Original game in which you must guide a bouncing ball through the corridor of doom, avoiding spikes, plasma fields and fire bolts. To complete the game, push all the cylinders you come across.
The good point of this game published by Hewson and coded by Nebulus author, John Phillips, lies in its original topic, not very utilised in those years (now I can only think of the great Gremlin's Bounder) and its successful (perfect, I would say) horizontal scroll. The high difficulty will get on your nerves, though.
The Curse of Sherwood [Mastertronic]
Mediocre Firelord clone which can pride itself with a very good average vote in the archive. I don't know why. 2,5/5
Greyfell [Starlight]
Fable-like isometric 3D arcade/adventure nicely drawn, with lots of icons, but very slow. 3/5
Druid II: Enlightenment [Firebird Software]
Druid goes monochrome! Unluckily. But the game is still good, there are bidirectional portals towards different zones, and there seems to be more stuff, more spells - but even a more complicated control system, with lots of keys. 3,5/5
El Misterio del Nilo [Zigurat Software]
Are you skillful enough to control up to three characters simultaneously through bullets and bombs galore? Well, I'm not. The concept was original, something usually implemented in arcade/adventure's not in action games, graphics are nice, playability is not bad - but it's not for me. 3,25/5
After a couple of "serious" investigative graphic adventures, which are The Vera Cruz Affair and The Sydney Affair, Infogrames released two more cartoonish/comic bookish games in the same genre:
The Inheritance: Panic in Las Vegas
You're a guy with a great amount of debts to pay, no money and no work - when you're informed that you're the sole heir of a rich aunt, which will leave her fortune to you if you "repeat her achievement of the thirties". So you try to get out of your building without your creditors noticing and earn your million dollars. It's in subjective view, point and click, and it looks quite cute too. 3,75/5
Sidewalk
Somebody stole your motorbike and its pieces are now all over town, you must find them and buy two tickets in order to collect your girlfriend and take her to a concert. The town is riddled with gangs and other characters, with which you can graciously talk, or graciously fight, entering a fast beat'em up sequence. Original game, in content, presentation and gameplay. 3,75/5
After a couple of "serious" investigative graphic adventures, which are The Vera Cruz Affair and The Sydney Affair, Infogrames released two more cartoonish/comic bookish games in the same genre:
The Inheritance: Panic in Las Vegas
You're a guy with a great amount of debts to pay, no money and no work - when you're informed that you're the sole heir of a rich aunt, which will leave her fortune to you if you "repeat her achievement of the thirties". So you try to get out of your building without your creditors noticing and earn your million dollars. It's in subjective view, point and click, and it looks quite cute too. 3,75/5
Wow - I liked the "affair" games, but don't remember that one at all. I think I'll have to give it a go because I quite enjoyed the style. And if WIWC gave it 3.75 it's probably a classic ;)
Wow - I liked the "affair" games, but don't remember that one at all. I think I'll have to give it a go because I quite enjoyed the style. And if WIWC gave it 3.75 it's probably a classic ;)
I don't know, this one is silly compared to the other two.
Stardust [Toposoft]
Professional and polished spanish vertical space shooter, with long range shooting and short range crosshair,
to destroy stuff on the lower platforms and such.
Contrarirly to the common control system in this kind of games,
you don't simply move laterally, but you actually face left and right when pressing the related keys - and the same thing happens for the "down" command: you don't just go back, towards the bottom of the screen while the scrolling proceeds, but you actually face down: it's a nice thing that while facing down, your short range laser stilll shoots upward, allowing you to destroy dangerous structures while at the same time running away from it and its weapons.
So, lots of nice things in this game, but even a lot of YELLOW, and, specifically, of YELLOW ON YELLOW, which doesn't help avoiding lethal stuff: especially when there's a big deal of action going on: with deadly structures on the platforms, bullets, flying things that chase you all over the screen. In fact, a good amount of the times I'm not ever sure of what exactly has killed me.
So, it's a nice vertical shooter with a bit of a monochrome blindness problem. 3,25/5
Saboteur II: Avenging Angel [Durell Software]
It's like the first capter, only everything is bigger, the enemis swallowed lots of vitamins and became giants,
and the dogs grew too. The map is wider, you can fall through screens and screen, or lose yourself in a system of tunnels. It's maybe slightly more difficult, and there aren't so many differences, aside that you became a woman, but it's still pretty good. 4/5
World Class Leader Board [US Gold]
Another great Leader Board game. Too many trees though. 4/5
I preferred the original Leaderboard. Liked the trees but didn't really like the vertical-line-drawn graphics. Would have preferred just Leaderboard with trees.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom [US Gold]
Slightly debatable collision detection, thugs appearing out of nowhere, high difficulty and easy deaths make Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom a rather flawed conversion that could have been very good. In fact, I don't dislike it, in spite of all the defects. 3,25/5
Comments
By John M. Phillips
Original game in which you must guide a bouncing ball through the corridor of doom, avoiding spikes, plasma fields and fire bolts. To complete the game, push all the cylinders you come across.
The good point of this game published by Hewson and coded by Nebulus author, John Phillips, lies in its original topic, not very utilised in those years (now I can only think of the great Gremlin's Bounder) and its successful (perfect, I would say) horizontal scroll. The high difficulty will get on your nerves, though.
3.5/5
Mediocre Firelord clone which can pride itself with a very good average vote in the archive. I don't know why.
2,5/5
Greyfell [Starlight]
Fable-like isometric 3D arcade/adventure nicely drawn, with lots of icons, but very slow.
3/5
Druid II: Enlightenment [Firebird Software]
Druid goes monochrome! Unluckily. But the game is still good, there are bidirectional portals towards different zones, and there seems to be more stuff, more spells - but even a more complicated control system, with lots of keys.
3,5/5
El Misterio del Nilo [Zigurat Software]
Are you skillful enough to control up to three characters simultaneously through bullets and bombs galore? Well, I'm not. The concept was original, something usually implemented in arcade/adventure's not in action games, graphics are nice, playability is not bad - but it's not for me.
3,25/5
I know which one of the 2 I'd rather play....
This maze/puzzle game is an ingenious and addictive riot full of shields, masks, fish and ducks.
4/5
A fun conversion, although the bubble spitting dragons look rather sad.
4/5
The Inheritance: Panic in Las Vegas
You're a guy with a great amount of debts to pay, no money and no work - when you're informed that you're the sole heir of a rich aunt, which will leave her fortune to you if you "repeat her achievement of the thirties". So you try to get out of your building without your creditors noticing and earn your million dollars. It's in subjective view, point and click, and it looks quite cute too.
3,75/5
Sidewalk
Somebody stole your motorbike and its pieces are now all over town, you must find them and buy two tickets in order to collect your girlfriend and take her to a concert. The town is riddled with gangs and other characters, with which you can graciously talk, or graciously fight, entering a fast beat'em up sequence. Original game, in content, presentation and gameplay.
3,75/5
Wow - I liked the "affair" games, but don't remember that one at all. I think I'll have to give it a go because I quite enjoyed the style. And if WIWC gave it 3.75 it's probably a classic ;)
Yep, I agree. Just hated that bloody swamp though!
I don't know, this one is silly compared to the other two.
Professional and polished spanish vertical space shooter, with long range shooting and short range crosshair,
to destroy stuff on the lower platforms and such.
Contrarirly to the common control system in this kind of games,
you don't simply move laterally, but you actually face left and right when pressing the related keys - and the same thing happens for the "down" command: you don't just go back, towards the bottom of the screen while the scrolling proceeds, but you actually face down: it's a nice thing that while facing down, your short range laser stilll shoots upward, allowing you to destroy dangerous structures while at the same time running away from it and its weapons.
So, lots of nice things in this game, but even a lot of YELLOW, and, specifically, of YELLOW ON YELLOW, which doesn't help avoiding lethal stuff: especially when there's a big deal of action going on: with deadly structures on the platforms, bullets, flying things that chase you all over the screen. In fact, a good amount of the times I'm not ever sure of what exactly has killed me.
So, it's a nice vertical shooter with a bit of a monochrome blindness problem.
3,25/5
Brick throwing on moving pavements. Faster Than Light arcade games are mabye slightly underrated.
3,75/5
Decent horizontal space shoot'em up with power up's, especially for a budget release.
3/5
I've always liked it.
3,75/5
And the graphics are hideous!
But Curse of Sherwood is better than it :p
Another great Leader Board game. Too many trees though.
4/5
It's like the first capter, only everything is bigger, the enemis swallowed lots of vitamins and became giants,
and the dogs grew too. The map is wider, you can fall through screens and screen, or lose yourself in a system of tunnels. It's maybe slightly more difficult, and there aren't so many differences, aside that you became a woman, but it's still pretty good.
4/5
I preferred the original Leaderboard. Liked the trees but didn't really like the vertical-line-drawn graphics. Would have preferred just Leaderboard with trees.
Slightly debatable collision detection, thugs appearing out of nowhere, high difficulty and easy deaths make Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom a rather flawed conversion that could have been very good. In fact, I don't dislike it, in spite of all the defects.
3,25/5