5 GAMES FOR JUNE

June's selection of games takes you on a trip around the world and beyond. First up is the space-themed pinball game 3D Ultra Pinball: Space Colony followed by a global racing tour in Magnetic Field's Network Q threequel International Rally Championship. Then, get into all sorts of hijinks while in Japan in Big Red Adventure's comedic predecessor Nippon Safes, Inc before travelling to a moon colony in order to protect its independence in the FPS sequel Rebel Moon Rising. Lastly, explore the trap-filled dungeons in the Tower of Souls, a rather unique dungeon crawling RPG.

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CHRONICLES OF THE SWORD

King Arthur. Merlin. The Knights of the Round Table - there's nothing quite like the most epic of British fables. Many have taken their stab at adapting the tale be it books, movies or games and in 1996, Psygnosis published Synthetic Dimensions' long-gestating adventure game called Chronicles of the Sword. Taking place after the grail has been found, with Arthur firmly on the throne, he's beginning to find ruling over Britania in the magical Dark Ages quite troublesome.

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5 GAMES FOR MAY 2019

For the month of May, gun down some terrorists in the PC-only light-gun shooter A.D. Cop. Take turns to solve the murder in Foul Play: Mystery at Awkward Manor based on Clue/Cluedo. Drive fast down dirt tracks and country roads in Network Q RAC Rally Championship. Destroy everything that moves in the little-known sci-fi first-person-shooter Rebel Moon. Finally, take your wrestling skills around the EU in WWF European Rampage Tour. Read on for more...

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5 GAMES FOR APRIL 2019

Capping off a month of Star Trekking, here's a quintet of mini-reviews set in the universe. First up is Star Trek: First Contact, an interactive fiction featuring the original crew. Next is Star Trek: Pinball, where you can fight for the high score in three unique tables. You can find out everything you need to know about the Enterprise, including an interactive guided tour in Star Trek: The Next Generation - Interactive Technical Manual. There's a more visual take on interactive fiction in Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Transinium Challenge. To cap it all of, you can follow the plot of the fifth movie in the multi-genred Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.


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STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - A FINAL UNITY

In my continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, I thought I'd seek out new life and new civilizations in Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity. Let's boldly go where no one (or quite a few judging by the sales numbers) has gone before, and take a look at Spectrum Holobyte's classic 1995 adventure that is perhaps my favourite Star Trek game of them all.

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STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE 9 - HARBINGER

Out of all of the Star Trek spin-offs, Deep Space 9 is arguably one of the best though it is somewhat underrepresented in video-game form. In 1995, the Federation space station located on the far side of the Milky Way came to PCs in a hybrid adventure game by Stormfront Studios called Harbinger.

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5 GAMES FOR MARCH 2019

In the latest quintet of monthly mini-reviews, a slew of hidden gems have made their way out of the Chamber. As a propeller-wearing slob of a man, platform your way across the US in Arcade America. Survive the wastelands of a post-apocalyptic future in Bad Blood, an action RPG from the folks behind Ultima. Grab your hoverboard and save the world from invading teddybears in the platformer Cyril Cyberpunk. Race across a multitude of nations in Network Q RAC Rally. Finally, prove your wrestling worth in WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game for a multitude of systems.

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GENEWARS

When you think of the iconic games spawned from the minds of Bullfrog, chances are you'd list off a number of all-time favourites. Legendary god-games like Populous, Theme Park, Syndicate or Dungeon Keeper solidified their name in history. However, very few are likely to put forth GeneWars in that memorable list of classics, but does this black sheep deserve to be overlooked?

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5 GAMES FOR FEBRUARY 2019

Keep your ball inflated so you can keep on bouncing in the isometric puzzle platformer known as Airball. Destroy a bunch of mutated insects in the first-person shooter Blam! Machinehead. Spray an army of clones with bullets in the Iron Maiden themed arcade shooter Ed Hunter. Uncover an intergalactic drug ring in the classic adventure Omnicron Conspiracy. Pile drive a bunch of muscled men in spandex in WWF: Wrestlemania. All are experiences you can now have this February thanks to the Collection Chamber.

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KINGDOM O' MAGIC

The Kingdom O' Magic is under threat, and only a busty blonde and a surly reptilian with a thick Scottish accent can help. Released in 1996 by Sales Curve Interactive (SCi), this adventure-RPG hybrid is filled with a very blue and very British sense of humour.

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QUEEN: THE EYE

With Bohemian Rhapsody winning all kinds of awards, the awesome musical stylings of Queen are again on everyone's minds - if they ever left. But on the outskirts of their rock anthems and operatic concept albums sits a band with a keen interest in science-fiction. We all know Flash Gordon, and some may have seen the Orwellian We Will Rock You on the stage, but most fascinating is Queen: The eYe (yes, that's how it's spelt), a little-known action-adventure published by Electronic Arts in limited numbers back in 1998.

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RIPPER

In the realm of FMV computer games, has there ever been a more star-studded cast that of Ripper? Released in 1996 by Take-Two Interactive, it stars Christopher Walken, Karen Allen, Burgess Meredeth and several other recognisable faces among the rabble of Hollywood working stiffs. But can this retelling of Jack the Ripper transposed to the cyberpunk future of 2040 match the movie-quality output of its US setting?

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COUNTDOWN

Access Software may be best known in the adventure-gaming community for their excellent Tex Murphy series of games, but right around the time of that franchise's birth, another adventure popped up. Released in 1990, Countdown didn't get the same cult status that Mean Streets or Martian Memorandum, but this conspiracy spy thriller perhaps deserves to be far more fondly remembered.

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DIE HARD COLLECTION

It's been thirty years since Die Hard - in my opinion the best action movie of all time - hit theatres. Since then there has been a number of game adaptations too with a good number of them bucking the movie licence curse by actually being good. Here are a number of the earliest attempts, some of which are criminally underrated.

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ALIEN VIRUS

With the number of games set in an abandoned space station, it could very well be a sub-genre all on its own. I know I've features enough on them on this site to notice a pattern. So let's look at another one. Here's a 1995 adventure game by Trecision called Alien Virus.

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CAVEWARS

With all that's going on in the world, you may want to pack up go live in a cave somewhere but before you do get a taste of what it will be like with Broken Arrow Entertainment's CaveWars. This 1996 strategy game proves that becoming an underground dweller has its own downsides that make anything the world can throw up look like sunshine and roses.

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BEDLAM

Sometimes in life, you just wanna blow shit up. Society tends to look down on that in real life but thankfully there's Mirage Technologies 1996 game Bedlam to safely scratch that itch.

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DUNE

The movie adaptation of Dune bombed hard on its 1984 release, a fact that makes this 1992 tie-in a rather strange proposition. How many other big money losers can hold public interest almost a decade later? Created by the French developers at Cryo Interactive, this interesting concoction of adventure and strategy did just that. It even sold well enough for a sequel to usher in an entirely new genre.

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RODNEY GREENBLAT'S GAMES OF WONDER

   

Why is it that entertainment made specifically for young children feels like an insane acid trip? Teletubbies, In the Night Garden, Yo Gabba Gabba - each are nightmare-inducing to anyone old enough to know what LSD is. Rodney Greenblat, the Californian artist behind the PlayStation game PaRappa the Rapper created a trio of CD-ROM oddities in the 90s: Rodney's Funscreen, Rodney's Wonder Window and Dazzeloids. And each will keep you awake at night.

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SPECIAL FORCES

While most strategy titles ask for Mensa levels of thinking and concentration, I tend to get the most enjoyment out of the simpler games in the genre like Cannon Fodder. Special Forces (1992, Sleepless Knights) looks like it could have been one of these simpler titles, but to actually play it is anything but.

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