PC DOS 0-20 / 227

Blue Force is a point-and-click police adventure released in 1993 by Tsunami Games. It was designed by Jim Walls, the author of the Police Quest series, who had just left Sierra and brought the same fascination with real police procedure with him: radio codes, reading suspects their rights from the Miranda card, searches and arrests. The player takes... 3

Nitemare-3D is a horror first-person shooter written single-handedly by David P. Gray in 1994 and released under his own company Gray Design Associates. The hero is Hugo from the author's own trilogy of adventure games, whose girlfriend Penelope has been kidnapped by Doctor Hamerstein. Hugo searches for her through the doctor's mansion, his laboratories,... 3

Nippon Safes Inc. is the debut of the Italian studio Dynabyte, a cartoon point-and-click adventure released in 1992 for PC and Amiga. It is set in Tokyo and puts the player in charge of 3 characters who each got tangled up in the same case differently: the safe-cracker Doug Nuts, the boxer Dino Fagioli and the dancer Donna Fatale. Their stories can... 4

The Big Red Adventure is a point-and-click adventure by the Italian studio Dynabyte, published by Britain's Core Design in 1995. It follows on from Nippon Safes Inc. and brings back the same trio of heroes: the thief Doug Nuts, the boxer Dino Fagioli and the dancer Donna Fatale. The story is set in post-communist Russia shortly after perestroika, where... 1

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is a first-person RPG by the American company Bethesda Softworks, released on 25 March 1994 for PC DOS on floppies and on CD-ROM. The player travels across the whole continent of Tamriel to reassemble the 8 pieces of the Staff of Chaos and unseat the usurper Jagar Tharn. The world holds more than 400 towns and villages, a procedurally... 13

The Clue! is a burglary simulator made in 1994 by the Austrian studio neo Software of Hirtenberg; in German speaking countries it shipped under its original name Der Clou!, and a fully Czech edition followed in 1996 as Zlodej. The player takes the part of Matt Stuvysunt, a small-time criminal of Polish descent who arrives in London in 1953 with no... 9

Whizz is a 1994 isometric platformer by the British studio Flair Software. The hero is a rabbit in a magician's coat fleeing an evil rat in a hot-air balloon, who has to cross four worlds before the clock runs out. Instead of straightforward left-to-right jumping, the player works through maze-like levels using coloured keys that open wooden, brick,... 2

Oscar is a 1993 platformer by the British company Flair Software, created by reworking their game Trolls after the troll doll licence expired. The hero is Flair's own character Oscar, and the whole game takes place on movie sets: science fiction, western, horror, cartoons, dinosaurs, detective and a TV game show. Each world requires collecting enough... 11

Elvira: The Arcade Game is a 1991 side-scrolling platformer by the British company Flair Software, which used the Elvira licence in a completely different way from Horrorsoft's horror RPGs. The player controls Elvira herself across two large worlds, an underworld of fire and a frozen land, in order to unlock the third one, the castle in Transylvania.... 22

Starquake is a 1985 action platformer written single-handedly by Stephen J. Crow and published by the British label Bubble Bus Software for the ZX Spectrum. The player controls BLOB, an artificial being sent into the unstable interior of a planet to gather nine core elements before it detonates. The world spans 512 screens linked by teleport booths,... 3

Tajemství Oslího Ostrova (Donkey Island) is a 1994 point-and-click adventure created by two teenage students from Brno under the Pterodon Software name and distributed by Vochozka Trading. It is a Czech parody of LucasArts' famous pirate series The Secret of Monkey Island — the hero Gajbraš Trípvůd (a take on Guybrush Threepwood) is shipwrecked on... 53

Bureau 13 is a 1995 point-and-click adventure with RPG elements, published by GameTek and developed by Take-Two Interactive. It is based on the Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic tabletop role-playing game by Richard Tucholka. The player leads two agents of an ultra-secret organisation that hunts paranormal threats; the chosen characters - priest,... 75

B.A.T.2: The Koshan Conspiracy is the sequel to the cyberpunk adventure-RPG by the French studio Computer's Dream, released by Ubi Soft in 1992 for the Amiga and PC, with an Atari ST version a year later. The action moves to the metropolis of ROMA II on the planet Shedishan, where the player, as B.A.T. agent Jehan Menais, investigates the murder of... 35

B.A.T.: The Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters is a cyberpunk mix of adventure and RPG, developed by the French studio Computer's Dream and released by Ubi Soft between 1989 and 1991 for the Atari ST, Amiga, PC, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. The player becomes a secret agent of the B.A.T. organisation in the 22nd century, with just ten days to track... 42

Azrael's Tear is a first-person adventure with RPG and action elements, developed by Intelligent Games and released by Mindscape in 1996 for MS-DOS. The player takes on the role of a "raptor" - a futuristic raider of ancient sites - who breaks into the freshly uncovered underground complex of Aeternis in northern Scotland, where the Knights Templar... 50

Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (BARIS) is a strategy simulation of the Cold War space race by the studio Strategic Visions, published by Interplay in 1993. The player takes charge of either the American NASA or the Soviet space program with the goal of being the first to land a human on the Moon - allocating the budget for rocket development, recruiting... 74

Caesar II is the sequel to Impressions Games' Roman-province city-builder, released in 1995 for PC DOS and Windows (1996 for Macintosh) by publisher Sierra On-Line. As a governor the player civilizes provinces on three levels - a province map with mines and roads, a city with aqueducts, baths and temples, and a new tactical combat module for battles... 105

Battle Chess is a computer game version of chess in which the chess pieces come to life and battle one another when capturing. The game itself was inspired by the 3D chess sequences from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Futureworld. There are 35 animations, including movement, prelude to battle, and the combinations of battle itself (the latter... 97

Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh (also known as Arkanoid 2) is the direct sequel to Taito's arcade hit, released in June 1987. To the proven brick-breaking with the Vaus paddle it adds warp gates with a choice of route - a single playthrough covers 34 of the total 64 rounds - regenerating silver bricks, moving blocks, new power-ups and boss fights including... 48

Asmodeus: Tajemný kraj Ruthaniolu is the final game of the Czech studio NoSense, released in 1997, blending a first-person action RPG with adventure. The player takes the role of Mot, who must gather three magical stones - the Eterons - for his master in order to summon the ancient demon Asmodeus. He explores the land of Ruthaniolu, enemy-filled dungeons... 12