Parasol Stars (Ocean)

A worthy sequel to Rainbow Islands? Undoubtedly. An earth-moving, life-altering, boundary-shattering, transcendental game experience? Afraid not.

Willy Beamish (Sierra)

For adults, the chance to go back to childhood and misbehave is (not surprisingly) jolly good fun. However, the interaction is rather limited.

Space Crusade (Gremlin)

A great board game conversion. It'll have your alien-hating tendencies thoroughly tickled for hours and hours.

Titus The Fox (Titus)

A worthy successor to The Blues Brothers, though Titus The Fox doesn't perhaps improve significantly on its parent.

Special Forces (MicroProse)

Not exactly ill-thought-out, but certainly a very average and unenthralling military shoot-'em-up/strategy game thingy.

Ork (Psygnosis)

A poor relation to The Killing Game Show, Ork never comes near to capturing the same spark. It's a shame, but there you go.

Hare Raising Havoc (Disney)

The twelve people who buy this game will play it for maybe a day until they've guessed their way to the end. Good luck to them.

Red Baron (Dynamix)

It's probably as historically and technically accurate as anyone could wish for, but at the end of the day there's no denying the fact that it plays like a brick.

Panzer Battles (Strategic Studies Group)

More wargaming fun for those who like that sort of thing.

Vroom (Ubisoft)

It's faster than F1 GP, more playable than Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, prettier than OutRun Europa and a sillier name than Super Hang-On, this is a winner all the way... Perhaps the best all-round traditional driving game yet.

The Med Conflict: Battleset 3 (Electronic Arts)

A worthy addition to the Harpoon stable, and nicely priced too. (You will, of course, need the original Harpoon.)

Go (Oxford Softworks)

One of the most enjoyable and absorbing board games yet seen, and this is a good introduction to it.

Backgammon Royale (Oxford Softworks)

All the bits are there, but it seems a little pointless. And the manual is terrible.

Advantage Tennis (Infogrames)

A fairly good looking tennis game, and it has its moments, but ultimately it's just frustrating and a tad dull.

Dyna Blaster Bomberman (Ubisoft)

Expensive but very addictive Pac-Man variant, improved dramatically by the inclusion of a joystick adaptor for five player fun.

Maddog Williams (Game Crafters)

I didn't really like this much. While it's clear that loads of effort has gone into it, it's effort of the uninspired, not-really-giving-it-100-percent variety, and that never makes for a great game.

Chess Champion 2175 (Oxford Softworks)

It does what it does very well indeed, and presents a great means of improving your game.

Space Gun (Ocean)

Despite being Line Of Fire with aliens, Space Gun isn't bad. But Operation Thunderbolt is probably the better game.

Powermonger: WW1 Edition (Electronic Arts)

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure this represents much of an advance over the original PowerMonger. True, battles are a lot more exciting, with proper explosions. But the rest is essentially cosmetic.

Pinball Dreams (21st Century Entertainment)

Absolutely top-notch silver ball action, hampered only by a slight lack of imagination in the table design... You'll play this for years to come, and quite right too.

Chariots Of Wrath (Impressions)

I'm not sure what to make of this. It's a weird hotchpotch of PD-quality subgames. It's rubbish, obviously, but, If nothing else, it keeps you guessing.

Denaris (Rainbow Arts)

Don't expect anything quite as sublimely imaginative or groundbreaking as R-Type, but do expect a groovy alien-slaughtering experience that's looking very well for its age.

Blinky's Scary School (Zeppelin Games)

Just what budget games are all about (or supposed to be): simple, harmless fun with good graphics.

Renegade (The Hit Squad)

Rancid, revolting, repellent rot.

Cavitas (Nite Time Games)

A surprisingly slick one meg only arcade adventure, done the old fashioned way. Fab, groovy, and just a bit bodacious.

Venus: The Flytrap (GBH)

Anyone who's interested in simple, repetitive platform action is on to a winner here - there's loads of it, and it's cheap.

Edd The Duck (Zeppelin Games)

Tragic point-missing would-be Rainbow Islands rip-off that's one of the most primitive attempts at a platform game we've seen.

Tornado Ground Attack (Energize)

Sit down and write a computer game. (Even if you've never written one before in your life.) It'll be better than this.

James Pond (GBH)

Colourful, ingenious, humorous, easy to play... Even after I've finished every level, it's a game I'll come back to again and again.

Combo Racer (GBH)

An adequate simulation of the sport - in all ways except the playability stakes. Unfortunately Combo Racer's on a road to nowhere.

Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Off Road Racing (Virgin)

As good as Super Sprint racers get - not for everyone, but if you like the game style, this is the one to get.

Hare Raising Havoc (Disney)

A step in the right direction, but not admittedly that much of a game in its own right. The fun lies in the experience of the whole thing, though.