The Waster (Hard Data)

A design play with dramatic text. A shame then that the game is rather spoilt by a single key command input routine.

Submarine Commander (Creative Sparks)

A very good game. If you're looking for one that calls for brains rather than reflexes, this is a goodie.

Airstrike 2 (English)

It may be very clever, but it's a terrible looking game, and I, for one, spend too much time in front of a VDU to want to have to look at something this ugly.

All Or Nothing (Abbex)

3D Graphics, say Abbex. Well, I'm not so sure I'd call them that. Since all motion is in one plane, it looks pretty two-dimensional to me.

Duck (Firebird)

Blah... Just a rather slow game without much in the way of action.

Gold Digger (Firebird)

I was a little suspicious when it loaded in half a minute. When the game got underway, all my fears were confirmed. It's so simple and repetitive, it's almost laughable.

Wreckage (Ventamatic)

A pretty humdrum Space Invaders shoot-'em-up with the only extra twist being that you must set the range of your lasers correctly.

Hi-Bouncer (Mirrorsoft)

A must for Mr. Men of all ages!

Escalador Loco (Ventamatic)

Worth persevering with, the game is mucho fun. And of course its scarcity ensures great snob appeal!

Laser Lord (Century City)

Breathtakingly bad. One game of this was enough for me.

Tuneles Marcianos (Ventamatic)

A game in which the assault upon you is unrelenting. Thankfully, there's a full range of familiar joystick options to help you get home.

The Journey (Temptation)

The program's language-handling ability is not as good as The Hobbit... but the characters are a lot more talkative - the elf chatters away like made with rumours of giants and homespun philosophy.

Zapper (Anco)

A stunningly unoriginal game, but passable for those of us with only half a brain.

Frog Face (Positive Image)

The nasties are mostly on a classical theme: gorgons, basilisks and so forth, so a knowledge of myth may be helpful.

Space Station Alpha (Icon)

Yawn... Destroy as many of the invading Cylon fleet as possible... in a game that just goes on and on and on...

SAS Commander (Comsoft)

Terrorists appear in windows across the street and you have to slide this character from side to side shooting them, with the proviso that they are not holding a hostage in front of them. Even alcohol doesn't make this look any better.

Sinbad And The Sailor (Virgin)

It's not a bad game, sort of middle of the road, which probably accounts for the beasties having that squashed look.

Son Of Blagger (Alligata)

How deep in the maze of collapsing floors, ladders, etc, he can go is something I don't know yet, but I've every intention of finding out. All I can say is it's pretty big and it should keep you going for some time.

Tiler (Interceptor Micros)

An enjoyable game... Interesting to see a game with at least one foot in the real world.

Black Hawk (Creative Sparks)

The detail is a bit fussy and cluttered, but until I get River Raid for Spectrum, this'll do fine.

Forest At World's End (Interceptor Micros)

Interceptor aren't gamesmiths of Level 9's standard but, unlike most they hit the difficult balance between playing fair and not giving anything away.

Dragonfire (Imagic/Cheetah)

If you want to test your reflexes in dodging and weaving, fine. But it takes a lot more than two screens to get me going.

Laserwarp (Mikro Gen)

Fun, but I doubt if it's anything like tough enough for hardcore Starfighter types.

Punchy (Mr. Micro/Amsoft)

The real problem with the game is that Bobby is slow, painfully slow. There's an appalling and infuriating lag between actions getting anywhere.

Oh Mummy (Gem)

An enjoyable, if rather samey bit of nonsense. The graphics aren't all that special, but the animation is well done, especially the Guardians emerging from their tombs!

Atom Smasher (Amsoft)

Delaying the inevitable is, as their critics will tell you, the ultimate point of all arcade-style games, because sooner or later the computer is going to beat you. But this one is a bit too obviously a losing rear-guard action for comfort.

Gems Of Stradus (Amsoft)

It's in 3D but the detail is very crude and everything is in garish primary colours, making it pretty unlovable. One for the patient sloggers.

Roland In Time (Amsoft)

The many varied and challenging sheets coupled with the smooth arcade quality graphics makes this game top of the league. Go out and buy one now!

Roland In The Caves (Amsoft)

Quite a nice game, even though further examination revealed it to be mostly written in Basic.

Ghouls (Micro Power)

A must for anyone's software collection, especially since there's an awful lot of naffware about for Amstrad's little baby.

Admiral Graf Spee (Temptation)

You sort of swan around the South Atlantic looking for merchantmen, which occasionally appear as blips on a large scale map. The result is equisitely unplayable.

Pyjamarama (Mikro-Gen)

The graphics are beautifully realised, so each new location is a joy to discover.

Dune Rider (Micro Power)

Fairly amusing, but after a few miles of the same sort of landscape it gets a bit tedious.

Battlezone (Quicksilva)

This home computer version is much jerkier than the arcade model, but it's a great bit of programming.

Stagecoach (Creative Sparks)

The animation isn't very successful, the stagecoach, a boxlike affair, particularly does some very odd-looking things with perspective when it's changing direction. Still, it's entertaining enough and an original concept.

Nuke Lear (Charlie Charlie Sugar)

It has a certain charm, but the graphics are very basic, and I wasn't hooked.

Kokotoni Wilf (Elite)

A treat for the eyes this one, but I'd like to have had more to do - other objects to pick up maybe.

Aquanaut (Interceptor Micros)

Things get easier with practice and eventually you get to find your way around quite well.

Easi-Amsword (Amsoft)

You may need a Z80 for word processing, but you also need a decent program, and Easi-Amsword just doesn't cut it.

Deus Ex Machina (Automata)

If projects like this can push computers and computer games further towards the real world and further towards being a media form, then so much the better. However, in this specific case, with the best of intentions, the goods are simply not delivered.

Laser Reflex (Talent)

Try counting sheep, it's cheaper and more entertaining.

Turmoil (Bug-Byte)

There are about seven different screens, and the game is challenging enough. I just wish people would stick to aliens and killer robots.

Archipelago (Talent)

Guide a man around the maze, collecting treasures and avoiding or killing spiders. Is there never anything new and original in computer games?!

Backtrack (Incentive)

It's not the most spectacular game in the cosmos, but by Dragon standards it's reasonably uninspiring.

Beach-Head (US Gold)

US Gold's Commodore products have impressed me. But with this effort for the Spectrum, I think they'd better sharpen up their act.

Art Designer (Pica)

There have also been several hundred character editors just as good as this going for free in just about any magazine you care to pick off the news-stands.

Zombie Zombie (Quicksilva)

The game failed to hook me as I just couldn't believe in it.

Election Trail (Mind Games)

I enjoyed the game, it's witty and a lot of thought has gone into it.

Classic Adventure (Amsoft)

Although Level 9 market a very similar product I'd say that Amsoft's version is the best.

Kung-Fu (Bug-Byte)

The animation is convincing, but I didn't find the game spectacular enough to sustain my interest.

Interdictor Pilot (Supersoft)

The real selling point is the manual. It's so thorough that you can really enter into the whole fantasy.