Microprose 1987
Genre: Strategy, Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

'Pirates!' is surely one of the most well known computer games of all times. Almost every gamer who had a Commodore C64 will sigh when hearing the name. How many time have I spent in front of my home computer playing it? Months, I guess. How many ships have I sunk? Thousands maybe. I could continue this list even further.

Software 2000 1994
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: Deutsch, English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Pizza Tycoon is not only the original tycoon game that started a whole niche, but also one of the best ones. It had all: a relatively simple concept, a mix of several gaming styles, money and property management and cartoonish graphics. Add to it tacky music, several amusing sub-games and several ways to make money, and you have something that should be hardly bearable to a hardcore gamer. However, include a very deep business strategy, mix it all together, and suddenly you have a very decent game that everybody would like.

Bullfrog 1989
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Maybe one of the first true real-time-strategy games Populous quickly became one of the most famous games of its time and today is a deserved classic. As the god of your people your goal is to defeat another god with his respective people. To achieve this you can alter the landscape and send plagues upon your enemy.

Bullfrog 1993
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Populous 2 is a brilliant successor to the first Populous game which evolves the innovative game concept even further. Again you're a god leading your people to victory by changing landscape and casting various spells but this time you're not just any god but rather a son/daughter of the Greek godfather Zeus. Your final goal is to beat him in the 1000-level (yup!) conquest game.

Bullfrog 1990
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Bullfrog entered the market relatively late - their first own development was Populous in 1989, before, they had just done some conversions of existing games. Surprisingly enough, Peter Molyneux still managed to become a kind of 'cult-designer' even though the industrialization (and thus non-personification) of gaming was already dawning. Must have been because of the pure originality and quality of his design! Between the first two (and only worthy) parts of the famous first god-series, Molyneux designed a somewhat similar, but still again groundbreaking game: Powermonger.

Gremlin Graphics 1992
Genre: Sport, Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Released roughly at the same time as the first Championship Manager, Premier Manager was different enough to attract its own crowd of fans. This game has started a battle that, in a sense, rages until today: a battle between two styles of soccer management games. Where Championship Manager was heavy on different statistics and on putting together to optimal squad for each match, Premier Manager by Gremlin, and later its spiritual successors ? Premier League Manager and Total Club Manager series by EA ? took on a more user-friendly approach and mixed in the business and training aspects of managing a soccer team.

Origin 1993
Genre: Action, Simulation
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Right. What can I write about such an immensely popular game which hasn't already been said. Obviously not much. Also, what should I describe it for - everybody already knows it! Then again, maybe not really everybody. So, a brief introduction.

Electronic Arts 1990
Genre: Sport, Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Team sports are all more or less the same: two opposing teams on some field trying to score more than the other. The method of scoring might differ a bit, but that's it. Relatively innovative computer sports games like for example Speedball started their changes at the same aspect: the way of scoring. Just looking at this, Projectyle goes the most conservative of all possible ways: 'players' have to 'shoot' a 'ball' into a 'goal'.

Silicon Commander 2000
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

The "Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons" was signed in 1968. It was the attempt to stop all the small countries from gaining access to nuclear weapons. Only the five major 'official' powers were allowed to own atomics: the USA, Great Britain, France, the USSR and China. So this treaty secured the monopoly of these countries to nuclear weapons!

Meisters 1986
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: Deutsch
Licence: Freeware
System: C64

Tired of all these modern 'anti-terror' - games? Hunting evil guys of whom you have no idea what kind of evil they've done gets boring? You're fed up with working for an anonymous 'government' with more than questionable ideals? Then choose the other side: become a terrorist!