Your country failed miserably in the World Cup, and having been appointed as the new manager, you must concentrate on the Nations Cup before preparing your team for the next World Cup. The game features all the players from over 50 countries, which is pretty good, although unless you play England, you're going to have to spend ages entering player details in. For some reason, a lot of people seemed to like this game. I don't; it's text only, for a start, and the match highlights go on for as long as ten minutes while a running commentary appears on the screen – not exciting stuff at all.

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Anyone who has ever been to London (or any other city in England, for that matter) will know how bad the traffic jams can be. You've been appointed the head traffic controller, and have to change the traffic lights manually so that the traffic flows smoothly. Inevitably, queues of cars build up and go off the screen, and if they become too large, the game ends. What is a novel concept for a game gives way to frustration after about a quarter of an hour. The graphics are awful with the cars represented as boxes, the sound effects are equally bad, and the game quickly becomes very monotonous.

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3

A colourful and exciting game in which you control a bouncing football and have to reach the other end of a course which is made up of coloured tiles – and lots of chasms, which of course you mustn't fall into. The tiles affect the ball in different ways depending on their colour. The course scrolls towards you so fast that you barely have time to look ahead, so remembering the layout of all fourteen courses is vital if you want to complete them. Fortunately, there's a practice mode which gives you lots of time to complete each course. The graphics are excellent and the scrolling is really fast and smooth, and the music only adds to the thrill and the tension – it's great stuff.

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9

An expedition of robots went to explore the planet Magellanx. Unfortunately, they left little Trakers behind, and now he's got to find 10,000 credits to get back to Earth. As soon as you play it, you'll realise that the game is based on the Dizzy series, where objects can be collected and used to solve puzzles. However, there are also lots of creatures to avoid, and some of them are far too tricky. The graphics are nice and cute and the sound effects are OK, but you'll become very frustrated at how quickly you lose your nine lives.

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Have you ever wanted to get lost in a trance and achieve a comatose state? Apparently, it can be achieved if you complete the six levels of this immensely challenging puzzle game. You have to fit twelve pentagonal shapes on to a sphere, and ensure that the numbers on each side of the pentagons match adjacent numbers in some way. It's every bit as confusing as it sounds! A prize was offered for the first person to complete this game, but I doubt if anyone ever did! I'm going to lie down and recover now (and get away from all those puns on the word 'trance')...

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Billions of years in the future, the sun has turned into a red giant. The human race established cities deep beneath the Earth's surface in order to survive. Most of them were eventually sent to other solar systems, but you have returned to Earth in your Transmuter spaceship to destroy the remaining defence systems. This is a very poor space shoot-'em-up from Codemasters; frankly, it's one of the worst games they released for the CPC, and I expected much better from them. The graphics are ugly and have been taken straight from the Spectrum, and the scrolling is appallingly jerky. The music is brilliant, though; it's the only positive thing about this game.

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Trantor
(Go!, 1987)
Reviewed by Chris Lennard

Sumptious-looking game from 8-bit programming legend Dave Perry, who was also behind Beyond the Ice Palace and Savage. You are Trantor, the last stromtrooper, who must escape from the alien planet that your starship crashed on, killing all your comrades. Against the clock, you must shoot your way past the inhabitant aliens in order to collect the various letters of the password that are stored around the aliens' underground complex which will ultimately allow you to escape, while collecting ammo, health and time bonuses along the way. The graphics, gameplay and sound (including speech on the loading screen) are all outstanding.

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Trap
(Alligata, 1987)

Your home planet is being attacked by an ally that was once peaceful. The question is whether violent destruction can be justified in the name of peace. This is a space shoot-'em-up with the addition that on each level, you must shoot a certain number of aliens and laser barriers, and bomb a certain number of boats before you can land your spaceship. You also have to replenish your fuel very regularly indeed. Once you have landed, you walk along the surface shooting monsters and collecting orbs which you can use on later levels to buy a better spaceship. The graphics are fairly colourful, albeit a bit blocky, but all the levels are exactly the same, and most players will switch off once they've realised this.

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Berk has to perform several tasks for 'him upstairs' by using the various bits and bobs lying around the castle, as well as requiring the assistance of some of the monsters lurking below the trapdoor. These tasks include preparing a can of worms, followed by boiled slimies, eyeball crush and fried eggs – yum! You'll need to watch out for the ghost who will scare you and take whatever you're currently holding if you're not careful! This is a fun little game which is geared towards children, although I'm sure the rest of you will also like it. The graphics are quite blocky but are still colourful, but there's almost no sound! Even so, the game really brings back memories of the children's TV cartoon that it's based on.

See also: Through the Trap Door.

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Now you can find out what it's like to be a binman! As the binman, you must collect all the bins from each street within a certain time. You can also chat with some of the people living in the houses and get bonuses, but watch out for cyclists and fast cars when you're crossing the road! The graphics might not look appealing, but they are clear. There's no sound to speak of – white noise when a car runs into you, and some extremely lame 'barking' noises – but it's a humorous game, with a lot of awful Spectrum-related jokes.

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