Accolade 1989
Genre: RPG
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

An old mansion, a lost grandfather and plenty of monsters in what at firsts looks like another dungeon crawler, but that hide within a few things which make it different. But don't get your hopes high.

Nintendo 1983
Genre: Action, Puzzle
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: NES

Donkey Kong is the signature game of NES. While originally developed as an arcade game by Nintendo and later ported to every single console available at that time, NES has been the flagship product of Nintendo, and so it's only natural that it was here that the game was most visible. This game not only started the most successful game franchise of all times, it also transformed a 90-years old game cards company into an electronic entertainment behemoth and in the process set one of the most important legal precedents for the gaming industry.

Technos 1990
Genre: Action
Rating: 2/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Ah yeah, I remember the Double Dragon series from my Amiga. We played those games for hours. Now I digged up a PC version of one of those games and happily I started it up. Hm... now what's this? I guess my memory isn't that good anymore. Your fighting options are somewhat limited, kicking, punching and jumping - aaaalright. Let me tell you - forget about the other options, you get along best with only using your kickjump. Mysteriously your player takes off for one of those and then you can let it kick left and right without him landing - although that proved useful I have never EVER seen someone doing this in real life ;)

Technos Japan 1989
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: Japanese, English
Licence: Commercial
System: NES

Your girl has been kidnapped, and obviously it is up to you rescue her, punching, kicking and throwing anybody who gets in your way, while building up for the final match.

This is a fighting game, a side-scrolling one where you advance while a series of enemies comes towards you to be beaten to a pulp, and you do not need to do this alone, as a friend can be with you, adding fun, and danger as you can hit each other. But it is not in the fighting itself where the novelty lies. You techniques are just punching, kicking, grabing unconscious enemies or weapons and jumping, all of this while finding more powerful enemies as you advance. All this is as usual.

CLR 1986
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

This review is part of The Review Roundup - Round 2: Games Related to the Undead

Dracula - a universally known horror icon. Ironically, only few have actually read the novel these days. Instead, the count's image is dominated by his numerous appearances in other media. Most notably movies which have taken on a life on their own, straying from the original more and more over time. Instead, these movies seem to be based on other movies. Or how would you explain that almost every vampire movie out there claims these undead creatures dissolve in daylight? A hint: this wasn't the case in either Dracula or the even older vampire story Carmilla. That 'tradition' was established by Nosferatu, an unofficial movie version of Dracula from the 1920s.

Icom Simulations / Viacom New Media 1993
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Ten years have passed since Dracula was killed. Alexander Morris, brother of Quincey Morris (a victim of the chase after the vampire), has come to London. His brother's connections make it easy for him to get into the society: he's invited into the illustrious Hades Club.

SSI 1990
Genre: Action, Simulation
Rating: 4.5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

On board of a dragon you will engage in aerial fights with your lance and your dragon's breath as weapons over three-dimensional, polygonal landscapes.

This, albeit its problems, is one of the few original D&D games, to this helps that there aren't statistics and tedious development levels that are the label's trademark. But, as usual, the main lack is the simplistic story. The game is based in the Dragonlance books, so you will be fighting along the good guys, called in a stroke of originality the good dragons army, against the bad guys, named, surprisingly, the evil dragons.

Naughty Dog / Baudville 1987
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

I have played many weird games, but Dream Zone remains among the weirdest. What would you say if I told you that all bureaucrats are pigs? I mean real pigs. Or how about the fact that all you need to marry a woman is to wash your face? Or that your little brother's toy gun can kill nearly everything? You'd say that I should keep dreaming. Well, that's exactly what I did in this game.

Empire Interactive 1994
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English, Castellano, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Night after night it has been shown to you in dreams. The dreamweb is unbalancing. Seven evil people, parts of the its power incarnated, seek to use it for gaining control over the world. Eventually sending the planet to its doom.

Firebird 1986
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

Druid is yet another game in Gauntlet style: top-down view, player runs around shooting an endless stream of monsters. Mostly, these games are set in fantasy environments. So is Druid:

Acamantor, some evil sorcerer, has summoned four 'demon princes' to help him rule the country of Belorn. The guild of druids send one of their illustrious members to banish these powerful creatures: Hasrinax. They could have gone all together, and the quest would certainly have been way easier, but then, this game would have been pretty dull. So Hasrinax is on his own.