Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon is an old game I really loved to play on my Commodore 64. The PC version has slightly worse graphics, but they are still very nice for the time in which the game was created. I was really surprised at the sound. It's not PC speaker. The sound is still nothing special, as it can get on your nerves if you play long enough, but it does set the oriental mood of the 1001 nights.
The game offers great diversity and that's why I like it so much. It's a combination of a strategy game and an adventure game. You play Sinbad, the legendary hero, who is fighting the Black Prince. Your main goal is, to defeat him. In order to do that, you must complete the quest. You need certain things and there are characters in the game, which will be able to aid you. When you come across such a person a dialog screen appears. Be careful what you say, because your words do matter.
There is also hardship on the way. There are various creatures you'll need to fight and there's even an arcade section, when you have to escape the underground caverns before you get caved in. You travel both on land and see (as Sinbad is after all a sailor) and thus you need to keep a sharp eye out for treacherous rock. If you wreck your ship, the game is over!
But there is also a strategy par of the game. Sinbad carries a green compass with him, with some icons on it. If you click on the soldier, you'll see the strategy map. White units are the ones under your control and the black ones are the enemy. You must prevent the black units to reach the city in the middle of the map.
This game really offers so much diversity and fun, that I can not help myself but to rate it with a generous 4. There are some reasons why I didn't give it a five and the main is, that you can't save! So every time you die, you'll have to start all over again.
The controls are simple enough; all is done with the cursor keys and space. I suggest playing in DosBox, because otherwise the game will run too fast (you can do that by pressing ctrl+F11 until the cycles read less then 1000). Also you can slow down the game even further. This is very helpful when you are trying to get the gem out of the statue's eye. If you miss, you're as good as dead, so you better not miss!
The archive also includes a hint file, to help you out!
Enjoy!