An alien breeding experiment on the spaceship Taccia has gone badly wrong and the ship is now overrun with alien species. You are the last remaining human on board, and it is your task to set the self-destruct mechanisms on board the ship and find the escape pod. Energy barriers and teleporters provide access to other parts of the spaceship, but you'll need to find the correct tokens to be able to switch them on and off, and you'll also need to find a computer terminal nearby. While this shoot-'em-up may have a marvellous title, it doesn't live up to expectations. Although the action is fast and smooth, most of the rooms are fairly spartan, with hardly any variety in the aliens that you can kill and objects to collect being scattered very thinly.

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5

A simple shoot-'em-up in which you control a submarine and must fire missiles at 'planes, helicopters, boats and other submarines. The submarine can only shoot upwards, though, and while you're trying to aim your missiles correctly, the enemy craft are firing ammunition of their own at you. As you progress through the levels, there is more ammunition to dodge, and your movement is also increasingly restricted as you won't be able to move up to the surface of the sea. Unfortunately, each level has exactly the same enemy formations which makes the game too easy and repetitive in the long term.

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6

Dizzy
(Codemasters, 1987)

This is the Dizzy adventure that started it all, and it's stood the test of time well. Dizzy has to defeat the evil wizard Zaks by making a magic potion consisting of four ingredients - but finding them will not be easy. The graphics are reasonable and the music is quite cool as well, although there are no other sound effects. The game is a little easy (although there is a secret area which you will need to discover), and there are lots of extra lives to collect, but if you fall into the trap in the haunted forest, you won't be able to carry on. It's very annoying and loses the game some marks for me. A cut-down special edition of the game for one of Amstrad Action's covertapes also exists.

See also: Bubble Dizzy, Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, Dizzy Down the Rapids, Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk, Fantasy World Dizzy, Fast Food, Kwik Snax, Magicland Dizzy, Panic Dizzy, Spellbound Dizzy, Treasure Island Dizzy.

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8

Despite the name, this is not a dice game but a fruit machine simulation, although it doesn't have all that many bonus features. However, if you score points, you are always given the option to gamble by guessing what type of fruit will be selected on a spinning wheel. If you are very lucky indeed and manage to light up six fruits in the correct order, as shown at the bottom of the screen you can play a dice game in which you can win up to 200 points by guessing whether the next roll of the die will be higher or lower than the previous roll. As well as playing a 'normal' game, you can also try to break the bank by amassing a certain number of points. The graphics are colourful, as one would expect, and I actually like its relative simplicity, although if you want a fruit machine simulation with lots of bells and whistles, this isn't it.

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7

It's yet another silly game with Dizzy thrown in so that it might sell. Dizzy's in a barrel and he's floating down a river, and he's got some apples that he can throw at any creatures who'll sap his energy. It's totally unexciting - the game moves at a terribly slow pace, firing apples doesn't remove most of the creatures, and it's much too difficult - you can't avoid the creatures and you lose too much energy. Still, a barrel isn't exactly the most manoeuvrable of objects, isn't it? The only good thing about the game is the cutesy music.

See also: Bubble Dizzy, Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, Dizzy, Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk, Fantasy World Dizzy, Fast Food, Kwik Snax, Magicland Dizzy, Panic Dizzy, Spellbound Dizzy, Treasure Island Dizzy.

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3

The troll has taken over the king's castle and the princess has been captured! Only Dizzy can save the day in the smallest of the seven adventures which Dizzy stars in - there are only about 30 rooms. It was also supposed to appear exclusively on the Dizzy's Excellent Adventures compilation, but it was later released as a stand-alone budget game anyway! The graphics are quite good and a nice little tune plays in the background. You also have to collect cherries, which replenish your energy. It may be smaller than the other Dizzy adventures, but it's still a challenge.

See also: Bubble Dizzy, Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, Dizzy, Dizzy Down the Rapids, Fantasy World Dizzy, Fast Food, Kwik Snax, Magicland Dizzy, Panic Dizzy, Spellbound Dizzy, Treasure Island Dizzy.

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8

Puff has now become a DJ, but Captain Krip has stolen his collection of vinyl records, and Puff must find them all. Unlike Puff's last outing, this is a platform game consisting of five levels. You can kill enemies by hurling fireballs or throwing bombs at them, but be careful you don't land on water or spikes! There are also some bricks with numbers on them; try shooting them and see what effects they produce. No game starring a DJ would be complete without some music, and the tune that plays throughout the game is reasonably good, although not brilliant. The graphics are rather garish but suit the game well, but the game is marred by the poor collision detection which decreases your lives needlessly and makes reaching the second level very difficult.

See also: Little Puff in Dragonland.

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5

Dr. Doom's Revenge
(Empire, 1989)

Dr. Doom has stolen a nuclear missile and has threatened to blow up New York. Spiderman and Captain America enter his castle in a bid to stop him from carrying out this deadly attack. This is a beat-'em-up consisting of five levels where the two heroes meet some of Dr. Doom's companions from the Marvel comic books. In each level, you control either Spiderman or Captain America, and must defeat two enemies in order to go to the next level. The graphics are absolutely stupendous, and the comic strip sequences that introduce each level are very well rendered. However, one senses that this game is an example of "all graphics and not much gameplay", since the game is slow and not very large, and the sound effects are very poor.

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6

You're a pupil at Dr. Scrimes' spook school, and have to show your worthiness by taking a series of tests. It's actually set in his large mansion, where you'll encounter some rather strange guests, such as a hunchback, a werewolf and a mummy. Your first test is to use whatever you can to fill some holes in the walls around the mansion. However, when you find out that none of the objects seem to work and you can't fill any of the holes, you'll soon tire of the game. It's got a cartoony feel to it and the graphics aren't bad, but that counts for little when you can't work out what to do.

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5

Dr. Dogmush has stolen 192 cute little dogs and is currently keeping them in his stronghold - a maze consisting of 25 screens. As Dogsbody, you must explore the maze and rescue the dogs. However, Dr. Dogmush's guards are also on the lookout for Dogsbody and must be avoided. This can be quite tricky, as they will follow you no matter where you go! There are boulders and fast-growing flowers (!) that can block off passages and perhaps kill the guards, but it's very frustrating to walk on to another screen and lose a life instantly because you unwittingly walked into the path of a guard; unfortunately, the screen doesn't scroll. The graphics are quite good, and Dogsbody is cute, but there are some flaws in the gameplay that make it awkward to play.

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5