During the War of Strife, which lasted for 5000 years, an army of fighting men called the Space Marines were assembled to take on the alien forces of Chaos. These aliens reside in large spaceships, and there are twelve missions to be undertaken. There are three chapters of Space Marines which you can control - the Blood Angels, the Imperial Fists, and the Ultra Marines. On each mission, you control four marines led by a commander. Completing a mission successfully earns the commander honour badges which allow you to obtain better equipment - but your commander has to return alive! The rules are rather complex and take some time to understand, and the game will seem difficult at first as all your marines are killed by the aliens! Stick with it, though, and you'll discover an absorbing and highly tactical strategy game.

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A rather interesting board game in which you control the Space Cowboy, starting at the bottom left of the board and attempting to reach the top right. In each turn, two dice are rolled, and you can use them to move a certain number of steps in any direction you want. Then it's the turn of the aliens to move randomly, as they attempt to block your progress. If you are stuck and can't move, you are 'spaced out' and must pay a penalty. You can land on the aliens if you roll the correct dice and eliminate them, although this also penalises you slightly. If you accumulate too many penalty points, you lose. There are four different types of aliens and the difficulty can be configured. The graphics are nice and the sound effects do the job, and it's not a bad game, actually, despite what some people might think.

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It's the year 2039 AD, and your spaceship receives a distress call from a crippled starbase which is being overrun by aliens. You have to explore the corridors of the starbase, rescue as many hostages as you can, and blast lots and lots of slimy, monstrous aliens. The game is viewed in pseudo-3D, with you looking down the corridors, and the effect is fairly impressive. Unfortunately, the pace of the game is sluggish, which spoils the atmosphere of what should really be an action-packed game. Interestingly, this is one of very few non-cartridge games to exploit the Plus' extra colours and other facilities, and for some reason, it was only released in France. However, the slow pace and the unresponsive controls make this a frustrating game to play.

5

Three-dimensional shoot-'em-up conversion of the popular Sega arcade game. Fly across the surface of different planets across the galaxy at breakneck speed, destroying the waves of enemies that come at you. Face and destroy the guardian aliens such as double-headed dragons at the end of every stage, in order to progress to the next with only your trusty laser gun to aid you. While the music and sound effects are nice, the gameplay is ruined by the somewhat hit and miss graphics. Backgrounds and your own character are more than adequate but the 'transparent' enemies and planet obstacles make it too difficult to pinpoint them, something which the sequel amends with solid sprites.

See also: Space Harrier II.

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5

An evil force has taken control of the Fantasy Land and imposed a cruel tyranny upon it. Yet again, shoot your way past the scores of enemies that come at you and carefully weave your way through opposing surface structures. Blast the end of level monsters in order to face the next round and battle your way through to the ultimate level to meet and destroy the Dark Harrier. In spite of the fact that this lacks any originality - it's exactly the same as its predecessor - it's a superior game as the improved graphics beef up the gameplay considerably.

See also: Space Harrier.

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8

Space Hawks is a Galaxian clone, pure and simple, but not a bad one at that. Upon loading, your ears are met with a decent rendition of a well-known sci-fi movie. A starfield scrolls in the background as you choose one or two players. You then begin your attack upon the Space Hawks. Each stage displays different baddies, including a pink ball that bounces around the screen on later levels - hitting it causes it to split into four! Overall, it's a good blaster, and in many ways, it's far superior to many later attempts.

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8

You are a test pilot working for the Space Rider Jet Pack Company, and have been sent to a planet to test their latest jet pack, and also collect 99 nuggets containing important minerals while you're there. Of course, the caverns and mines in which you'll find these nuggets are filled with hazards and aliens which will drain your energy, which is represented by an oscillating wave of coloured bars at the bottom of the screen - neat. However, the game is rather mediocre. The graphics and sound effects are poor and the jet pack is difficult to control; it's practically impossible to stay still, which makes shooting the aliens a frustrating task. It also lacks originality.

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5

The Space Smugglers are a highly organised group of dangerous assassins, and you have just been chosen to rid the galaxy of them. On the screen are three teleporters, and aliens appear at random. Some of them are harmless, but others are dangerous and will show you their weapon after a few seconds. You can only shoot an alien when they have drawn their weapon, so you will need quick reflexes to survive! When you have shot the required number of aliens (shown at the top of the screen), you are taken to the next level. This game can only be played using MHT's own Gunstick, and it's actually fairly unexciting. It takes ages to complete a level, and of course, the next level is the same, except that you may need to shoot even more aliens. The graphics and animation are absolutely wonderful, but that's of little consolation.

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5

An earthquake has struck and has damaged the pipes that cool a nuclear reactor. It's time to call in the local plumber to mend the pipes. This is a platform game consisting of only one screen, and as leaks continually appear, you have to adjust the joints with your spanner to stop the leaks. To make life more difficult, the screen gradually fills with water, although you can go underwater to fix leaks. Other things to watch out for are mutated rats and falling debris. The graphics and sound effects aren't particularly good, as would be expected from a game that was released in the very early days of the CPC, and despite the inclusion of five difficulty levels, there's not much to make you want to play the game again after a few goes.

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5

Race against 19 other riders around ten tracks in your super-powered motorcycle, capable of reaching 250mph! There are three difficulty levels - novice, champion and pro - and you can practice each track before you go racing over two, four or six laps. The first thing you'll notice once you start racing is that the graphics are very blocky indeed! However, this doesn't necessarily mean that this is a bad game; in fact, it is quite fast, although one annoying aspect is that all of the riders unerringly remain in the centre of the road, and it is relatively easy to crash into them unintentionally. Despite this problem, this is still a fairly decent game overall.

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