Core Design 1992
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 1/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

1992. Sierra had left the Amiga market (only to return silently later again, but that's another story), other companies tried to fill the gap. Core Design (these days known as the makers of horrible action games featuring big breasts) did it most successfully - they almost perfectly took Sierra's place with their Adventures! Not so much in serial output, but certainly concerning the quality of their products. Does that mean they made great classics with intriguing stories and witty puzzles which stood the test of time? Well, not exactly.

PCSL 1991
Genre: Puzzle
Rating: 1/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Dingsda was a popular quiz show on German television running from the mid-80s to the end of the last millenium (in fact, it was only popular until the mid-90s, but it ran for another five years after that). The basic premise: two teams of TV 'celebrities' would compete in guessing words which were explained by kindergarten children.

Sierra 1989
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 1/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Jerrod Wilson, a journalist living in 1848 Brooklyn, apparantely never got over 'losing' his brother Jake who was forced to leave town ten years ago. Now the protagonist receives a letter from this lost relative. Jake has found gold in California and he urges Jerrod to join him there. And it would be much of a game if Jerrod didn't go along with this...

Electronic Arts 1993
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 1/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Warhammer and its spinoffs seems to be a very popular franchise. I even met a professor at university who professed his love for '40K' on his institute website right next to the list of scientific papers and books he had written and and who used pictures of 'hulks' as the screensaver of his laptop. My first contact with this 'universe' was actually the computer game Space Hulk, and that's the very game this review is about. What an amazing coincidence!

Michael Zerbo 1994
Genre: Adventure
Rating: 1/6
Licence: Freeware
System: Amiga

Michael Zerbo used to be one of the most infamous authors of 'adult' (meaning violence, not sex) interactive fiction. His games always had some sort of gruesome theme, and the solutions to his puzzles were often equally gruesome. He alienated the classic target audience by utilizing commands such as USE (a mortal sin in the IF scene), yet his games were huge hits as their download counts exceeded those of more 'accepted' authors by more than an order of magnitude at times. This went so far that he even released some of his games as Shareware, i.e. expecting to make money from them (more info on that in the final paragraph).

PCSL Software 1991
Genre: Puzzle, Action
Rating: 1/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Warning: Even though I normally try to treat both language versions of the site equally, there are situations in which this is impossible. This review is such an example. This English review will be a boring read to everyone who isn't familiar with German television, because it mostly consist of references to the popular TV show which the game is based on. You'll still learn something about the game, but I won't promise it'll amuse you much.