the map, trying to conquer countries with random results depending on the size of your armies, and you get more armies depending on how many territories you own. It's quite simplistic, but that's the beauty of it -- it doesn't take long to get into it and it's good for a game or two.

The game offers two scenarios -- the standard Europe WW2 one and then Scotland in the 1750s --, and it also features random events: sometimes countries you own revolt against you and have to be conquered again, and sometimes the "resistance" destroys an army in one of your countries.

The game can be played by up to four players, each of which can also be controlled by the AI (which plays a decent game), so you can also just watch the computer playing itself.

The graphics are pretty nice considering the time this was made, and the keyboard controls work reasonably well.

The Bad
My main gripe with this game is that when choosing a country, you have to cycle through ALL countries you own -- you can't go back, or choose one with cursor keys, which sometimes makes the selection quite tedious. The PC speaker bleeps are also a bit obnoxious at length.

I actually wish there would have been more scenarios, and scenario builder would of course have been perfect.

The Bottom Line
A nice boardgame-like wargame that is easy to learn and for a casual round or two.

The Good
Yes of COURSE this is primitive as hell, but to my amazement I found the parser to be relatively well-behaved, and I was able to do some pretty complex things without having to try for hours to find the right verb-noun-combo (like inserting a battery into a VCR and connecting it to a TV).

I also like the spy setting of this one, which is a welcome deviation from the usual treasure/cave crawl of most early adventures.

The Bad
Well, it's a BASIC adventure from 1980, so memory was limited, so don't expect room descriptions or similar luxuries.

The Bottom Line
Maybe it's just me and my penchant for minimalism, but this is one of the better early BASIC interactive fiction games I have played.

The Good
I like these kind of games where you don't have to shoot, but just try to color squares while evading some enemies. Despite being a very early PC game, with very basic graphcis and sound, this one is nicely playable and also features a highscore list. The first five levels are easy, the next ones you'll get multiple opponents making things much more difficult.

It also has a nice animated explanation of the game, and is one of the first PC games featuring joystick control, although the cursor keas work just fine.

The Bad
About the only thing I didn't like here is that the opponents are flickering heavily, making them hard to see.

The Bottom Line
CGA retrogamers definitely should check this one out, it's a classic game concept and well executed.

The Good
I was born in 1985, so Asteroids kind of went by me. As did the Atari 2600 as a whole. My first real experiences with the 2600 can be pinpointed to the months before The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released. I had run out of recently released games to play and had come with the marvelous idea to download an Atari 2600 emulator and have some fun with that.

And fun I had! Though it shines in simplicity and you are blasting away in space with ease in seconds, beating the game was quite a challenge. It was, however, the only Atari game I ever had the dedication for to beat! The premises is simple, just shoot asteroids and don't let them hit me, but it can get really intense.

I really liked the sounds in this game. And that's saying something, because for the most part I found the sounds that my emulator produced horrible and nauseating.

The Bad
Later I played the original Asteroids using MAME and I must say that the original version is (not surprisingly) superior, due to the minimal capabilities of the 2600 system. The new bitmap graphics do give it a nice distinct feeling, but everything feels smaller and more crowded.

After a while the game gets rather repetitive and boring. Some variations in the waves would have been welcome. But with the Atari you can't have high demands like that, I guess.

The Bottom Line
Asteroids is fun! You get to blow stuff up in space! You'll get tired of it after a while, but not without having your share of fun. In my opinion it's one of the better titles of the system. But that's a retrospective opinion of someone who missed the first age of video games.

The Good
Zork is one of the first in its genre. And it is quite enjoyable, even to this day. It has witty humour, interesting puzzles and a strange yet interesting setting to explore.

The Bad
Zork's main shortcoming is how some of the actions you perform can lead the game into a dead end. Don't leave any candles burning, for example. You might need them later and they actually do get shorter over time. Also use your batteries sparsely because they might be useful later on. Things like these can make the game rather frustrating, because you get no warning of their importance and when you lose them the game just continues. So if you save your game, there's no turning back anymore and you have to start over.

Some of the solutions for puzzles are also rather obscure, but I won't spoil anything here.

Though the game has plenty of back-story and setting, there is no real story that drives the player. No real motive, except for gathering treasure that result in a numerical score.

The Bottom Line
Zork is worth playing. There's quite some funny bits, and interesting puzzles. If not just for its historical relevance as one of the first text adventures to reach commercial success.

The Good
The best thing about this is the backstory. You play an IBM fighter/bomber and have to destroy Apple manufacturing plants in this horizontal scrolling shooter. The ASCII graphics are pretty decent, and there's sound -- prety decent for a BASIC program.

The Bad
I can't say I found this very enjoyable, mostly because of the game being either too slow or too hard (depending on your DOSBox cycles), and the controls not being very good for this kind of game.

The Bottom Line
A historical oddity, although it is highly questionable that this was developed and/or published by IBM. More likely, the "IBM General Utility programs" screen (which appears for a lot of similar early PC public domain/shareware game) was just added by a BBS, although details are still unclear.

The Good
So this is the arcade classic Asteroids in an early unofficial PC adaptation, and despite the weird controls (F9 and F10 to rotate, Insert for thrust, Delete for shoot, NumLock to start game and ScrollLock to end it :), it is very playable and fun. You just can't go wrong with this classic game concept -- shoot those asteroids but take care not create too many small ones, and also be careful of that UFO that appears randomly and shoots you. You also have a hyperspace option in case of emergency.

The game uses a tweaked CGA mode to create a square 256x254 screen which probably is a first in PC gaming. Amazingly, DOSBox handles it without any complaint.

The Bad
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any sound -- yeah, the PC speaker isn't great, but a few effects would have made it more fun. Also I much prefer the vector graphics style of the original, the asteroids here are all identical.

The Bottom Line
A nicely playable Asteroids version for all you CGA retro gamers out there.

The Good
Designed originally for Intellivision by Tom Loughry who created my favourite D&D Intellivision game. Essentially, defeat the large Imperial Star Wars type ship before it destroys the earth! Seeing the large ship scroll past your screen was a cool accomplishment for 1983.

The Bad
Basically, if you destroy the ship, you move on to the next hardest level. But still the same scenario.

The Bottom Line
Can you defeat the Imperi……..Sorry……before it destroys the Earth? Look…it’s getting closer! Ahhhh………!

The Good
I always like gravity-based games, so I'm biased... but this one is quite original and even more basic than all those Lunar Lander variants, which made me like it even more. You move from left to right at uniform velocity through a randomly generated asteroid field, and all you have is your trusty Shift key to generate upwards thrust. At first it seems easy, but soon the way through the asteroids gets really narrow and it really gets hard.

Also be careful not to hit the turquoise pixels, they are space dust and clog your engines, making you veeery sluggish. (Actually, from the physics, the space dust seems to make you really heavy, but whatever.)

Another thing I like about this game is that despite the primitive CGA graphics, it just looks pretty great with all those random circles -- pretty artsy if you ask me :)

The Bad
Hmmm... well, it IS a bit repetitive so you I guess you won't spend hours with this one.

The Bottom Line
An original and visually appealing twist on the old gravity/thrust-based arcade games.

The Good
It took me a while to get into it (and to figure out the controls: J and K for left and right, A and Z for up and down, and Space for digging/hitting), but once I had them, it was fun for a while. The basic game is pretty easy, but you get bonus points when you make the evil Apples fall down several levels which requires some foresight in digging your holes.

As usual for these early PC games, graphics and sound are very primitive, but the game play fluidly enough.

The Bad
The game does feel quite repetitive, although I'm not the biggest fan of these platform arcade games.

The Bottom Line
An interesting concept, well executed.

The Good
A simplistic implementation, but it's a simplsitic game concept, so it works. The game starts nice and easy, but soon the missiles will speed up, and you will have a hard time defending your cities -- or, as the game puts it, "IBM East Coast sites".

Graphics and sound are pretty basic, but do their job, and you can set the difficulty both with the initial missile speed and with the size of your warhead. Small warheads give more points.

The Bad
The game uses the standard BIOS routines for keyboard input, which means you get the usual repeat delay logic, which for this kind of game just doesn't make any sense.

The Bottom Line
While primitive, this little game still is good for a round or two of frantic missile defense, if you're okay with the primitive technical aspects of the game.

The Good
First of all, I'm sure I'm about the only one who kinda likes this one. It is EXTERMELY basic, 95% of the game is just entering movement commands, there are barely any puzzles, but there's constant instant death as soon as you make a wrong move...

But I kinda liked the minimalist approach of this adventure, and I liked the writing of the descriptions. As in the original Space Quest (this game really reminded me of exploring the Keronian desert), the deaths were fun and creative, so I actually enjoyed playing this for a while.

The Bad
Any serious adventurer will probably dismiss this as a crappy BASIC adventure, and I would agree. The parser is bad (can't even handle lowercase letters), and the world is quite empty, apart of all those monsters who kill you at every turn.

The Bottom Line
One of these little oddities for which make exploring the early days of PC gaming so enjoyable. Despite it's shortcoming, it's just really unique. Definitely not great in any way, but kinda charming in its own way.

The Good
Very playable once you have memorized the (few) commands you can give to the planes. It's definitely not easy to juggle all those planes, preventing them from crashing into each other, and guide them safely to the runway. Especially when suddenly one plane declares it's low on fuel.

The Bad
Can't find anything to nag about, really. Yes, the "graphics" are text-based and quite primitive, but they do their job nicely.

The Bottom Line
I just like these kind of games -- simple in their execution, easy to learn, but hard to master.

The Good
It's clear to see that the guys writing this early PC version of the mainframe Star Trek classic loved the game. They added some a nifty ASCII graphics for the NCC-1701 and also the Star Trek theme song in its PC beeper rendition, as well as other sound effects. They also made all the commands callable via function keys which is a nice addition.

Otherwise, this is the plain vanilla Star Trek ported from David Ahl's version, and it's still fun to play a round now and then.

The Bad
My main gripe is that, at least in this version, the game seems positively unwinnable. I had absurd amounts of Klingon ships to destroy in just a few days which I don't think is possible. Not sure if it's just a bug in my version, or if I was just unlucky with my games.

The Bottom Line
This is a loving early PC adaptation of one of these timeless mainframe classics. Of course, a few years later PC owners got EGATrek, but this one adds a few nice little details that makes it a bit more playable and fun than the original version.

The Good
When, some years ago, I had a quick look at this game, I though: Oh no, yet another of these ugly BASIC games from the beginnings of the IBM PC. Now I had a second look, considering this game is one of the first PC games ever publisher, and I have to admit that I was wrong. Yes, it really does not look good and you really need some time to get warm with the user interface and the basic game mechanics, but after a while, you get hooked.

Despite its simplicity, it actually has some depth -- you need a while until you realize how to survive and get better in the dungeons, how to use the different items, what to do and what to don't; you have to use your resources thoughtfully. For example, you have to consider that some enemy can make your weapon break (which leaves you completely defenseless), and that your armor only holds a certain amount of damage -- quite amazing for 1981!

Once you start feeling at home in the dungeons, it's time to think about how to retrieve the Orb of Zot. This is not so easy as you'd think -- you have to solve a clever puzzle build in the game to get it.

Another fun factor are the slightly goofy texts. For example, when opening a book, it may just be an old copy of "Playgoblin". I also enjoyed the irreverent way the player is treated when he does a wrong input ("Silly elf, that wasn't a valid command!").

And last but not least, the random generation of the dungeon at the beginning of each game makes the game highly replayable.

The Bad
Well, first of all, the game looks really ugly. It's not just the fat 40-column text -- as old-time PC gamer, I'm used to that. It's just that the creator didn't really care about some structure. When you play the game, all you see is just a list of text lines, each one looking the same as the other.

Another thing that is quite annoying is that the version I played has a BIG bug: You normally aren't supposed to see all squares from the beginning, so you really have to explore carefully. In this version, you can see the content of each square from the beginning -- which makes the Lamp and the Flares completely useless and takes some fun out of the game. But not much. (I only realized that it was a bug when I had a look at some later implementations of Wizard's Castle, like Temple of Loth, Leygref's Castle or Mission: Mainframe.)

The Bottom Line
All in all, this is a very respectable game, simple, innovative and addictive. It looks may deceive, but once you're into the game, you can play for hours, just trying to get that stupid Orb. The author has made a great job of packing so much game in just 1000 lines of BASIC code. Considering some of the games of today (millions of lines of code, fun for five minutes), it's impressive.

Still, you shouldn't expect this game to be a full-fledged RPG. I would rather describe it as a quite innovative boardgame-style strategy game with interactive fiction and RPG elements. This is not only due to the boardgame-like design of the dungeon (8 dungeons with 8x8 squares each), but especially due to the fact that you really have to proceed strategically to get the orb.

The game was quite influential in its time (it was one of the first games released for the IBM PC), and it is no wonder that there have been several other implementations of the game. Most of them also look and play much better (and they don't have the aforementioned bug). The Wizard's Castle clones I'd recommend are Temple of Loth (which is quite faithful to the original, just with different colors which already helps a lot), Leygref's Castle (with a very nice user interface) or the superb Mission: Mainframe, which is Wizard's Castle in a sci-fi setting.

The Good
I didn't expect much of this little BASIC chess game, but I must say that I was actually quite impressed. First, it never made an illegal move, and second, it was actually able to play some half-decent chess. It isn't able to play en-passant captures, but otherwise it does all the special moves.

The user interface is simple, but workable, you enter your moves in the format "E2E4".

The Bad
The text graphics ain't too great but good enough not to be confused about which piece is where.

The Bottom Line
Like many of these very early PC games, this is mostly interesting from a historical and technical standpoint, but while this is incredibly primitive from today's standard, it's still quite a feat to write a fully working chess program in BASIC.

The Good
Some of those early BASIC simulations are surprisingly well made, and this is one of them. You really get a feel for the difficulties of a mountaineering expedition, and it isn't at all easy to get all your supplies up the mountain to the various camps, at the right time, while keeping your mountaineers and sherpas healthy. At first I was irritated that I have to address my mountaineers by their first letter, but being forced to use their name, you actually get something like a personal relation to them.

You also have 10 save game slots, and you can even add a note for you save so you remember where you were.

The Bad
The user interface is a bit cumbersome with its use of function keys, but you'll get used to it and then it's pretty good.

And of course, for those among you that like graphics, there aren't any -- this is all text, white (or green or amber) on black.

The Bottom Line
Definitely one of the more interesting early PC games. Although it's quite simplistic, it is really challenging and actually entertaining to play, even today.

The Good
So this is IIRC the only documented piece of software written by Bill Gates himself, and it's a cutesy and ultra-simplistic little arcade game that was intended to showcase the graphics and sound capabilities of the PC DOS BASIC interpreter BASICA.

And although it does seem incredibly primitive nowadays, I must say that it's actually pretty good for a 1981 PC BASIC game. The graphics are full screen and solid color and with recognizable donkeys and racing cars, there's PC speaker bleeps and bloops effects that aren't TOTALLY horrible, and it's actually really playable. Bill & co. even managed to make this clock frequency independent, so even with DOSBox on max cycles this is completely playable. So yeah, although people make fun of it, compared to other early BASIC games, this is technically really good.

And I really like the minimalist concept of the whole game. There should be more games controllable with just a single key.

The Bad
It IS an ultra-simplistic little ditty. Even if you're a die-hard CGA retro gamer, it's only fun for a few minutes, as it just resets once you get your eleven points, so the game doesn't get harder with time.

The Bottom Line
An interesting little piece of early PC game history that is worth checking out just to see where it all began. Game-wise it doesn't have much to offer, but it was intended as a demo program for the PC multimedia capabilities and it does a pretty good job at it.

The Good
This seems to be a port of the original (350-point) Colossal Cave Adventure version for the IBM PC, which even fifty years later is still a playable IF classic. Of course it's simplistic, both from its puzzles and its parser, and it's text only without any graphics, but it's still WAY better than 95% of all those horrible BASIC adventures, and I'd say every adventure lover should have played it at least once. It also allows you to save and restore your game, which back then wasn't self-evident.

The Bad
The pretty much only gripe I have is that for CGA cards, they chose the 40-column text mode, which makes the whole thing very tedious to read. (Guess they chose this because on composite monitors, the 80-column text mode wasn't very readable either.)

The Bottom Line
Nowadays I would probably use a Z-code port of Colossal Cave, but it's still a great game for what it is, and a highlight of the very early PC game library.

As an aside, I find it kinda ironic that Microsoft produced this and slapped a copyright and "Unauthorized Duplication Prohibited" onto it, when the original was public domain... a few years earlier they had been whining about software piracy in their "Open Letter to Hobbyists", but apparently they have no problems trying to make money with the work of other people.

The Good
Simulates a blackjack gambling session. Also includes splitting your set if you have two equal cards, and you can also double the bets. The user interface is pretty neat for its age -- the DOS text graphics are nice and it's controlled via key presses. There's also lots of PC speaker bleeps and bloops, which in this case I found kinda charming.

At the end of the game, you get a nice little summary which even lists the average time you needed to make a decision.

The Bad
Nothing, really, except that it's of course just a 43-year old Blackjack game, so nothing special really.

The Bottom Line
Nothing to write home about, but it's a fun little blackjack gambling game that is still playable and does what it's supposed to.

The Good
Firstly, I like the concept. I have to reassemble pieces of the weapon that can stop Ollie Ogre from getting my girl. If I guess wrong, I have get rid of a bomb. Secondly, I like the effort put into the 2600 version. Gameplay is good and graphics and sound do the job. Even a simple intro screen adds class.

The Bad
I suppose it would be nice to have better graphics and sounds …but this is the 1983 2600 you know.

The Bottom Line
People, don’t sleep on this game. All versions are good. You have action with memorization. Can’t beat that!

The Good
The first screen has some DK elements…jumping barrels, climbing your way to save the girl. I still find it boring.

The Bad
The 2nd screen with the sliding fireballs is pathetic. Coleco obviously had little resources left to do justice to DK.

The Bottom Line
So the question is…why bother? To make a profit on their license? I’m a fan of tons of 2600 games…this isn’t one of them.

The Good
John Harris developed a great Pac-Man clone, Jawbreaker, for the Atari 800 in 1980. When Atari purchased the licence for Pac-Man, they began to threaten law suits against clone developers. Thus, Harris created a different Jawbreaker for the 2600, which was eventually ported to other computers. The 2600 game is way better than the computer ports. Couldn’t believe that I chose slow game and it was still fast.

Evidence of Harris’s genius: look at those 3D smiley faces…cool! I managed on slow to get up to skill 8. The AI increases until the faces seem real and become more aggressive. It was a fun game.

The Bad
Too bad Harris wasn’t given the rope to do a true Pac-Man on the 2600. I bet you it would have been impressive!

The Bottom Line
This is a great game. I played game 5 slow so far. Are you brave enough to try medium speed? or heavens…..fast?!

The Good
Nice action game, shooter.

The Bad
Don't see anything as downsides.

The Bottom Line
Nice shooter, great fun.

The Good
The good thing about this game is, it is small in size & very convenient! Also it is delightfully entertaining, especially with it's brightly colored delicious looks & with the thrills of it's spinning reels! Absolutely Awesome!

The Bad
The bad thing about this game, is only that if you don't have it to play & enjoy, then you're losing out on a real good time & a whole lot of fun! Other than than that, then it's all good!

The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line is that this game is so neat & cool & extremely fun to play! you'll just never know what you're missing, until you actually get to play it!

The Good
A game I purchased for my Intellivision back in the day. The visual of the large high rise, I’m assuming it’s the Empire State Building, was very impressive for us console owners. The game moves very fast: collect hearts , up open windows, avoid obstacles and try to get to the top of the Empire to get your girl away from Kong! It’s a fun challenge.

The Bad
After a while, you’ll get tired of constantly trying to outmatch Kong.

The Bottom Line
It’s obviously a Donkey Kong clone. I bet you they didn’t have the rights. Oh well, early game developers got away with one. Better for us gamers!

The Good
Engaging Stories: The game features a variety of short stories that explore characters deeply and creatively, giving fans new insights into the cast.

Character Development: By stepping away from Okabe as the sole protagonist, other characters are brought into the spotlight, enriching the overall narrative experience.

High-Quality Visuals: True to the Steins;Gate series, the art and design are polished, maintaining the distinct aesthetic fans adore.

Expanding the Universe: It builds on the fascinating world of Steins;Gate, adding layers and depth to the lore in unexpected ways.

Perfect for Fans: As a complementary addition to the series, it offers a satisfying exploration of beloved characters that dedicated fans will likely appreciate.

The Bad
Inconsistent Pacing: Some stories can feel slow or overly drawn-out, which may test the patience of those looking for more action or a faster narrative flow.

Varied Writing Quality: While the overall storytelling is compelling, a few scenarios might feel less impactful or polished compared to the main Steins;Gate game.

Limited Appeal Beyond Fans: The game's reliance on prior knowledge of the Steins;Gate universe might make it less accessible to newcomers who aren’t familiar with the series.

Localization Quirks: The translation is solid overall, but there are minor issues that could distract players who are sensitive to linguistic nuances.

The Bottom Line
Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram is a captivating companion piece to the original Steins;Gate, offering an emotionally rich and diverse narrative experience. While its slower pacing and reliance on series familiarity may not appeal to everyone, fans of the franchise will likely appreciate the deeper exploration of beloved characters and their lives. It’s a worthwhile addition to the Steins;Gate universe for those craving more storytelling variety and character development.

The Good
Take an Invaders style shooter, add 3d to it, and then put it inside a vast map of a lunar outpost base with installations that you need to protect with your Lunar Attack Vehicle, the LAV.

Waves of Zytrons (flying saucers) attack the base by moving in waves from the maps edges and circling around until they spot an important building to bomb: powerplant, ammuntions depot or repair workshop, If all buildings are destroyed, you lose. Protect the base from 14 to 28 days to win.

The lunar outpost that gives you an overview of the attack waves and how badly your outpost has been damaged after each attack wave.

You intercept them by chasing after the Zytrons and pushing Fire when you're close by to engage in combat. You switch to a bottom-up screen where your LAV shoots up trying to hit the attackers, and they shoot down.

It's in 3d, so you can move your LAV into the distance to try and intercept approaching UFOs before they reach the front, where their attacks can harm any buildings you are trying to protect. It adds a little spice to an otherwise classic Invader shooter type.

Buildings near you on the map will appear on the battlefield at the bottom, and it's your job to protect them from attackers who fly in from above.

The cool part is that those buildings act as support for your LAV, holding energy, ammo and reparation. So each time one is knocked out, you have one less to support you with energy, etc.

There are many more advanced features that I like, but most importantly, it's fun and turns difficult in a way that's also fun. I liked it 40 years ago, and I still like it.

The Bad
A few runs can take hours, and the shooting action suffers from the same as I find with any other Invaders style, that I find it boring after a while. All the strategic stuff doesn't improve on that basic gameplay experience.

The Bottom Line
It's good, I don't understand the lukewarm reception it got back then, I'd give it 4 out of 5.

The Good
You know, I’ve played this for years. And I still have fun with it warts and all. After all, this was a successful product. Sold 7 million 2600 copies!

The Bad
So, some kids received this at home in 1982 and had a blast. Others, had played the arcade version and were horrified. Doesn’t look the same. And what’s that weird flickering?!

The Bottom Line
You may be put off by the audio visual or the flickering. But others like me recognize it as a piece of gaming history and enjoy it for what it is!

The Good
- Environmental storytelling
- Vertical exploration
- Climbing puzzles

The Bad
- Unresponsive controls
- Sometimes unclear where to go

The Bottom Line
Up front it appeared Jusant would be right up my alley. I love vertical exploration. I love exploring desolate, mysterious and alien worlds. No combat. Sign me up!

The world of Jusant is explained both through environmental exposition and written logs found in the game world. I found I got tired of reading the logs quite quickly and didn't really gave them much more than a glance-over later in the game. The environmental storytelling is really well done however. Despite its weird and alien nature and the complete absence of any other person, it feels lived in and an actual place that was.

I didn't enjoy the climbing controls much. At first it just took a while to get used to. Once it clicks it works quite well, but frequently the protagonist would just refuse to grab handholds which seemed easily within reach and which were pointed at with their hands. The mechanics are very animation driven which also frequently made the buttons feel very unresponsive and made climbing more like a burden. The fact that most actions in the game require a press and hold instead of a press didn't help with this feeling.

The climbing puzzles are usually quite intuitive, and not particularly difficult. They get more creative further in the game, and usually feel like they have multiple possible solutions. There were some points in the game where I was very confused on where to go. There was one point where the exit was more or less hidden. Another where I walked into a large optional dead-end not realizing I had to get back, and another time where the camera would be in a fixed position in which the location I had to swing to was out of view and impossible to get into view. These points in the game caused some unnecessary frustration but were luckily quickly solved (the last one did require me to look up a solution online).

In the end I had fun exploring the world of Jusant, albeit in a journey that was slightly more frustrating that I would've hoped and think was intended. It could have been more relaxing.

The Good
Ahem……..The 2nd round features some large animated birds. As you shoot, small pieces of them disappear, unless you manage to hit the centre. Wait a minute…..Phoenix??….. Never mind . The last round features the boss…a collection of winged avengers surrounded in a large bird like shape. I find the electronic sounds charming.

The Bad
The opening level is challenging but graphically wanting. There’s these sad little unanimated faces (?) you shoot at. And your ship is…..a little tiny Chinese pergola??!

The Bottom Line
I never owned a Spectrum. And my first impressions of their games was….what?! However, I’ve grown to appreciate and enjoy their ingenuity. Avenger is a very early shooter. Good for a few tries. Have fun.

The Good
What that’s a fun racer. I like the colours. What?………You say this can be played as a basic RPG?! (A week later…….) Yah, I had fun with this. This is one time where I didn’t mind being challenged to a battle!

The Bad
Don’t expect great graphics in the RPG. That memory was saved for the racer.

The Bottom Line
Seriously, you can play this as a racer or a quest. And you’ll have fun both times!

The Good
The graphics look good, while don't look good as original arcade game and the cloud isn't animated (see #The Bad: Atari ST port, as that port has cloud moving), but that's about it.

The Bad
This is pure worse port already bad of Atari ST port, it not only runs terribly slow, and controls badly, I can't even do Hadoukens which just like original Arcade game which already hard to super moves, due to the poor AI, I can hardly to get to Sagat, the soundtrack isn't that good and only contains only 3 tracks, which only two used in stages are Retsu and Birdie. I played this game via WHDLoader on the emulator, and the game runs way too fast, still not better.

The Bottom Line
This port was done by Tiertex, who infamously terrible at porting arcade games to home computers, not wonder why Capcom bother to licensing their exclusive home computer version rights in Europe to US Gold/Go! at that time, not to mention this version also released in the US, and published by Capcom USA themselves, Tiertex later made a unofficial sequel titled Human Killing Machine which even worse than this, and even before the official sequel Street Fighter II came out, don't try this if you want a near arcade-perfect home port, try the PC Engine CD version instead.

The Good
NOTE: This game has two C64 ports, I was going to submit US and UK ports separately, however each version on the same platform I can only submit one.

UK version: This has background scrolling smoothly, just like original arcade-game, and featuring good remixed soundtrack, while only 5 music were in this port.

US version: This port looks good, and plays reasonably well, featuring more music tracks than UK version albert not quite good as, it controls well.

The Bad
UK version: The graphics, look terrible, it's nothing but like Atari 2600 game, the controls are even worse than already bad original arcade version, bad controls, cheap ai, also there is no continues unlike the original arcade version, making it hard to be the game.

US version: Sagat, who is the final boss of original arcade game, is missing, even the UK version has that, likely due to storage limitations to fit on cassette tape. just like UK version, not all stage backgrounds are featured in, also unlike UK version, bonus mini stages are removed.

The Bottom Line
UK version: 1/5 US version: 3/5 In Europe has both floppy disk with only UK version and cassette tape with both versions format available, while in the US has only floppy disk with US version available, both versions were done by different developers: UK version by Tiertex, US version by Pacific Dataworks, both companies who badly at porting arcade games to home computers, this US C64 version is better than UK version due to more playable, it's really interesting that a EU cassette tape release format can let you choose version to play depending on which side you inserted in.

The Good
The gameplay is still mostly same as the original arcade version on par with Mega Drive port, this port featuring greatly remixed soundtrack, and even sounded better than that included one on the PlayStation (Strider Hiryu 1+2), through not all music were remixed here, this port is also notably for a option extra stage: oil field, and a few original enemies, also new anime-style animated cutscenes with voice acting, this port also features more checkpoints, like a some home ports of this game, you can change the difficulty and number of lives.

The Bad
The gameplay, while mostly faithful to original arcade game, is altered, the collision detection is questionable in this port, aside from awesome anime-style cutscenes, the in-game graphics don't look that good as Arcade original or Mega Drive port, and some of them are completely redrawn, then background layers limits only to one, sometimes it gets sprite-flicking and slowdown (for this console limitations I can understand). some parts are also missing such Tyrannosaurus didn't appear in Amazon stage, the exclusive extra stage in this port, Oil Field, is somehow way too easy challenging unlike other stages.

The Bottom Line
This port requires you Arcade Card to play, if you didn't insert Arcade Card, you will get a hilarious manga/comic that shows Strider is defeated by Grandmaster Meio due to he didn't get Arcade Card, which looks very faithful to its original manga counterpart, for a PC Engine CD Arcade Card port of the Capcom Arcade game, this isn't that bad as Tiertex/US Gold's home computer and Sega Master System ports, but lackluster when compared to Mega Drive and Sharp X68K ports especially this port came after 5 years of original Arcade release, this port was done by Dice, who worked with HAL Laboratory for some titles, if you have this game and interested in, it is worth for give a try.

The Good
This version is an excellent example of a fixed screen shooter. While the Apple is the lead format, the 800 was out early in 1981 too! The Apple version got lots of accolades. Why not the 800? My understanding is the Apple had good colour and playability potential but shitty audio. In that case, the 800 wins. The audio is important to me.

The Bad
Ok, so 800 doesn’t do as well on Sprites as the Apple 2.

The Bottom Line
This is a great example of a fixed screen shooter. Play it.

The Good
3D graphics galore. Colours and backgrounds are used in a way that works with the fantasy and sci-fi themes. If the graphics were just for show and something for girls to gawk at, that's the only positive thing this game offers. Interestingly, some of the outfits you can dress the sailor scouts into are positively tasteful. Also the Soundblaster music has nice rings and vibes. And so I've given pros and ins where its due, now for the cons and outs.

The Bad
There is no real gameplay in this mini-game activitiy centre. All you do is just watch video clips, peek at screencaps, look at trivial information and listen to droning documentary, while watching 3D ragdolls doddle on stage. Voiced narration and stock sound effects are pretty weak choices throughtout. From the small collection of mini-games, that arcade style mini-game isn't much of a game with Usagi, Serena or whatever people like to call her is waving her moon scepter like a feather duster at balls of light. Where's the youma? Where's the epic fight against evil forces? More of a letdown than a showdown.

The Bottom Line
What this game boils down to is a collage of graphics, a scrapbook of flavour text, and a walk in the park fetch quest to get a bunch of stationary...err...transformation pens. This has all the standards and awkwardness of Sonic's Schoolhouse or an average 3DO game. In the end this run of the mill activity centre is not a PC-CD worth investing in. It's one in a million cash grabs to push the DIC dub to school and home computer grounds. If this had been based on the original Japanese anime with some manga references, maybe it would be worth having, but as it is, you can't get more than what you've watched on your television. If a live-action Sailor Moon activity ever emerges, wouldn't that be a whole new world of fun?

The Good
The game plays very well with smooth controls similar to the arcade. Nice to have two buttons for thrust and shoot. There are extra playability options like splitting the play area into two. But the best part is the soundscape uses 2 voices. You get the arcade music when you win plus intro and exit music.

The Bad
Game does not use vectors. The Death Star does not chase you around.

The Bottom Line
A fun shooter with lots of options. The best of the home ports.

The Good
I guess Space Invaders is one of those games you just have to play at one point or another. The Atari 2600 version isn't a bad choice to play. It feels quite similar to the original arcade version. I actually thought the sound was better than the arcade version's. Or well, at least it is less mind-numbingly aggravating.

As far as graphics go: well it's the Atari 2600 so we can't expect much, but they get the job done. The aren't overshadowed by its big brother on the arcade, which is good.

The Bad
The game is rather hard, just like its arcade counterpart. The start of a level is alright, but once there are only a few invaders left they will fly around the screen like mad, which makes timing your bullets right quite difficult.

Quite frankly I couldn't say I had the dedication in me to try to master this game so that I could get really far. It might have been one of the best games ever when it was released, but as far as I'm concerned I'd say it was quickly surpassed by others of its genre like Galaxian, Galaga, Asteroids and Missile Command.

The Bottom Line
Space Invaders can be fun to kill some time with, but I doubt anyone these days will want to spend hours on it to become a real pro. There are just better games in this genre that have more depth and variation to them, which make them a lot more fun.

Space Invaders is definitely a game you should play at one point in your life, for its historical relevance. Though I would recommend the MAME version for that since it emulates the original Arcade game. Though the Atari-2600 version is a good second if you can get your hands on it.

The Good
1. Lots of huge atmospheric levels.
2. Many terrifying monsters, each making a debut appearance in special locations for effect, and every one requiring a unique approach!
3. Intense gameplay focused on survival, caution, and resource management.
4. Presence of brutal Fatalities!
5. Perfectly chosen, haunting, atmospheric music that effectively evokes fear and despair.
6. A very unusual main character!
7. Well-crafted cutscenes between levels that encourage continuing the game.
8. Cutscene and intro music by Rob Zombie.

The Bad
A bit of the same type of battle

The Bottom Line
Nightmare Creatures 2, released for the PS1, is a survival horror game set in 1934. Players take on the role of Herbert Wallace, a former patient of the sinister occultist Adam Crowley. Wallace escapes Crowley's hospital in London and embarks on a journey to stop Crowley's plan to unleash a horde of mutants on the world. Along the way, Wallace encounters Rachel, a member of a secret society opposing Crowley, and faces various enemies and challenges, including zombies and a climactic battle on the Eiffel Tower. The game is known for its dark atmosphere, intense combat mechanics, and haunting soundtrack, featuring music by Rob Zombie. It combines exploration, survival, and brutal Fatalities to create a gripping horror experience.

The Good
gives you lots of challenging & funny gaming hours, not only in front of the screen - especially when you want to get to the bottom of it * music can be deactivated, non-important sound-files can be deleted or moved out of the folder * the challenge is very strange: usually you trust the manual, screen messages etc. but lots of your assumptions will turn out wrong, and that´s a real goody that has sadly been taken out by later remakes that therefore went boring. * can still be played 25 years later on windows 10 in a virtual machine environment, although it can stutter * offers different ways to succeed. it´s up to you to set individual goals, like having 100% at every score-pillar, speedrun, saving the lives of soldiers, most beautiful city, etc. finding out the innermost game mechanisms is also a real hard challenge. your head will be smoking for lots of days. * as a simulation it also offers lots of things to try out. e.g. in one level you can build a defensive wall, where all 6 legions of caesar will get permanently wiped out without a single man loss at your side. besides the levels there are additional game maps included. they appear when you have solved all the 11 levels. * different courses through the levels possible: peaceful or military way or mixed as you like * offers lots of details - there are war-elephants, war-camels, earthquakes, etc. also the challenges can be very different in each level. * difficulty is well adjustable, but remember - nothing is what it seems to be!

The Bad
game control is not optimized. you will often have to look inside some menu for information that should´ve got displayed in the main screen * save-file names are limited. so you cannot have large comments per file. also the number of save-files displayable is limited in the viewer (but not by saving). * extremely challenging which can bring you down. the levels grow not linear in difficulty. but today you can get lots of more or less helpful help from youtubers. but you want to solve it your way, don´t you? * takes dozens of hours of you lifetime, so it´s only for those who have lots of spare time * although you can set the gaming speed in 10 steps, this is not sufficient. sometimes you would like even more speed. and using 90% or 100% is buggy! in fights your army and towers will be less good, and sometimes the machine can lock up. so save often.

The Bottom Line
A really nice simulation, still a quarter century after it´s release. Attention: The original from 1998 is far more challenging than the later remakes.

The Good
A Moon Cresta clone written for Apple and Atari way back in 1981. You have 3 stages of your ship to destroy the incoming invaders. In other to see all stages of the invaders, you must shoot them down without getting hit. Otherwise you start over with the next part of your ship. Really nice details in the game. The background space sounds are pleasant. The stars twinkle and your rocket fire is animated.

The Bad
The graphics are simple but quite adequate for way back in 1981.

The Bottom Line
Sirius produced a lot of fun arcade style games back in the early 80s. Perfect for retro gamers.

The Good
One of the great things about Capitalism Plus, imo, is that it has a great tutorial (to help you get started). Like, for example, another review implies that when one of your locations is losing money, that the game doesn't give you enough information to figure out WHY (and hence correct it): This is false, as it is clearly stated in the Tutorial that Consumers will base their purchasing decisions on Price, Quality, & Brand. And since you can review products sold by competitors, you will know whether you need to increase quality, decrease price, or invest in advertising.

The Bad
There are only a few minor flaws in Capitalism Plus:

First is that good, quality farmland is hard to come by and there's no way to invest in fertilizer that will increase the quality of your crops.

Second is that there aren't a huge selection of Executives that you can hire as your VP. Altho, this is probably deliberate as you will have to choose a VP with the specific strengths & skills you're looking for.

Third, if you're running a large scale operation, with revenue in excess of hundreds of billions of dollars, there is only so much you can compensate your VP before he decides to leave: Which if I remember correctly, is about $2.1 billion.

So, I guess the original developers never conceived of players reaching such a level and so, they thought that the maximum value of a 32-bit integer was good enough. Luckily, total revenue can go well beyond this limit.

Finally, there is a flaw that effects replayability: That is that there exists the best starting product in the game AND there is also the best product in the game: And unfortunately, these two products will never change. So once you figure them out, the starting pathway and mid-game objective will usually be the same.

Altho, the developers have done a good job at addressing this issue with different scenarios: I just wish that there was a little more RNG and variance in this area (for custom games). Like, randomize the market so that these two products are different for each new game.

Unfortunately, there's no option to contract for Market Research services: So, you have do that yourself (which would be a pain with more randomization). Nor will the game allow you to become a Big, Fat Cat DOD Contractor manufacturing Fighter Jets for billions of dollars (or selling screws for $70,000 a piece):

The Bottom Line
But, beyond that, you can let your creativity run wild with how you want to run your business: What to name it. Who to hire as VP. Which products you want to focus on. And different strategies for maximizing profits !!! And also where and how to spend those profits :P

Like, this goes well beyond merely re-investing into your business: It includes your own personal compensation package (via shareholder dividends) as well as the option to invest in stocks and even do hostile takeovers on other Corporations !!!

Truly a phenomenal game, imo !!!

The Good
Created in 1981, the asteroids actually move independently, unlike the 2600. The UFO is cool too.

The Bad
Okay, so it uses a lower graphics mode and has few colours.

The Bottom Line
I prefer the 800 Asteroids. A nice achievement for 1981.

The Good
Endless combinations of scores, multipliers, and cards. Each round is completely random and one-of-a-kind. You can fine tune the speed of the gameplay, which I found to be quite helpful as I have a bad attention span. Cards are easy to memorise and gameplay is smooth. Gameplay wise, there is a lot to learn, it's completely worth the time.

The Bad
VERY unforgiving. New players will find it easy to lose early on if unfamiliar with poker.

The Bottom Line
Definitely play this game if you wanna spend days thinking about it.

The Good
The story is fun, and the music & graphics are excellent. A ton of care went into the presentation of the story.

The Bad
Everything else. The dungeon-crawling & Pokémon-style battles are a slog, most of the dialogue "choices" end with the same response, making the "social sim" aspects shallow.

The Bottom Line
No clue why it's as hyped as it is. It plays like one massive cutscene.

The Good
Of course, game is an unlicensed clone of Lunar Lander. You get a closeup as you near the landing pad, just like the arcade. A nice touch.

The Bad
Oh heavens, they stole the Galaxian jingle!

The Bottom Line
Originally for Vic 20, basic difference is one is red and one is green. Graphics are plain, but the gameplay is great!

The Good
It’s amazing what David Crane could do with only 2 KB! Of course there are tricks. The two fishermen are actually the same drawing in reverse.

The Bad
Who can catch the most fish? That’s it…no more screens.

The Bottom Line
Fun against the computer or a friend.

The Good
Playability is good. Also have difficulty options.

The Bad
Plain graphics…what do you expect?

The Bottom Line
Atari created a good home port.

The Good
Great style (very nostalgic. Easy and straight-to-the-point gameplay Smooth animations Simple controls Endless numbers

The Bad
Can be unforgiving often Not sure what else

The Bottom Line
You should definitely play this game! It's a fun experience, and an easy way to entertain yourself.

The Good
Simple in design, amazing playability,really.

The Bad
Only 2KB! No room for extras.

The Bottom Line
Fun in 2 player mode or vs computer.

The Good
Love the use of digital audio samples. The Herge characters are all present and nicely animated. While the gameplay is ok, the 1989 AV is out of this world! The Amiga version appears to be faster and harder?

The Bad
Gameplay is a bit limited. Too hard?

The Bottom Line
Too hard in the platform section! Atari version has much fairer gameplay!

The Good
Love the use of digital audio samples. The Herge characters are all present and nicely animated. While the gameplay is ok, the 1989 AV is out of this world! The Amiga version appears to be faster and harder?

The Bad
Gameplay a bit limited.

The Bottom Line
Play if you are a fan of Tintin.

The Good
Genesis faster CPU,for 1990, actually does a nice running 3D driving simulator. Audio of car is nice too. Crashes are funny.

The Bad
Ok so it’s dated with the polygons and stuff. Oh, you can slide off the course. Whatever.

The Bottom Line
If you like Retro games, the Genesis works very well and is quite enjoyable.

The Good
Satisfying Terraforming Progression: Watching the barren planet transform into a vibrant ecosystem is immensely rewarding.

Accessible Gameplay: The balance between survival challenges and simplicity ensures it's enjoyable for both casual and seasoned players.

Creative Crafting and Building: Intuitive systems make it easy to design and construct bases, machines, and other essentials.

Replayability: Different starting locations, difficulty levels, and hidden secrets encourage multiple playthroughs.

Atmospheric Evolution: The shift in visuals as the planet evolves adds a layer of immersion and accomplishment.

The Bad
Visuals Could Be Improved: While effective, the graphics feel a bit outdated compared to other modern games.

Repetitive Gameplay Elements: Some players may find the resource-gathering loop and crafting tasks become monotonous over time.

Limited Narrative Depth: The lack of a strong storyline or character development might leave players craving more context or emotional engagement.

The Bottom Line
The Planet Crafter offers a uniquely satisfying blend of survival, crafting, and terraforming. Its engaging progression system and replayability make it a standout in its genre, despite minor limitations like repetitive tasks and dated visuals. For players seeking a creative and relaxing survival experience, this game is well worth exploring.

The Good
I love the beautiful parallax scrolling with huge designed backdrops, the funky soundtrack, the exaggerated funny Japanese voice acting, the bad English translation, the huge bosses, different difficulty settings, etc.

The Bad
Apparently not as well designed as X4

The Bottom Line
Too much to like even it has a few faults.

The Good
Fantastic MetroidVania * Some cool powers * Super smooth gameplay * Healthy mix of combat and puzzle-platforming

The Bad
Can get rather frustrating, but luckily mostly in the optional content. * Switch couldn't keep a stable framerate in all areas.

The Bottom Line
The game starts a bit more story heavy and linear before it manages to open up and shine. Once it does it becomes a fantastic, but mostly by-the-book MetroidVania game. The world is quite big and looks great. You unlock mostly typical powers like a hook-shot, double jump, something to by-pass a door etc. But for a bunch of the powers there are additional ways to use them both in combat and puzzle areas which adds another level of depth. A bunch of bosses need to be fought to show you got your unlocked powers under control.

The game adds some character customization. The charms seem interesting at first, but most just aren't that interesting except in very specific situations. Some add cool abilities, but in the end I just ended up picking those that flat out make me more powerful in combat. Athra Surges all seemed quite similar and more often activated by accident than intentionally. So in the end the customization wasn't all that rewarding for me.

Controls are super smooth as you'd expect/hope from a MetroidVania and it's cool to explore all the locations, which all have their own twist. The game has some cool throwbacks to older games in the series. But at other times I felt like I ended up in a Rayman level instead. Where the game tries to establish a believable gameworld at the start, mid-game it lets go of all pretense and focuses fully on the gameplay with very silly premises. Luckily I love Rayman. The silliness also extends to the story which tries to be serious at the start, but at some points revolves around murdering the entire cast to convince them you are being framed. And each of them realizes you must have been right since you could defeat them in their dying breath? What?

That brings us to the platforming. There's quite a lot of intense platforming sections. If you keep on the main path they become quite tough, but remain fair. For some of the optional treasures and a specific challenge section the fairness is debatable. In any case I didn't find enjoyment in learning movement patterns lasting several minutes and gave up on some of them. For the challenge rooms especially they also dictate which powers you can or cannot use, so you can't even come back later when you are more powerful, which is kind of one of the great things about MetroidVanias... Guess I won't get this to 100% completion.

Some frustrations aside, in the end I'd rank this right beside my favourite MetroidVanias Ori and Hollow Knight. What it lacks in coherent world building it makes up with super smooth gameplay.

The Good
The cut scenes between the levels were pretty decent, and some of the dialogue could easily be from the series itself.

The Bad
The gameplay is boring and repetitive, almost all enemies are the same, and once you get the hang of how to beat them, you could use the same method to get through the eight levels of the game.

The Bottom Line
The only reason I ever bother with this game, is the fact I'm a huge BtVS fan, but even that wasn't enough to keep my interest and cause me to enjoy the game.

If you must consume EVERY Buffy content, you might as well watch a walkthrough of YouTube. You wouldn't miss much if you didn't play it yourself.

The Good
The Genesis version is a disaster design and playability wise. This 8-bit version, while simpler, looks great and plays great.

The Bad
A bit repetitive and a tad easy.

The Bottom Line
A terrific 8-bit platformer using Taz’s spin moves.

The Good
Looks like a Warner Bros cartoon.

The Bad
You start the game and what is this? What does this have to do with Taz? Waterfalls? It’s also difficult to jump off the waterfall. Iron head creatures? What the…..?

The Bottom Line
What a waste of resources. Poor planning, level and control design.

The Good
While visually the weakest of the Hardball ports, is there a better Atari 800 baseball game? Some bits of music mixed with great playability.

The Bad
Close to C64 version but not as strong visually.

The Bottom Line
A well designed, fun baseball game.

The Good
MSX1 version already has a nice soundtrack. But MSX2 brings in some lovely colours and sprite work. Plays very well too.

The Bad
The vertical scroll is a bit juddery.

The Bottom Line
One of my favourite 1942 Arcade ports!

The Good
The game world is well-realized, with an involving story of a cluster of Earth colonies divided into two factions struggling for control of a critical resource. As an intelligence agent playing the undercover role of a free trader, you have to make a living through mining, piracy or trade long enough and well enough to prepare yourself to take on missions and opportunities that arise as the interstellar conflict progresses and escalates. Many things throughout the game are well thought out by the designers and much of the game world just makes sense. The economy of the game is extremely well-balanced. Your ship and crew are a constant drain on your resources and making a living is difficult, but achievable. Small successes open the door to upgrades which make meaningful improvements in the overall efficiency of your operation, without tipping the balance too far. The manual is extensive, thorough and well-written. Studying the manual to understand the interactions of ship systems is critical to exploiting opportunities.
There is considerable freedom in how you approach the game. You can genuinely have economic success by specializing in any of the opportunities available, so long as you plan appropriately. Success in any of trading, piracy or mining requires having appropriate crew, investing in the right ship systems and planning/scouting to take advantage of the right opportunities. Some of this requires note-taking and experimentation to succeed. The game starts you off with a fully functional ship, a full fuel tank and enough credits to make some judicious investments, but not enough to optimize anything. Getting to peak efficiency is a slow but rewarding grind. The various game sections (navigation, ship-to-ship combat, close-quarters combat, mining, trading, adventure) are all fully realized and function well (comments on the interface below). The pace of the game is good. Every action takes time and the game events are scripted out over multiple years of in-game time. This gives you time to earn credits, develop your ship and crew, experiment with different activities without undue pressure to constantly be responding to requests from headquarters. When those requests come, you need to respond in a timely way and regularly checking for messages is necessary. There is plenty of warning in advance of the climax and enough hints on how to prepare, though even the ending gives you more than one way to succeed. The missions that the game sprinkles in are well-varied and include a text parser espionage mission, some sight-seeing expeditions, a mission to hunt down a certain starship and forcibly extract intelligence, a text parser wilderness adventure with some puzzles and a maze, some random starport NPC interactions and a final confrontation with multiple possible outcomes. News events are also broadcasted to you throughout the game period, at least one of which provides a significant economic opportunity that can be exploited for profit. A couple of the intelligence missions have significant rewards that are beyond anything you can purchase in the game if you are successful. The game makes it easy to save regularly and allows multiple save-games, so it is easy to experiment and backtrack if you want to. Insta-death is a possibility whenever you take an orbital shuttle to a planet, at certain times during text adventure segments and if you are targeted by a pirate while otherwise minding your own business.

The Bad
The main knock on the game would have to be the interface. Most of the game is operated through a menu interface which you can operate with either a mouse or context-sensitive hotkeys. Once you learn it, you can complete tasks fairly efficiently, but the hotkeys can sometimes be counterintuitive. In some cases, "X" will "exit" you out of a screen while in other cases, "D" will indicate you are "done". In one case "D" will also "dump cargo" in a context where you might think "done" will get you back to the previous screen.
Parts of the game play out in an Infocom-style text parser. I found these sections a bit frustrating for two reasons. First, the vast majority of time, you are simply navigating starports to reach a transaction terminal to load/unload passengers or sell ore/goods. This requires leaving your shuttle, travelling to the starport itself, passing through customs, navigating to the transaction room and then activating a terminal where you again enter into a menu-driven commerce interface. When you are done your business, it's back to the parser to exit the terminal, walk back to the transport platform, transfer to your shuttle, enter and ask your pilot to liftoff. Most of the starports have no other features besides the landing area, customs and a transaction room.
However, those starports that do have other features require working through the text parser to try to achieve some other objective, some of which will only open up once certain conditions are met. A couple of these text adventures were quite frustrating when it was difficult to come up with the expected syntax and one misstep could literally mean death. There were others where I was unable to make any meaningful headway, though it is possible certain locations were added just to provide a little colour to the world and there may not have been anything more to achieve. There is an underlying element of randomness to much of the game world that isn't apparent until you have spent a lot of time in the game and have documented certain outcomes. For example, running a resource scan on a planet can have wildly different outcomes, but you can only run one scan each time you enter a planet's orbit. Attempting to scan again just gives an error message and you would need to transit to another planet or star and then return in order to run another scan. To find an optimal mining site therefore requires saving your game, running a scan, aborting your game and restoring, then scanning again. Each planet will have a range of possible densities for each of the 4 ore types in the game, but it would be extremely costly to determine this range without abusing saves. Similarly, each planet makes approximately 20-25 trade-goods and prices fly by on a ticker. With careful observation, you can determine an average price for each good and identify when a "good deal" pops up. Taking that item to a suitable planet SHOULD result in a profit, but there seems to be a random inflation/deflation factor that takes effect both when entering the buying window on planet A and the selling window in planet B. If you aren't aware that you're in an inflated environment when buying on planet A, you may be unable to turn a profit even with very thoughtful buying. If the selling prices are depressed when you reach planet B, you are likewise in trouble. Again, you can overcome this by saving your game before heading down to the planet and reloading if prices are depressed (or just taking your shuttle back to your ship and then descending again, but that would require running through the repetitive text parser steps again). On one hand, these random factors simulate reality a bit better and force you to manage risk through research, but it takes a lot of in-game time and research to even know these variable outcomes are possible.
Playing this on an emulator would be brutal due to the number of disk-swaps required. I played this on an Apple IIe in the 80's and it was a real slog. Getting through the entire game would have been almost inconceivable at the rate that things ran. Now that it has been released on GOG, it is smooth, seamless and fast.

The Bottom Line
This is an ambitious, deep and well-balanced game. For me, it was fun and involving to come back to this game decades after originally playing it and being stumped. Even that frustrating childhood experience of almost 40 years ago stayed with me though and I was excited to try this again. Nearing the end of my second full playthrough, it has been a real pleasure.

The Good
Really liked the 2D graphics and suspense gameplay.

The Bad
Had some performance issues at launch (especially on Steam Deck), but as far as I can tell they have been fixed.

The Bottom Line
Give it a try if you like the FNAF universe or any good 2D pixel art suspense horror.

The Good
Ah…….at first I just moved right and was stuck. Didn’t know you jumped up through an opening! Hey! There’s something wrong with this game! Ha-ha!

The Bad
Budget game…short, simple graphics

The Bottom Line
Fun budget ninja game with cute eastern music background. Enough said!

The Good
The environments, fighting tactics (combos), sound effects, combat variety, and narrative.

The Bad
The controls are not always precise, and there are battles where two enemies (one with a spear, for example) attack you at the same time, making the fight nearly impossible to overcome.

The Bottom Line
I highly recommend playing this video game.

The Good
Sure audio is simple but pleasant and well designed. Sure, graphics are simple but are functional. Playability is awesome. You have to use your points to manage your weapons, your armour,etc. Makes for a fun game.

The Bad
Simple audio visual but functional

The Bottom Line
This was a well done arcade port. Had fun with it.

The Good
A “4”? Really? the game by design has not a lot to do since you have a targeting system. hello! This is not a simulation! so, your left with eye candy. So, does that work for me? ….yup! soundtrack by simmonds who created opening track on chuck rock? Yes sir! Awesome track. yes, visuals are a bit washed out in some scenes. Still, lots of good stuff.

i was actually considering an 8. 9? Yah, so blah!

The Bad
Not a lot to do due to targeting system.

The Bottom Line
Try it if you like mindless shooting and good music.

The Good
Great music. Good atmosphere. Variety in levels. Sense of accomplishment in advancing.

The Bad
Unforgiving to first-time players and hidden details about power of weapons that you won't know without a guide or playing a lot. Not the most polished of beat'em ups.

The Bottom Line
This game received some praise upon release and children at the time liked it, despite recognizing how hard it was. We just liked it AND thought it was hard. It wasn't until a certain Angry Nerd came along that it became intensely hated by so many.

I encourage you to give it a solid 2 hours of play with a guide nearby, and if nothing else to enjoy a true "late 80s" feel that comes from the music, visuals, and yes, even the weird difficulty scaling.

The Good
Great level design in visual and gameplay side. Very good, remarkable soundtrack and sound effects. Good arsenal, nice tactic mode.

The Bad
Old bugs (like rocket bug, grenade bug, ladder bug)

The Bottom Line
Game is abandoned, needs to be rereleased on Steam.

The Good
Sweet graphics. Decent gameplay.

The Bad
It takes a long time to launch the ball because of the long animated sequence of the ball being released by a mechanical device.

The Bottom Line
You could probably have more fun with Arkanoid or Arkanoid 2 revenge of Doh or indeed it's sequel that appeared on the Arcade and Super Nintendo.