GCE 1982
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Vectrex

Where DID that enemy tank go? Behind that house? Or next to that ruin? BOOM! Whoah, that was close! It must be able to see us! Let's get outta here! Ahh, now I have you. Just one more shot, and then... trrrrrrrrrrrrrr....... Oh no, not that annoying chopper again! Maybe we can hide here...AAAAH! It has seen us! Race for it! It's released a missile! It's heading this waBOOM! Crap...

Imagic 1982
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: -
Licence: Commercial
System: Atari 2600

Alien Invaders, the Gorgons, are running their final assault on the city of Atlantis. The last line of defense are three guns, two positioned at the sides of the screen and one in its centre. Their lines of fire are fixed: the middle one shoots straight up, the ones on the sides fire diagonally towards the centre of the screen. The player can select which gun to shoot with by moving the controller to the left and right.

GCE 1982
Genre: Action
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Vectrex

A Pacman clone with a twist or two.

You are a bank director and your bank has just been robbed. The robbers have blown up your safe and the money is now lying everywhere in the bank. You are collecting it, but the bankrobbers are trying to get you. And when they do...you're history.

Infocom 1982
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 6/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Industrialist Marshall Robner has been found dead in his library. The room had been locked from the inside, and an overdose of the anti-depressants he had been taking has been found in his blood. A clear case of suicide? The responsible inspector seems to think so. The deceased's lawyer provides you with an interesting piece of informaton: Only days earlier, Robner said he wanted to change his will. It never came to that. How does that fit into the suicide theory? You're asked to investigate once again to see if your colleague was right about what he found.

Imagic 1982
Genre: Action
Rating: 2/6
Language: -
Licence: Commercial
System: Atari 2600

Fire is spreading in a warehouse. Just a warehouse, no big deal, so just one single firefighter is sent to take care of it. Actually, all the other firefighters are drunk at the moment. And the one which does come is most likely drunk as well, but he lost some silly drinking game and thus had to go. Then the shock: There's a man trapped on one of the upper floors, running around in panic! The player has to save him from being roasted alive.

Melbourne House 1982
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: ZX Spectrum

If you think text adventures, you probably think Infocom and PC. However, even with all the freeware text adventures as a result of a huge fan base, the Spectrum is still the primary platform for text adventures. With over 1,400 commercial (or semi-commercial) text adventures for Spectrum alone and countless more that ware made thanks to the simple programming language, the Spectrum was a heaven for all adventure fans. In hindsight, it's not surprising. In the early 80s, PCs were still very expensive, Apple II had too good graphics to bother with text games and the rest of the crowd were consoles, only few of which had a keyboard. Spectrum was perfect: with a 3.5MHz processor it was pretty weak for high-res graphic games, yet because it was also a programming platform, it had a highly functional keyboard, perfect for text adventures.

MB 1982
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Vectrex

Definitely the Vectrex game with the best graphics I have played so far. It even has music, as well as sound effects!

You are an intergalactic animal collector. You are trying to collect all 20 species of creatures, all the while avoiding all those nasty alien star-shaped drones and , of course, the dragon that will attempt to shoot you with a fireball if you miss too often. Once you have captured a creature (does this sound like Pokemon? It sure isn't.) you still have to find the way out of the intergalactic webspace you're trapped in and take it to your trophy room (great animation).