You've come home from the second-hand computer store with a floppy disc, but its label is so worn that you can't read it. Inserting it into your computer and running it, a menu appears. When you select any of the games, you find yourself inside the game itself – wow! This is a GAC text adventure in which you must collect objects from the four games and use them in other games. Of course, this is all in your imagination, and pinching your arm while you're in a game will take you back to your computer again. It's not the most taxing of adventures, but it's good fun, and quite strange as well.

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7

Hey, it's another Breakout-style game! So what makes this one better than the others? There are 100 levels, and the game also comes with its own screen designer allowing you to design ten of your own. You also get a password every ten levels so that you don't have to play the earlier ones. The way you collect bonuses is different, though – there are nine power-ups available, and to obtain them, you have to collect the right number of staples. It's one of the better games of this ilk – its main advantage being that you can actually complete the first few levels!

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7

Impossaball
(Hewson, 1987)

Now here's a frustrating game if ever there was one. You control a bouncing ball and move left and right along a horizontally scrolling arena. Starting on the far left, you have to knock the ball against some cylinders and avoid the various hazards such as spikes, mines, and the usual monsters, and then reach the far right of the arena before your time runs out. The graphics are a bit lacking in colour and the sound effects are simple, but the game really is 'impossaball', as there are too many awkward gaps you have to squeeze through, and it's so easy to touch the spikes.

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6

Monty Mole has been called out of retirement by some aliens to destroy five guardians. The adventure takes Monty through the Klondike mines, the Amazon rainforest, the Orient, and Iceland, before the final encounter in Bermuda. You can choose to play any of the first four levels in any order you want. This is a good thing, because if you had to start on a particular level, you'd never get to see the other four! It's a very difficult game, and even worse, you've only got one life. The graphics are very cheerful and colourful, but there's very little sound. Thankfully, you can play enough of the game to keep coming back to it, but it's still much too tough.

See also: Auf Wiedersehen Monty, Monty on the Run.

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7

Impossible Mission
(Epyx, 1986)
Reviewed by Chris Lennard

Evil Professor Elvin Atombender is engaged in a deadly game of nuclear blackmail. Using his supercomputer, he will crack the secret US nuclear missile launch codes in six hours, allowing him to destroy the world. Only Agent 4125 of the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) can stop him by entering his secret underground complex and shutting it down. With his pocket computer in hand, our hero must explore the complex rooms, avoiding the guard robots whilst searching the ordinary furniture within for passwords which enable to you to disable the bots, reset the navigation lifts and others which when combined will disable Elvin's computer. Rather ugly looking, no speech (unlike the Commodore 64 version) and extremely difficult – but a classic nonetheless.

See also: Impossible Mission II.

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6

Warped madman Elvin Atombender is back in another attempt at nuclear Armageddon, and after Agent 4125's previous success in spoiling the evil professor's plans, he is again sent in to stop him. This time he has to infiltrate his secret tower complex, and once more is taking the lifts in the rooms, jumping around hostile guard robots which have evolved to kill you in more varied ways, searching the everyday objects and furniture to get codes that can help you and which will enable you to end Atombender's nefarious scheme. Essentially more of the same, but simply better presented this time round with mild graphical improvements, but sadly still without the speech which the CPC is quite capable of.

See also: Impossible Mission.

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6

I don't recall this game being released for the CPC in the UK, but anyway... A Nazi agent has stolen a statue that Indiana Jones has uncovered, but he drops some papers about the lost city of Atlantis, and it turns out that the agent is working for Dr. Hans Ubermann, a physicist who is trying to build a nuclear bomb using a material called orichalcum. Indy knows that one of his colleagues, Sophia Hapgood, is interested in Atlantis, and the two of them set out to stop the Nazis. This is an arcade adventure which is viewed in an isometric perspective. Both you and Sophia have to find objects to enable you to pursue your quest. Initially things look good, but the game is at times grindingly slow and you spend too much time plodding around in frustration. It's subtitled 'the action game', but there's not a lot of action in it!

See also: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

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5

Indy is on a quest for the Holy Grail before the Nazis grab it. The four levels take you in a search for the Cross of Coronado, then going to a castle for the Crusader's Shield, acting as a stowaway on a flying Zeppelin, and finally, traversing pits and platforms to reach the Grail. There are some fantastic pictures from the film of the same name before you play each level, and there's a fairly good rendition of the theme tune, but the in-game graphics are monochrome, albeit detailed and well animated. The game's big let-down, though, is that it's too slow – Indy takes ages to land on the ground when he jumps.

See also: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

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5

Based (obviously) around the film of the same name, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a game that excels greatly on various levels, that lets itself down slightly in the most important aspect of all. To my delight, the graphics, though not groundbreaking, were clear and well animated. Indy is instantly recognisable. The sound also really impressed me. From the Indy theme tune right down to the crack of his whip, everything is spot on. So far, so good, but then comes the difficulty... this must rank as one of the hardest games ever to be created! The first level sees Indy rescuing slave children, while using his whip to stun the attacking Thuggee guards. The cavern is huge, pitfalls lie everywhere, and the guards attack in swarms! I like a bit of a challenge, but this is ridiculous! By the way, the second level sees you riding a mine cart. Sounds great, but you'll never see it!

See also: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

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7

This game is based upon Atari's Super Sprint and is a poor offering indeed. The game consists of racing endlessly (or so it seems) around one track. The computer-controlled car acts like it is drunk, moving in all directions, often blocking your progress. Simple graphics and only one sound effect make this a pointless addition to anyone's collection. Apparently, the company responsible for this terrible game soon disappeared and never released another game... I wonder why?

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