Sunflowers 1996
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 4/6
Language: Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Money and political power are often closely related. The family referenced in the title is one of the best known historical examples of this phenomenon. The members of that family don't actually appear in the game, though. It takes place a few levels below that instead. On a regional level, i.e. a member state of the former 'Holy Roman Empire', the player tries to gain political influence - just like the big idols.

Blue Byte 1995
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 4/6
Language: Deutsch, English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Whenever something claims to be 'crazy' (meaning 'funny' or 'wacky') in the title, you should be careful. It usually means the product won't be crazy at all, but rather lame. Simple reason: They try too hard, it all gets too obvious. Die total verrückte Rallye (literal translation: the totally crazy rallye) fortunately only stumbles into this trap partly, keeping the lameness factor at a bearable minimum (if only there weren't this 'announcer' with his GDR / Berlin accent...).

Impressions 1991
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 4/6
Language: English, Deutsch, Francais, Castellano, Italiano
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Impressions never had the best reputation with the mainstream gamers. They mainly produced quite inaccessible (granted) strategy titles. Caesar and Cohort are maybe their widest known classic titles. The vast majority of their games completely disappeared though.

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.

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...