This is the first in a series of three Daley Thompson games. All of them became notorious for breaking more joysticks than any other game. I know I broke one or two of my own! Daley Thompson was a famous British athlete back in the early 1980s, breaking several records and winning gold medals at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics. In this game you get to take part in a decathlon, which as you should know, consists of ten events. However, to progress to the next event without losing a life, you have to qualify by setting a result within a certain time or distance. The sheer effort required for this is such that most people won't progress beyond the third event. And why does Daley look as though he's jogging rather than sprinting?

See also: Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge, Daley Thompson's Supertest.

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Unfortunately, Daley was beset by injuries in the 1988 Olympics at Seoul and came fourth, but maybe you can do better. The same ten events are here in this decathlon, and thankfully it is possible to progress in this game, even with the keyboard! Before you start the decathlon, you can do training; this affects how well you'll do in the events. You also have to choose the right trainers from a set of four before each event; choosing the wrong ones makes qualifying for the next event extremely hard, if not impossible. The graphics aren't bad (and Daley actually runs this time!), but the music and sound effects leave a lot to be desired.

See also: Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Daley Thompson's Supertest.

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Daley Thompson's Supertest
(Ocean, 1986)

Taking a change from the decathlon style, this game consists of eight very varied events (pistol shoot, cycling, diving, giant slalom, rowing, penalties, ski jumping, and tug of war), none of which feature in a real decathlon. All but one of them feature yet more frantic joystick waggling, and like Daley Thompson's Decathlon, it's almost impossible to qualify for them; you'd need to have Daley's strength to be able to do it! To add to the problems, the graphics aren't even good, and Daley seems to be noticeable by his absence in most of the events.

See also: Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge.

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Dames is known as draughts in the English-speaking world, and this is a pretty good version of the board game. You can play against another friend or the computer, and allow it to use one of four different strategies for playing the game (although what with knowing very little about draughts, I don't know what differences there are between them). The graphics are about as good as they can be, and you can choose between either a 2D or a 3D view of the board. The only complaint is that selecting which piece you want to move is a bit awkward.

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Help Dan Dare, the pilot of the future, to defeat the Mekon, evil leader of the Martians, in this comic styled platformer. The notorious green-hued brainbox has planted an atomic bomb inside a heavily guarded fortress on an asteroid and set it on a collision course with the Earth. Dan has to make his way around the innards of this celestial missile's inner complex and collect five keys held in different locations in order to activate the self-destruct system before it destroys its target (sadly you don't have the option of playing the hapless Digby). Formulaic stuff that's only slightly rescued by the characters involved, with the graphics not particularly endearing and naff sound effects to boot.

See also: Dan Dare II: Mekon's Revenge, Dan Dare III: The Escape.

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Dan Dare II: Mekon's Revenge
(Virgin, 1987)
Reviewed by Chris Lennard

This time the Mekon has created an army of Super Treens and sent them to conquer Earth on board a large spaceship. Dan must find and destroy all the Super Treens that are in stasis, while taking care to avoid the traps, force fields and normal Treens littered by your nemesis – all against a time limit. This time our hero rides a nifty laser-armed pod accompanied by Earth troops helping him in the firepower stakes. Alternatively you can amusingly play the Mekon himself in his own pod and set about activating the Super Treens instead with your Treens to aid you. A great looking and sounding CPC game with solid, albeit difficult, gameplay with double the challenge.

See also: Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, Dan Dare III: The Escape.

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Dan Dare III: The Escape
(Virgin, 1990)
Reviewed by Chris Lennard

Dan Dare is back and he's now equipped with a handy jet pack and armed to the teeth with a variety of weapons. A good thing, as the landscape he's been left in is populated with weird looking very un-Frank Hampson-like mutant creatures. Dan proceeds to the following levels by defeating a facsimilie of the misproportioned evil alien genius, the Mekon, in order to obtain a transport key. Transportation then involves guiding our hero successfully through a virtual tunnel made of suspended boxes in a vortex. This game heavily resembles another Probe game, Trantor, in both style and gameplay – not that this is bad. It plays well and is gorgeously presented.

See also: Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, Dan Dare II: Mekon's Revenge.

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Dandy is yet another in that long line of dungeon-based arcade adventures that tries to emulate the mighty Gauntlet and fails at just about every opportunity. The graphics are colourless, bland, extremely flickery and it's often hard to see what's going on. Even the Spectrum version had better graphics than this! The sound effects are pitiful – just a few zaps and explosions – and worst of all, the gameplay is spoilt by the sheer unresponsiveness of the controls. You'll know what I mean when you play it! And on top of this, you'll often come to doors that you can't open because you've just used the key to open a door that leads to a dead end – very frustrating! I love a good dungeon exploration game and this is nothing like a good one.

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Baron Greenback has built an android version of Dangermouse which is due to be released at tea-time today! Dangermouse and Penfold must thwart the Baron's plans in this three-part action game. The first part is a simple shoot-'em-up where you destroy the Baron's flying robots by playing the appropriate tune from the jukebox in Dangermouse's aerocar (!). The second part is a platform game in which Dangermouse must jump across swamps and climb trees, although if you're playing the easy version of the game, you don't have to complete this part, so you can go on to the third and final part, where you must extinguish all the yellow lights on a grid. The graphics are OK, as is the rendition of the Dangermouse theme tune, but the levels are much too short, and once you complete it – which won't take long – you won't want to play it again.

See also: Danger Mouse in Makin' Whoopee.

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Dangermouse has just received a telegram informing him of Baron Greenback's latest plan to take over the world. The Baron is manufacturing whoopee cushions to place in every seat in the United Nations building. The chaos that will ensue at the next meeting will allow him to become the leader of the world! Dangermouse must travel around Chicago in his aerocar and shut down the Baron's network of electricity stations and gas manufacturing plants. Chicago is represented as a gigantic maze which is shown on the screen, and if you head towards the dead ends, you will enter either a store room where you can exchange objects, or one of the factories where you must reach the top of the screen while avoiding the obstacles. The game overall is better than Dangermouse's previous outing, but driving around Chicago becomes rather monotonous.

See also: Danger Mouse in Double Trouble.

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