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.

Magnetic Scrolls 1987
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Magnetic Scrolls send you back to Kerovnia, the location of The Pawn. But instead of a confused stranger, you are an aspired wannabe-member of the famous Guild of Thieves! To be accepted to this illustrious round, you have to prove your abilities. The guild sends you to an island and you have to ransack as many valuables as possible. The castle-like mansion looks like a likely target, but you're already stopped at the entranceby the guards. The nearby bank on the other hand looks like an even harder job...

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.

Eldritch Games 1989
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Alone in the Dark, Shadow of the Comet, Prisoner of Ice - games based on or inspired by works by H.P. Lovecraft. None of these can claim to be the best or first game of this theme though, because there is another one which is both older and still beats them all easily: The Hound of Shadow!

Electronic Arts 1991
Genre: Adventure, RPG
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Inside the dungeon below the ruins of an ancient city your old master, Mordamir the immortal, is imprisoned and seeking help. Traps and denizens of the underground will be on your way. Only your skills and spells will be on your side as you venture to the deepest cave.

Smoking Car Productions 1997
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Robert Cath is a American doctor in his late 20s who has been kicked out of the medical establishment for his leanings towards mysticism and interest in ancient and esoteric forms of medicine. He spent the last few years of his life in Paris. Recently however, some of his research brought him to Ireland where he got caught between the fronts of the fight between the IRA and the British army. Suddenly, he's wanted by the police all over Europe - for murdering a policeman. Just then, an invitation to accompany him in the Orient Express to Constantinople from his old friend Tyler Whitney arrives. Cath decides this is the best way out, so he boards the train in Paris... or rather some kilometres later. He opens the door to his friend's compartment and finds him lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood - murdered. Cath has to find the murderer - and avoid being arrested for this crime as well as the other charges himself.