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[TotalAnarchy]

Pinball Dreams

Digital Illusions' pinball series in the early ninetees were a real hit! They featured beautiful graphics, dynamic and realistic gameplay, all kinds of tables and much more. Pinball freak or not, once you run this game you will be glued to the screen for hours You can even tilt the table. There are many "missions" hidden within each table, and new ones open up as you reach higher scores. I played this game oftenly, and I haven't unlocked all the missions, so believe me when I say that there is a lot of potential there

Of course, I can't neglect the fact that the music and sound effects are simply fabulous! All in all, a mark of 5 for phenomenal graphics (bear in mind that this is 1992.), wonderful SoundBlaster sound effects and music, and generally for being probably one of the best pinball series ever to be published on PC!

by Kosta

[Acethor]

Prehistorik

Prehistorik is one of those adorable old arcade games. You get to be in charge of some silly character (caveman with a bat in this case), and you go around and whack monsters and people on the head with it! What could be more fun than that... Of course, you have to dodge birds, jump over spikes and solve some simple tasks. Graphics are very nice and cartoonish, gameplay is excellent, and those are all the ingredients required for a truly fun game! Thumbs up!

By Kosta

[Acethor]

The Lost Vikings

As is the case with all games that we feature on abandonia.com, this one is a true gem!

You are in charge of three vikings who have been mysteriously lost in time and space. You can control only one at a time, and each has its special ability. One has a shield, one can jump, and one is equipped with a sword. Using those abilities you will have to solve various puzzles, and get through many challenging levels.

At each level, the main objective is to gather all the vikings on the exit spot. Once you do that, you advance to the next level and get the code that is necessary to access that level when you restart the game! So no objections here - graphics are superb, sound is also excellent, gameplay is marvelous, and addictiveness is through the roof! So what are you waiting for? Download!

By Kosta

[TotalAnarchy]

Darklands

Darklands takes you to medieval Germany around the 15th century. There is a short introduction which doesn’t show reveal anything about the plot, only a gargoyle coming to life and some kind of magician arriving to welcome you to Darklands.

At the start of the game you can select a pre-existing band of four adventurers, or you can create them yourself from scratch. The game starts at the local inn in a random city. Here your character decides to live the life of an adventurer and achieve fame through his/her deeds. In conversation with the rest of the bar's patrons you will get a few tips about interesting locations, but as soon as you leave the inn you are on your own. You will soon realize that the game really doesn’t have a plot! It doesn’t even have an ending! This is the main reason why I gave it a four. Of course, Germany is very big, so there are many quests, random events and lots of freedom, but it lacks plot. It isn’t as great as it may seem at first that you can go where you want and do what you want.

The gameplay is very simple. In each situation that arises you will be given a few options and then select what you wish to do next. In the world map you will have to click where you want to go and your band will start moving to that position. The world map is the main area where random events occur. Battles are also quite simple; the game will pause, allowing you to give orders to your characters, before you un-pause the game, sit back and enjoy the show. Dungeon mode is also very simple, very similar to the battle mode. The game's sounds are great! This was one of the few old games whose sounds I didn’t turn off after only a few game hours.

In Darklands it’s very easy to get yourself killed so you should save often. And here comes the main bug: you can only save while staying at a city inn, while camping in the countryside or while travelling on the German map. In other situations "save" will also be allowed, but then your game status could be a mixture of present and past situations. The game will still be completely playable, however.

Are you still reading? Enough reading; just push the download button because this game is a must for every RPG fan.

by sarua

[TotalAnarchy]

Gobliins 2

Goblin series are one of my favorites! They are funny, witty and cruel in a Tom&Jerry fashion (and we all love them, don't we?). Playing this game is tremendously entertaining. You will probably find yourself clicking on various objects, and forgeting about completing the puzzle, just so that you can see what will happen to your character when he interacts with it. The game starts with 2 goblins, and along the way you will gain control over some other ones too. Each of them will interact with objects in different ways. Completing levels will not be an easy task as it will require a lot of imagination, tenacity and patience. However, you will love this game no matter what. The graphics are superb. You will barely believe your eyes. Sound effects are also great. I have no objections to gameplay either. I think this is more than enough for a mark of 5! Try it out, you won't be sorry!

by Kosta

[TotalAnarchy]

Raptor - Call of the Shadows

Raptor is a fairly common 2D sci-fi shooter. What differs it from the vast amounts of similar games is the detail and complexity. It is obvious that Apogee has put a great amount of time and effort into this game. The result is excellent! It's a fast paced, fun to play, great looking game. There are plenty of missions, each one special in a certain way, and each one containing its own unique "boss" at the end. You can destroy both buildings and incoming crafts. Every time you destroy a craft, or a whole wave, they leave a certain amount of money behind that you can pick up. With this money you can upgrade your ship's technology at the end of each level. This aspect is also very well done. You can also save and load missions while you're in the hangar. The sound is very good, no dissapointments here either. The only drawback to this game is that this genre was so massively overused at the time, people were saying "Not again..." before even trying to play it If you're a fan of this genre, Raptor is an absolute must! Too bad Apogee is still selling it :/

by Kosta

[Dave]

Zool 2

Zool 2 kept all the good things that the original Zool had: speed, easy control and cartoon-like graphics. There are also some significant improvements that can can make you feel like playing a new game, and not just some superficial sequel. Besides graphical "faceliftings", you may notice more "active objects" and "extras" to collect: health packs, shields, bombs, etc. You can also choose whether you'd like to be a "Zool" or a "Zoolie". It 'features' the same umbrage
of Zool 1 - gets boring too fast.

Unfortunately, the game is almost unplayable on faster machines. I went to hell and back to get it running! If you have anything faster than an Intel Pentium 200 and old 72-pin memory banks (an important detail), you probably won't be able to play the game. No slowdown programs (such as Bremze) known to me can help with this one. Emulators such as DOSbox or virtual machines like VMware can't do any good either. So if you own a supercomputer you should forget about it, unless if you're really good at software slowdowns. If you know a way to play Zool 2 on 500 MHz+ CPU's - please feel free to express yourself.

By Kosta

[Japo]

Skyroads

This game lives in the hearts of all of us who went to the same school a long time ago :-) (Playing it was all we did instead of paying attention). Your goal is to fly (or should I say "drive" since it actually cannot fly) a small spaceship (guess) without crashing it or falling off a "star track". Once you reach the end, you have completed the objective and you are ready to start with another one (you can choose a track of any level of difficulty anytime, however, you probably won't finish the more difficult ones without practicing with the easier ones first). No brainwork required. Navigation is simple: space bar and arrow keys are enough to do everything. Graphics looks good considering the disk space it occupies. It is quite addictive and some levels were pretty frustrating :). Recommended.

by Kosta