Apollo 1981
Genre: Action
Rating: 3/6
Language: -
Licence: Commercial
System: Atari 2600

Space Cavern is the most complex Atari 2600 game I've ever seen, with a manual three times as thick as any other Atari 2600 game. There are countless different difficulty levels you can choose from when starting a game, selecting from options such as whether to have two or four enemies above you, whether or not to have any enemies from the sides, whether the enemies above are large (easy targets) or small, and whether the enemies above shoot straight or diagonally. All of these options are independant of one another, so you can mix and match.

ajf 1983
Genre: Action
Rating: 2/6
Language: English
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

When and where this game was made, I have no idea. The age is based on the file, as in "not modified since 16-1-1984". So, what's it all about? It's a...Space Invaders clone!!! Not terribly original, but then again, it's from 1984, so maybe, just maybe, it was then.

Sierra On-Line 1987
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Released only a few months after Space Quest I, the sequel, named Vohaul's Revenge has brought little new. In fact, if I felt nasty and unthankful, I'd say that the game was one of the first cash cows in the history of PC gaming. By today's standards I'd be right - inept puzzles, the same graphics, lack of the same humor I remembered from the first part and a very short gameplay would automatically qualify a game as a rip-off. At least in my eyes; in fact such games seem to be very successful and highly regarded by certain gaming magazines. Back in the days, however, we were happy for the little we got and paid for it accordingly.

Sierra On-Line 1987
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Back in the mid-1980s, computer games were created by their fans. It so happened that two guys, Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy decided that they would like to play King's Quest in a science fiction setting. After being initially rejected by Ken Williams who ran Sierra at the time, they created a small demo to show him they could pull it off. They got the job...

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.