The Zhodani and the Third Imperium, the two largest human societies in charted space, have been in conflict since first establishing contact in the year 500 (5018 on the Earth calendar). Each society's gradual expansion eventually led to an historic meeting in a backwater region of space known as the Spinward Marches.
Although their human physical appearances were exactly alike, several fundamental differences existed between the two great powers. The Zhodani's political structure was strictly authoritarian, whereas the Imperium was governed by the rule of the Emperor, a classic aristocracy. As the Zhodani race evolved, the human brain's potential was explored and mastered until the use of powerful psionics was a way of life. Mind-reading, telekinesis, extrasensory perception and clairvoyance became common among the Zhodani. The Imperium disdainfully outlawed the use of any form of psionics, believing these strange powers to be an invasion of mental privacy. Also, because the Zhodani utilized their superior mental
A puzzle-platformer for home computers. The eponymous professor needs to shut down his wayward laboratory experiments before the authorities find out and have him committed.
The first in a series of 3 racing games endorsed by the legendary car company, which is now a part of Proton.
The game features a total of 32 fictitious racetracks from around the world, split into 3 difficulty levels. There are 19 computer opponents (15 on the 8-bit versions) and you have to finish in the top 10 (top 8 on the 8-bits) to progress. The higher you finish in one race, the lower down the grid you start for the next race. The opposition drivers have pun names based on the F1 drivers of the day - examples include Ricardo Pastry and Crashhard Banger.
You can choose between sound effects or one of a variety of music pieces. The game features a simultaneous 2-player mode, but the 1-player mode only uses half the screen, a simple animation filling the other half. In most races you will have to make a pitstop for fuel in order to reach the finish. The tracks include features such as oil slicks, roadworks, boulders and rivers - contact with these (or the other cars) will slow you, but there is no car damage
Turn-based strategy game based on Julian Gollop's earlier games, Chaos and Laser Squad. The setting is pure fantasy — the Old World is wrecked by magical discharges, and the wizards who attempted to keep it balanced ultimately gave up, and used their skill to create a new world. These Lords of Chaos (up to four, played either by human or computer) may now battle for control of this world.
The idea of the game is to escape the level within a certain number of moves (preferably carrying lot of treasure and having killed the evil wizard Torquemada). Along the way you can use wizardry weapons and spells (there are 45 in total, created by combining ingredients) to conjure up mystical creatures like dragons and unicorns, but unfortunately so can Torquemada. Worlds include marshlands, castles and forests.
Links redefined what golf on the PC should look and play like; it migrated golf from a sports game to a simulation. Good use of VGA's 256 colors made for a realistic course with trees, water, sandtraps, and the fairway. The addition of ball physics, mulligans, changing the lie of the ball, real digitized environmental sounds (even through the PC speaker), and the ability to view a replay (even from multiple angles) gave PC golf games a new echelon of quality to match.
Legend of Faerghail is a 1990 role-playing video game, developed by Electronic Design Hannover and published by reLINE Software for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS.
Although not released for 8-bit systems, this platform game has a definite Commodore 64 feel to it. Bright primary colours and smiling characters are used to tell the tale of Kid's journey to rescue his girlfriend.
The levels feature an assortment of enemies to kill, including snakes, elves and crocodiles, as well as flames and spinning wheels. Many of these appear during the level, forcing you to plan for them. You have 10 lives, but the loss of one resets the level to its original state. The initial coin-throwing is pretty weedy, but better weapons (as well as extra lives and smart bombs) can be bought in the shop, which appears every 5 screens.
The levels are flick-screen, and can usually be finished in different ways, which results in different starting positions on the next screen, and you can travel back and forth through them, for example to pick up bonuses which are visible but not accessible as the level starts.
Using buttons to move left, right and fire, you attempt to ward off invading aliens and their flying saucers. The aliens are dropped off from a saucer and stored in multiple columns until a column is full, then the aliens in that column descend, one by one, and attack. Also, the saucers sometimes descend to attack; if they are not destroyed, one ship is lost.
For Monty Mole, a day at the beach turns into the adventure of his life when he's beamed aboard an alien spacecraft. He's transformed into Impossamole, with super powers to save their planet from the evil Vlarg! Now you're up to your cape in Vlarg's monster bosses with crack-up creatures ready to nail your tail! Power up your laser to blast the Dragon Boss. Bomb the Abominable Snowman. Then trash the Venus Moletrap before he has you for lunch. Swim, fly and blast through five wacky action-packed worlds. The fiendish Vlarg awaits your final desperate battle!
Hammerfist is a side-scrolling beat 'em up video game developed by Vivid Image and released in 1990 for the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum.
As Billy, you set off to rescue Gizmo the Gremlin from Clamp Tower skyscraper, where Dr. Catheter plans to viciously experiment with him. Unfortunately, Catheter gets word of your plans, and mixes up a whole new batch of vicious gremlins. As a result, your mission is now one of destruction and avoidance.
Elite's implementation of this is a five-level side-view action game, in which you run around avoiding or shooting the gremlins. Each level has a secret object which must be collected. Bonus items such as extra lives and time can be collected, as can improved weapons, and credits to spend on a new weapon after each level.
Enchanted Land is set in the peaceful land of Damiran. But as it is in video games, an evil wizard stops by and takes over. In this case, he broke the heart of wisdom and the only way to bring the story to a good end is to collect the pieces from the five levels of this game. The protagonist is the magician Kurgan who jumps through the multi-directional scrolling platform levels.
A big boss stands at the end of each level, but defeating him is not enough to get access to the next: the hidden parts of the heart need to be found first. Besides platforming, there are are lot of enemies to fight. To do so, the magician has twelve weapons at his disposal which need a certain amount of energy to use. Just like the other two bars (jumping and life energy) it can be refilled by collecting crystals.
In Dyter-07, Earth is attacked by alien forces. The player mans the advanced attack chopper Dyter-07 to drive them back and rescue scientists on the way. The game has eight levels with two alternating gameplay mechanics. For each of the four tropical islands, the surface has to be cleared at first by flying around in a side-scrolling perspective, reminiscent of Choplifter. Alien opposition can be destroyed by shooting them, but after six hits the helicopter gets destroyed.
The basic goal is to destroy a number of robots which are found by using the radar. However, the chopper is not able to destroy those; that's why it carries the Battledroid, a tank. When the chopper lands, the tank is detached and can be driven over the surface of the island. A side effect of destroying the robots is the rescue of human scientists which are held hostage in said robots. They can be picked up with the helicopter and brought to the base. While this is not required to finish the level, rescued scientists net vital upgrades like be