Dommelsch 1999
Genre: Sport, Action
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

Pinball games were the big hype for some time some years ago. It was all started by 21st Century Entertainment with their Pinball Dreams . In the following years, every company produced similar games in masses, most of them without any innovation as usual. But they were all commercial, sold for the 'normal' price of 50$ for one game including between merely one to up to four tables. The question how such a ridiculously high price can be justified was already valid back then.

Lucas Arts 1994
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English, Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Castellano
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Which character appeared most in Lucas Arts' Adventure games? Chuck the Plant, I guess. Just counting the mammal characters, though, it's Sam & Max. Their creator, Steve Purcell had been drawing backgrounds for many of the games, and Sam, the dog, and Max, the rabbit, had small guest appearances (e.g. as an idol in front of the giant monkey head, as a costume on Booty Island and as a portrait in the Edison's motel). And then, it was time for their own game.

Origin 1990
Genre: RPG
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

On earth, an experiment with the moonstone the Avatar got on his last adventure goes awry and carries him, along a professor and a reporter, to the lost Valley of Eodon, where dinosaurs and humans live together.

Lucasfilm Games 1991
Genre: Simulation
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

This game is one of the first real flight sims I played on the PC and despite its age it's a game I still play nowadays because it just has everything you can expect from a serious flight simulation game. But on to the details...

Infogrames 1993
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: Francais, English, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

The village of Illsmouth. A town hall, a post office, a tiny harbour and a few houses. Nothing special really, it's like the epitome of a comfortable hood, none of the modern-world related problems occur here.

Legend Entertainment 1995
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Language: English, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Legend followed up their excellent Death Gate with a game which is quite similar on the surface. It uses the same game engine, graphics are similar and it is - again - based on a popular branch of fantasy novels: Shannara. The game isn't a direct 'port' of any book, but it takes place between the first two. Some evil warlock called Brona, whom the father of the game's protagonist Jak apparantely killed in the first book, is back. He can only be defeated with the 'Sword of Shannara' which in turn can only be used by offsprings of the Shannara family - namely you and your father.

Icom Simulations 1991
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

The game is afoot... Sherlock Holmes is back on the screen of your computer and he looks more realistic than ever.... because he was filmed. This is not only one of the first games to be released on CD at all, but also one of the first to actually use this medium (i.e. it isn't just a disk game copied on a CD). Quite a jump for Icom, who were known for text-based games (Deja Vu, Uninvited, Shadowgate and Deja Vu 2) before.

Icom Simulations 1992
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

In spite of its limited gameplay, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective sold reasonably well, considering its status as one of the first CD-ROM exclusive games. A sequel was only a matter of time - and it did appear quickly.

Icom Simulations 1992
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Icom's Sherlock Holmes series goes into its third (and final) round. Not much has happened in the one year since the first volume had been published; the gameplay is still exactly the same: Holmes investigates scenes of crime in London, questions suspects and witnesses and Dr Watson is of course immediately stuck in a rut.

Mindcraft 1992
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Siege & Ambush At Sorinor & Walls Of Rome: A series of games very similar to each other. The screenshots look almost identical. And all the games are quite similar in fact They're all pioneers of the RTS genre. That means much action is in them. But in contrast to current titles, the strategy- component is stressed. This becomes clear when you discover that you can give orders to your army when the game is paused.