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.

Firebird 1987
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

103 peaceful years have passed since Acamantor and his Demon Princes have been banished from Belorn. Now the evil is back! And it's up to the last of the druids to stop it.

Other than last time, the evil magic has already spread across the outside world. So our hero doesn't just have to enter a fortress filled with monsters, but they are everywhere. Even in his own village, the dead are literally coming alive. Imagine how it'll look in the surrounding woods...

Cryo 1992
Genre: Strategy, Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English, Deutsch, Francais
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Frank Herbert's Dune is one of the best known pieces of fictional literature - beaten only by the bible and a few others. Millions of people have read it and even those who didn't at least know the name because they've seen the movie, they've just heard of it somewhere or they've played one of the computer games.

Westwood / Virgin Interactive 1992
Genre: Strategy, Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English, Francais, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Despite popular beliefs, there is nothing original about Dune II. Except of one thing, which enabled Westwood to become a powerhouse among games developers. As for gameplay, however, the game did not "revolutionarize", "create a new style of gaming" or "became the first of its kind." All it did was to combine several games already out in the market. The developer did this very skillfully, however, creating an unique experience and one of the most entertaining games ever.