Avalon Hill 1985
Genre: RPG
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

"Ah yes, my young fellows, I still remember when I first climbed down the stairs into this vile dungeon. All I had was the sword of my father and no clue how to use it. And then they came! Zombies, Skeletons, Orcs! I fought them all - barely made it out alive with the few coins I was able to find in the corners of the tunnels. Bandaging my wounds I made it to this very tavern and spent the night. But when the morning sun rose I knew I had to go back in there. I could not leave that dungeon unconquered. And so I travelled deeper. My skills got better, I got faster - soon I was starting to fight of demons and dragons - and the deeper I ventured into the caverns the deadlier they got!

Mike Woodroffe & Others 1985
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 2/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

By the power of Grayskull.... All the children in the 80s knew this catchphrase. They watched the adventures of He-Man and his friends (and foes) on TV, bought the action figures, read the comics. And of course there were several computer games for the most common systems of the time.

Nintendo 1989
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Game Boy

Now you may wonder what is Tetris doing in the GameBoy category. The reason is simple: Tetris, while popular on arcades, needed a platform to propagate among the general population, and GameBoy proved to be the perfect platform. When GameBoy was first released, it sold with the Tetris cartridge included, a move that not only boosted the GameBoy sales but also made Tetris a household name. In fact, many speculated (and I think they have a point) that GameBoy was designed with Tetris in mind; such is the integration of these two.

Ocean 1991
Genre: Action
Rating: 3/6
Language: English, Deutsch, Francais
Licence: Commercial
System: Game Boy

Talking about games that deal with films or series, sooner or later the phrase "licence crap" will come up. Many more or less common titles, for example almost every Simpsons game, do give reasons for this: The brand name itself is selling most of the copies, so why spend money on a complex production? Quickly design some sprites, that remind of the original characters and warm up some old games idea and the way into the shelves is paved.

Tiger Media 1991
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga, PC

It's been many years since you've last heard from your old war buddy Bronson Barnard. You two had been flying together over France in 1917, you even saved his life there once. After the war, your lives drifted apart. He became a successful industrialist, you joined the police first, and became a private detective later.

Argus Press Software 1986
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

The name says it all. End of review. Ok, that would have been a little too unsatisfying. So here's the obvious: In 'The Detective Game', you take the role of a detective. This (very British) detective is called to the residence of millionaire Angus McFungus to investigate the murder of the owner himself. The body's still warm, and the murderer has to be amongst the people currently present. All the clues are scattered around the house, all you have to do is find them, put together the evidence and arrest the right person - and survive.

Lucas Arts 1995
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Language: English, Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Castellano
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

The Dig - an experiment in megalomania. An epic science fiction adventure based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, made by the guys who made Star Wars (well, not quite). Special effects by Industrial Light and Magic. The hardest puzzles in a Lucas Arts game since Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Isn't marketing great? Here's an experiment: Let's judge the game exactly according to all the marketing slogans they came up with then.

Mr Creosote 2002
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 0/6
Language: English
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

The Good Old Days' second birthday special - an Adventure walking along the fine line of cheesiness and geeky fan-ideas.

The main technical difference to all my other games is that I didn't use a full-blown sophisticated language anymore. Much too much fuss. Instead, I relied on TADS (Text Adventure Developement System), a free C-like language specialized on IF. The main reason I chose TADS and not Inform or any of the other competitors is that TADS is very easy to learn. It's purely event-based. That means to program a game, all I had to do is define the objects, locations and persons and set routines how they interact with each other. The TADS engine connects it all then with the already great parser which comes with it. Of course I also added to and customized that one. But a big chunk of the work of a real game engine (which none of the older games have) didn't have to be made - I could concentrate on the contents of the game! The source code writte by me is over 2000 lines long. Then add even more for the engine and you get the picture how much work has been put into this.

Time Warp 1987
Genre: Action
Rating: 6/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

Every C64 owner knew it, everyone played it and enjoyed it. The Great Giana Sisters. The ultimate Jump & Run Game for this good old computer. Great graphics, many hours of fun, lots of level....so nobody is asking for Super Mario Brothers, Nintendo´s contrahent. in fact, we rather like to play with women, don´t we ?