Creative Edge / Panasonic Interactive 1995
Genre: Strategy, Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Baldies is a real time strategy game.

PLOT

The plot is simple, you have to lead the Baldies to victory over the Hairies.

GAMEPLAY

This is a standard build, research and attack game (no hunting for resources). There are four types of Baldie, breeder (Red), builder (Blue), soldiers (Green), and scientist (White). When the first house is built you have to pick up Baldies and place them in the house (just by dropping them on the house), and then double click on the house for an internal view which consists of four rooms (one for each of the colours) and a hallway. It is possible to move the Baldies from one room to another via the hallway. This allows you to branch into different spheres of research and breeding. For example if you have mostly red then your Baldies will multiply alarmingly. Once four houses have been built you will have access to the "shovel" and the "angel wings". The shovel allows you to extend the land or even remove little sections of the land so as there is only water underneath (I enjoyed going onto my enemies land and trapping his men and drowning them). The angel wings allows you to select a group of Baldies with the mouse and send them where you like (even onto your opponents land).

Mr Creosote 1996
Genre: Action
Rating: 0/6
Language: -
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

This is actually not a game, but only a 'programming excercise' I did for myself. It was intended to mimic the basics of a shooter, but all you can do is move around and shoot, because there are no enemies.

Infocom 1986
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

In spite of a few visits as a kid, I've pretty much always been quite a cynic about the circus. Ballyhoo is all about the circus. So insert your favourite fuzzy stereotypes here as I'll neither be listing them, nor be talking about 'the magic' or whatever. This game is set in the circus. The owner's daughter has been kidnapped and she's held for ransom. The player has to find her, because the detective who has been hired to investigate is a clueless drunk.

Barschsoft 1997
Genre: Puzzle, Action
Rating: 2/6
Language: Deutsch
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

All games made by 'Barschsoft'...

Salad Days

The first entry in this here reproduced log can be backtraced to 1997. Like so often, die psychosis of the testee is caused by events in his childhood. In this case, it's the strong nostalgic memories about the dominating products of long dead producers of leisure electronics.

Sierra 1995
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English, Deutsch, Francais
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Battle Bugs is one of the games that do not need a story. You just complete mission after mission. Nevertheless it has a naive charme because of its theme (insect battles). The military background is ironically weakened by that. Most times they are about "conquering" most of the food that is lying around. That is done by moving a "unit" near the thing that you want to conquer. Then a flag appears on it, slowly rising. If you have more bugs there the flag will rise faster. When it has reached its top you own the object. Unfortunately the enemy tries to achieve the same so that heavy battles take place. As long as both sides have insects around the food nobody owns it. Conquered targets can of course be taken over the other army if it dominates the control zone. Almost any unit has its own special ability, strengths and weaknesses. A grasshopper for example is lethal for enemys but it also is killed fast. Bees can (of course) fly and also drop bombs, dynamite or cheese (!) on the enemy. This last thing is used to stun units. All flying animals have to fear ants with missiles. These specific characteristics should be considered when planning the battle. An example: A huge mass of enemies that would easily crush you hands down comes nearer. You send your "pill bug" in their direction. The enemy army concentrates on it, so that all are on the same place and beat it up. Now your bee starts and drop its bombs on this concentrated mass. The pill bug is immune to bombs but the enemies die in the explosions. Level completed!

Various 2004
Genre: Strategy, RPG
Rating: 5/6
Language: Castellano, Catala, Cestina, Dansk, Deutsch, English, Euskera, Francais, Greek, Hungarian, Italiano, Nederlands, Norsk, Polski, Portuges do Brasil, Russian, Slovencina, Suomi, Svenska
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

Even people who don't really follow the development in this 'scene' will know that there are countless 'open source game projects' floating around the Internet. Many of them remakes of classic concepts, some highly original. Most are nowhere near a finished state. What you can see on their homepages is usually a 'roadmap' outlining what still needs to be done (pretty much everything), and a few early screenshots. Sometimes, you can even download some kind of 'alpha engine' which doesn't really do anything so far. Experience tells that more than 90% of these projects are abandoned before they've achieved anything.

Blue Byte 1993
Genre: Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: Deutsch, English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

After two mission disks and the differently themed History Line: 1914-1918, Blue Byte followed their more successful game to date up with a real sequel. The evil robot armies are back and the Drullians saw no other way than to kidnap a great strategist to lead their armies - you. Stories have never been a strong point in strategy games (that made it even more surprising that a 'novelization' of the story actually came with the game).

SSI 1990
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

You know, some time ago (about 200 years or so...), there was a great man (I avoid saying 'big' at his 1.60m height) who liked war. Maybe a bit of a pertinent introduction, but no matter if you are French of Anglo-Saxon, you are going to enjoy this.

Westwood / Infocom 1988
Genre: RPG, Strategy
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

A unique blend of role-playing, tactical strategy and adventure, Battletech: The Crescent Hawk Inception was one of Infocom's first forays into graphical gaming. For years, the company ruled the text-based gaming, and with this ambitious product, wanted to cross over to the increasingly popular graphics-based games. Developed by Westwood's finest, the game became immensely popular, despite its balancing issues and weak graphics.

Century Interactive / BMG 1996
Genre: Action, Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English, Français, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Vinyl record sleeves and game boxes have something in common, in the sense that a particularly good design can prompt you to buy the record/game without trying it first. That's how I ended up with The Virgin Prunes' If I die, I die, which is absolutely god-awful. And Bermuda Syndrome, which is great fun.