Tatsumi / Taito Corporation 1987
Genre: Sport
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

Racing on the C64 had a few problems, as you might remember. Games like these were hard to make due to the procedural nature of BASIC, and most of the racing game were really crap.
Well, you might just like to know that this thing is NOT a crap game at all. In fact, although featuring only 5 races, Buggy Boy is some of the most interesting pieces of software I've ever seen. And certainly one of the most interesting racing games of the '80s.

Taito 1988
Genre: Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Atari ST

Every system of the 80s and early 90s had 'its' platformer. This immensely popular genre was especially liked by the companies because it was so easy to make those games! You didn't need any ground-breaking new ideas. The basics are always the same anyway: run from left to right (and sometimes up and down) and avoid your sprite is killed by the nasty monsters. To kill those, there were two general ways: shooting them (in whatever way) or jumping on their heads. Whoever came up with the latter must have smoked a bit too much of the wrong stuff! But for some reason, this concept stuck.

Taito 1990
Genre: Puzzle
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Puzznic is one of the great games from the heyday of the puzzle-genre. The late 1980s/early 1990s brought a good number of these gems and well, here's one I really do like. The concept is fairly simple, which let's you concentrate on the problems the levels bring you. Basically you have to get matching pieces together to let them vanish. You can push them to the left and the right, but cannot lift them up. If you push them over an edge they fall down to the ground. Once all are gone you have completed the level. Simple as that, but difficult in many cases. While the first problems mainly consist of moving blocking pieces away and back again the higher levels face you with the problem of getting three pieces to vanish at once as there are uneven numbers of pieces of the same type. Also pretty soon the dreaded moving brick enters the stage - I seriously got to hate that thing! I have to admit I'm a bit weak in reacting fast, but you sort of have from time to time. You have to throw pieces on these moving things and down again. I tend to push my pieces too late... But seriously - don't think this game has any serious action-elements. It doesn't - I'm just slow. ;)