Gryphon Software / Origin 1989
Genre: RPG, Simulation
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Space Rogue is an odd mix of a space shooter, adventure and role-playing. While many people tend to call this an RPG game, the fact is that it's got very little to do with the basics of role-playing - character development. More important than this ongoing debate, however, is the fact that Space Rogue is one of the first games that used vector graphics, took advantage of the superiority of IBM computers and offered countless hours of fun. The game is timeless; even today it will suck you right in.

B Seiler 1985
Genre: Action
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Spacewar (or SpaceWar, Space War or Spacewar!) is one of the first computer games ever. Some say the very first, but even though the line between funny tinkering and actual games is of course blurry in those early days, that's not entirely true, because Oscilloscopes had already been 'misused' for simple 'tennis' games back in the 1950s. Stephen Russell wrote Spacewar for the PDP-1 in 1962 - more than 40 years ago! The PDP-1 was a luxurious computer for its time: it used a cathode ray tube as display and could be used pretty much like the PCs we know today (compared to the earlier IBM computers at least).

Noriaworks 1995
Genre: Sport, Action
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Speed Haste is a moderate arcade racing game which features 2 different car models and 8 tracks.

From the starting menu you can choose whether you want to run a full championship, just a single race or practice a little bit. Here you can also select you race car (Formula 1 or Stock Car) and if you want a certain number of laps or a race against the clock.

Bitmap Brothers 1988
Genre: Sport, Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Although there were quite a lot "simulations" of real team sports like soccer in the Amiga's days, it seemed to be nearly impossible to port such tactical games with so many players to the computer. Most companies simply didn't care and published almost unplayable sports games. But there were also the smart ones like the Bitmap Brothers who thought a bit about different concepts! The result was Speedball, the summit of team sports games.

Bitmap Brothers 1990
Genre: Sport
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Atari ST

The successor to the best sports game of the 80s (see the Amiga section for the first part) - published on the Atari first! A few years after Speedball 1. Corruption and violence have driven the sport underground. At least that is what the intro says. There's not really much more violence, but at least the corruption has obviously been eliminated (no bribing the officials anymore ;). Anyway, you're the manager of a team called 'Brutal Deluxe' (what a sound name!) which is a member of the second league. And now guess what you have to do...

Legend Entertainment 1990
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Whenever Steve Meretzky is listed as designer of a game, you can be fairly sure it'll involve girls. In some cases more, in some cases less. In Spellcasting, it's definitely 'more'. Much more.

Legend Entertainment 1991
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Earnie Eaglebeak, the first game's geeky hero, is back at Sorcerer University for his second year. His goal this time: studying very hard. Just kidding - he wants to join a fraternity and to be accepted, he has to go through a number of initiation rituals. In addition, SU president Tickingclock asks him to solve the riddles the Sorcerer's Appliance (a mystic piece of machinery which played a vital part in the predecessor) holds.

Scott Adams 1984
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

Spiderman - the first superhero who was a teenager. He was just a normal shy geeky teenager who wanted to attract girls, but didn't know how to start a conversation with them. He had his problems at home with his aunt. He didn't know what to do with his life. Basically just the usual problems of growing up - something the readers could directly identify with.

ERE 1988
Genre: Puzzle, Action
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Some games are so weird that you can't help wondering what kind of drugs the designers have been taking when they came up with this. Spidertronic is such a game.

You control some kind of futuristic 'bio-mechanical' spider which - for whatever reason - is walking over isometric platforms somewhere in outer space (?). Some of the squares have a different colour than the usual blue. These have to be picked up and can be used to repair (?) the way to the next level. Only one coloured square can be carried at the same time, and the order of the colours is important.

Mr Creosote 1993
Genre: Puzzle, Strategy
Rating: 0/6
Language: Deutsch
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

The first game I not only started, but also 'finished': the perfect simulation of an one-armed bandit.

Written in Quick Basic 4.5 after I had started to learn it at school shortly before.