Cinemaware 1990
Genre: Sport, Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Welcome to this evening's match - Indiana against the famous Keep Allstars. The Keepians get into the match fast taking the lead with Elwood scoring the first goal. But Indiana's not to be underestimated - they soon catch up and take over the lead. Coach Keepmaster gets out his best man Skree and when everything seemed to be lost just seconds before the end of the first quarter with Indiana leading 23:19 Stacy scores a 3-pointer as well as getting a free shot for being fouled. And there it is! 23:23 - the Keep Allstars get a tie!

Play Byte 1992
Genre: Puzzle, Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: -
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Stone Age. You're sleeping peacefully dreaming of great women when suddenly an apple hits your head. Heureka! Quickly you construct your flying machine. But the women only seem to be interested in more valuable materials like money. Hmm... but hey, couldn't you make some money with your invention?

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

After the events of Ultima VII, the Guardian takes a last chance action, imprisoning Britannia's Castle in a blackrock dome. But this powerful magic disrupts the fabric of reality and opens a gate to other worlds.

Origin 1992
Genre: RPG, Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Many years after his last adventure in Britannia the Avatar is brought back by a mysterious apparition, and he appear at a bad place and moment. Thanks to it he ends accused of a kidnap and sent down to the Stygian abyss, from where it is not possible to escape.

Graftgold 1986
Genre: Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

The alien invasion of Earth is afoot, and there's just no way to stop the attacking forces by conventional means. Even if the puny earthling forces manage to destroy one wave, countless more are just waiting to take its place. So the humans recognize their only chance is to go to the source and cut off the invaders' supplies.

Graftgold 1993
Genre: Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

When Uridium first came out, it was breathtaking: great looking, lovingly animated and incredibly fast at the same time. As the years went by, such qualities gradually lost some of their effect, of course. Still good, still (relatively) impressive, but not a sensation anymore.

Graftgold 1986
Genre: Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

Uridium Plus, released the same year as the Uridium. Not much time to change anything, but also not much need to, since the original version was very successful - never change a winning horse. So the basics remain the same: The player flies the Manta ship's assault on the aliens' huge Dreadnoughts, first taking out the numerous waves of defenders, then landing and activating the self-destruct mechanism - all that to stop the invaders' supply of raw materials.

U.S. Gold 1990
Genre: Action, Puzzle
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Sometimes them game-programmers really demand a lot of imagination - who would think of a human body and virii looking at this game? In Vaxine you are the last line of defense protecting important cells against agressive virii. Such a virus appears in 3 possible colors and can be eliminated by shooting at it with a little ball of the same color. To make this clear right now - at first you will think you got a cool fast action-game here. You will be frustrated soon because you won't survive very long. The game will just get faster and faster if you want it to and you won't be able to defend your cells since you will always miss the virii you try to shoot. You need to think of some basic strategies. Most important things are the black gates. Just drive through one and everything will freeze for one minute (remember to drive through one again before the minute runs out). Now you can search for the next virus and get into a good shooting position before you shoot at it (which will unfreeze everything). While this is enough for the first level you will need to eliminate the virus-producers (flat cells moving around on the floor) first in the higher levels. You will hear a special sound-effect each time one of them appears and that means you have to find the next black gate fast to have time to search for that little bastard.

Graftgold 1995
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Virocop was one of the games which really got a lot of attention before it was released - at least from the readers of one specific German Amiga magazine: Amiga Games. This magazine published a "developer's diary" over several months, then it suddenly stopped - but the finished game didn't appear. No explanation, no comment. A lot later, they mentioned they had dropped this article because they couldn't squeeze these pages in anymore. Never sounded too believable to me. More likely that there just wasn't enough happening anymore. Still, it was quite interesting to read every month how the idea developed, how changes to the concept were made (it changed from "Tanky" to "D.A.V.E" over time), how the graphics changed from hand-drawn sketches to actual screenshots.

Firebird 1988
Genre: Action, Simulation
Rating: 2/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Atari ST

Why can't humanity meet a non-aggressive alien race just once for a change? This particular one even employs tactics of biological warfare, infecting the countryside with a virus which leaves only a dead and barren landscape. So the player jumps into his spaceship to destroy all the death-inducing invaders.