Obliterator
(Melbourne House, 1988)

A while ago, most of the Federation Star Fleet was wiped out by aliens, who have now built a gigantic spaceship, intending to destroy the Earth. You are a stowaway on the ship and you must shut down the plasma drive engines and recover some data packs containing vital information. The aliens are still waiting for you, though... The game uses an icon system which allows you to jump, pick up weapons and ammunition, shoot, and enter doors. This might work if you had a mouse, but you don't, and when you've selected an icon, it's usually too late. It has nice graphics and atmospheric music which increases the sense of loneliness, but the control system makes it too tough.

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You play the part of a spaceman who has been sent on a mission to a distant space station to re-initialise the various power terminals which have stopped working. You do this by whizzing around using your trusty jet-pack, avoiding the station's defence mechanisms (lasers, androids etc.) and finding and using various items to proceed (for example, using pass cards to enter rooms). This is actually a pretty enjoyable game, with nice, bold, colourful graphics and decent sound, but I, being useless at 'jet-pack' games like this, just found it far too hard, with its masses of items and bad guys zooming towards you as soon as you enter the room. That said though, if you like adventure games, and take the time to map it out, and generally stick with it, you'll find there's a good, addictive game here.

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7

Nothing too groundbreaking here. You control a green lizard and must wander around a maze, until you've covered every inch of ground, at which point you go to the next level. Out to kill you are green eyeball monsters, which you can kill temporarily by firing projectiles at them. Add to the mix a few opening/closing doorways and you have Octoplex. Or at least you have the first two levels – the game is far too hard for me to get any further! The enemies fly around the maze at close to the speed of light, there's an ultra-strict time limit, and on top of that, you only have three lives! Yes, it's difficult, but it's still quite addictive and reasonably good fun. Also, it has lovely, colourful graphics and, in my opinion, one of the catchiest tunes on the CPC!

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5

L'Oeil de Set
(Ubi Soft, 1987)

Tyrkos the warrior has been called to the palace of the county of Okkmokk. The Eye of Set, a sceptre belonging to the ruler Fynsk, was stolen from him by the necromancer Atrackses, and guess what Tyrkos – that's you – must do? You are accompanied to an underground entrance which will lead you to Atrackses' lair, but from there, you're on your own, in a dungeon full to the brim with hazards and traps. This is a multiple choice text adventure in which you go from room to room and decide what to do from a list of options, many of which prove to be fatal. A small picture accompanies each room, and most of them are quite good. However, the text is rather difficult to read at times, even if you understand French, and the colours used in some rooms make it even more so. Still, it's an enjoyable game with lots of exploration to do.

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8

Yes, there was an official Father Christmas game, although sadly it's not much good. It's Christmas Eve and Santa has to get all the presents delivered to children around the world – but the elves have stolen the parts of his sleigh! You have to find them, but bump into an elf and it'll run away and steal your part again. When you've built the sleigh, you get to choose some presents, and then it's time to deliver some presents to four continents. It's clear from the start that the game is for young children, but the graphics are hardly going to appeal to them, and anyone else can complete the game on their first go, hence the low mark!

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5

Speedboat racing is more violent in the year 2049. Competitors try to force each other off the course, and firing missiles at each other to ensure that they win. You race around four courses, steering yourself between the buoys that mark the course, and avoiding crashing into your competitors. If you finish first or second, you can go to the next round. As I mentioned, you can use missiles to destroy the other racers, but you only have a very limited number of them for each course and they're highly inaccurate. The graphics are up to Titus' high standards and the scrolling is very fast, but the other competitors always seem to crash into you as they overtake you, losing you so much time that progressing to the next course is impossible. A good-looking game that suffers from being frustratingly difficult.

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5

This was one of the earliest games for the CPC and, boy, it shows. An archaeological dig is excavating some pyramids in Egypt, but there are mummies lurking in the chambers and they're out to get you! Each chamber has twenty boxes, and to get out, you must uncover the Pharaoh's sarcophagus and the key. The graphics are basic and the music is just an irritating ten-second tune repeated over and over again, but it can be switched off. It starts off being fun but there's no variety in it, and it's also too easy.

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4

Based on the anarchic, short-lived comic from the late 1980s (basically, Viz for kids), Oink! takes such memorable, hilarious characters as Tom Thug, Pete's Pimple and Rubbishman and somehow manages to deliver a truly boring game. The concept is different – complete three mini-games to unlock frames of a comic strip which can be read on completion. Unfortunately, the mini-games – a Breakout clone, a maze game and a horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up (the only one that actually features an Oink! character!) are so dull, difficult and repetitive that you'll never want to get that far in the game. The graphics are OK – nice and colourful – but the sound is unremarkable and the whole game is a waste of what could, no, should have been a great license!

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3

Show your talent as a matador as you chase Alfonso the bull around the ring, then coax him towards you by waving your red cloak. Then, when he's close, pull the cloak away. If you manage to do this enough times without being gored by Alfonso, a loop will be thrown into the ring, which you have to place around the bull's neck. If you do this, you then repeat the exercise, but Alfonso will be angrier. This game was released in the UK under the name of Raging Beast, and the game certainly got me into a rage. The controls are extremely unresponsive and getting the matador to move in the direction you want is annoying. There's hardly any variety in the game, either – you just do the same moves over and over again.

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3

Round blob Olli and his girlfriend Lissa are being held captive in a spooky castle by the ghost of Sir Humphrey. To become invisible (and thus scarier), Sir Humphrey needs eight ingredients to make a special potion. The ingredients are scattered all over Shilmoore Castle and Lissa is busy stirring the cauldron. So this leaves you, as Olli, to search the castle for the ingredients. Man, is this game difficult! Each room has ghosts floating around that you have to jump over to proceed, or it's back to the entrance of the room with you. Believe me when I say these jumps have to timed exactly to make it over the bad guys! On top of this you have a very strict timer which depletes whenever you touch an enemy – which is often! It's a shame, really, because the difficulty spoils what is basically a fun game.

See also: Olli and Lissa III: The Candlelight Adventure.

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