Moon Strike (Mirrorsoft)

Moon Strike is very un-original - that's a minus. But in every other way it's great. Looks fantastic plays as good as it looks.

Death Wish III (Gremlin)

Outrageously violent with occasional touches of humour. Not enough gameplay to hold interest, though.

Stifflip And Co (Palace)

Visually impressive and entertaining adventure game, well worth a look. The many in-jokes could get a bit tedious though.

Satcom (Atlantis)

Budget attempt at mysterious complexity. Fairly difficult, and involving a bit of thinking here and there. Worth two quid.

Oriental Hero (Firebird)

Follow-up to the very appalling Ninja Master. This one's so fast there's more luck than skill involved.

Learn Chess (Coxsoft)

Very worthy, but dull. Could help a supervised novice but of questionable value on its own.

Time Flight (The Powerhouse)

Quite a step down from the illustrious Stephen Tatlock's earlier Agent X. Avoid this one.

Boulder Dash II (Prism)

An excellent reproduction of a brilliant game. Buy this on pain of missing one of the decade's best.

Book Of The Dead (CRL)

Text and graphic adventure with zip and originality. Any game where you start off in an egg has to be good!

Castle Eerie/Shipwreck (Tartan Soft)

Two very decent adventures at a bargain basement price. Budget programs at their best - mail-order only, though.

Cricket Averages (South Coast)

Workmanlike cricket stats program. Recommended for cricket pundits everywhere.

Mountie Mick's Death Ride (Reaktor)

An Express Raider look-sound-and-play-alike. Not worth the money.

Super Robin Hood (Codemasters)

Terrific graphics, good sound FX, smooth animation and well- planned screen layout. What a shame the game's so useless.

Star Wreck (Alternative)

Reasonable adventure, let down by one-gag humour and poor graphics. Some tricky problems though.

Game Over (Imagine)

Flip screen game that fails to captivate. Average shooting, collecting stuff that really ought to know better (and it has tasteless packaging).

Hocus Focus (Bug-Byte)

Snap the professor's inventions in the underground cave system. Dull.

Zenji (Firebird)

Good strategy re-issue. One of the early Activision titles now out on budget.

Core (Bug-Byte)

Superior budget adventure with excellent graphics.

Spaced Out (Firebird)

Deceptively difficult thought and strategy game, with some neat graphics.

Side Wize (Odin)

The last word in scrolling one-man space blasts? Maybe not, but it's the best thing around at the moment. Get this.

The Tube (Argus Press)

Something for fans of every kind of shoot-'em-up. No section is astounding but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Void Runner (Mastertronic)

Minter madness comes to town - llamas, goats, sheep. What else do you want? Great fun.

Leviathan (English)

Zaxxon-like, with a great soundtrack, but not a lot else. Any game inspired by ZZ Top has to be a bit suspicious.

Killer Ring (Ariolasoft)

Space invaders with bats. Turns away from complexity of modern games, and offers wholesome violence.

Rebel (Virgin)

Inventive mixture of arcade and strategy - the only doubts are how much of a long term challenge it is.

Challenge Of The Gobots (Reaktor/Ariolasoft)

Worthwhile licence that stands up on its own. High-energy blast meets quirky oddity and they both come out of it well.

Pneumatic Hammers (Firebird)

Sad little budget game. Not much cop.

Captain Kelly (Quicksilva)

Re-released 'save the space station' game. Some tricky problems to solve on the way.

Flash Gordon (Mastertronic Added Dimension)

After a boring start, this multi-load arcade-adventure really gets going.

Chess Nuts (P. T. Cimatti)

If you're both a chess and computer nut, fine. Otherwise steer clean - strictly for the addicts!

Olympic Spectacular (Alternative)

Ageing and tedious multi-event sports simulation. How on earth could anyone release such tosh?

Super G-Man (Codemasters)

Not very difficult after you've played it a bit, but great fun. Get back to your ship and watch out for those aliens!

Ultima Ratio (Firebird)

Fast and furious, smooth scrolling shoot-em-up. Good value.

Transatlantic Balloon Game (Virgin)

Complete tosh. Possibly even worse than East Enders! A definite no-buy.

Motos (Mastertronic)

Highly recommended. Original idea, excellent conversion, addictive, fast, furious, clever and strategic.

Armageddon Man (Martech)

Absorbing strategy game. Choose whether to save the earth or cause all out war just for the hell of it.

Convoy Raider (Gremlin)

A sea warfare simulation that's not full of instruction. Easy to get into and loads to do once you're there.

Last Mission (US Gold)

Yet another shoot 'em up? Not quite. An excellent coin-op becomes an OK game. The 360° scroll makes it a little different.