Westwood Studios 1994
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 2/6
Language: English, Français, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

The third installment of Westwood's popular Adventure series picks up where the first part ended: Brandon has defeated the evil court jester Malcolm and turned him into stone. Brandon became king and everything was well (well, apart from the fact, that the former king and queen are... dead). A lightning frees Malcolm from his prison, and now it's time to 'hear his side of the story', as the intro states.

Adeline 1994
Genre: Adventure, Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: Francais, English, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

'Little Big Adventure' is probably a typical game of the widely spread 'action-adventure' genre. First a story which carries the game to satisfy the adventure part: The inhabitants of the fictional planet Twinsun suffer from the terror regime of the tyrant FunFrock. He has the power to produce clones which control and suppress the people with Big-Brother-like methods. One of the victims is Twinsen, who is in search for a magical legend of the planet to overthrow FunFrock and liberate the poor people. This rebel rolemodel is up to the player so he can fully live up to his insurgence phantasies. For complete disaster Twinsens wife gets kidnapped which brings up even more urge for revenge and activates protective instincts.

Microprose 1994
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Language: English, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Master of Magic is the sequel to Master of Orion. If you had read my review about that (I know you didn't...), you'd know MOO is my favourite game ever. Of course I had huge expectations. But the game didn't fulfill them all.

Mindscape 1994
Genre: Strategy, Action
Rating: 4/6
Language: English, Deutsch
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Windows 3.1 has never been a gaming platform. It was simply too slow and instable. There were of course exceptions. Most of them were turn-based games requiring much thinking. And there was Win-Doom as an action game. But that's it. Almost. One game which showed one possible way to work with Windows is almost always forgotten: Metal Marines!

Apogee 1994
Genre: Action, Puzzle
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Shareware
System: PC

The Baron Baldric goes to the puzzle and trap filled lazarine towers of his wizard ancestors in a mission for clearing them of monsters in this isometric adventure.

Each time you go inside one of them the doors will close, and remain so until you have killed all the creatures and destroyed the monster generator, located always in the third and middle tower level, to avoid more of them from appearing. Only then you will get the main gate key and advance to the next tower.

Papyrus 1994
Genre: Sport, Simulation
Rating: 4/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

With this game and Indycar Racing Papyrus covered the two most popular American racing series which see up to today frequently appearing new versions (NASCAR 4 being the latest).

Nascars are very simplistic yet powerful stock cars which run mostly on ovals. Although not as fast as Indycars they are quite sturdy and durable and this is absolutely necessary because NASCAR races are endurance races which can last up to 3 hours pure racing time and more.

Flashpoint Productions / Electronic Arts 1994
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 4/6
Language: English, Deutsch, Castellano
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Noctropolis - city of darkness. Home of the superhero Darksheer, the archenemy of every villain out there. Peter Grey's favourite place to escape to from his full life as the owner of a less-than-successful book store. You guessed it: Darksheer is a comicbook in the style of the so-called 'golden age' or 'silver age' of comics.

Software Dynamics 1994
Genre: Action
Rating: 5/6
Language: English
Licence: Shareware
System: PC

You might not believe it if you haven't lived through that period yourself, but screen savers were a profitable commercial market for a long time. One of the best-known companies living from this was Software Dynamics, and their prime product was called After Dark - the world's single most popular screen saver. Everybody knew the flying toasters back then.

SSI 1994
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 6/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

A classic of turn-based strategy games which became the basis for a long series of similar games. But none of them could match the quality of the original.

You can surely question to take World War II as the background for a game but that´s not going to be discussed in this review. Instead let´s move on o the game itself: The player, a high-ranking general, takes control either of the Allied or Axis forces. There are single scenarios and whole campaigns which mostly are based on historical battles.

Microprose 1994
Genre: Strategy, Action
Rating: 6/6
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

First of all, all comparisons are referring to the original Pirates! and the PC version of Pirates! Gold. Read the first review for a detailed covering of the gameplay itself. It is almost identical in this version.