Old computer space games

And with the right settings, it offers some breathtaking vistas. Universe Sandbox is a physics-based space simulator aimed at making education fun by turning users into all-powerful galactic gods. You can also move anything you want, which becomes an exciting way to see how even the slightest changes can completely transform the Earth and our Milky Way.

Among its best features are the realistic simulated collisions, which will probably happen a lot considering how destructive we all get after being given so much power. Slowly piecing together the puzzle as you explore the system, one time-loop at a time. Death will happen often here.

But both your credits and your knowledge carry over from one run to the next, which is nice. Basically breathing new life into its previously barren universe. Having you jump from rock to rock in search of fuel and materials to continue your journey towards the center of the universe.

And once you get bored maybe try out some mods to bring back the freshness. Stellaris manages to find the middle ground between complex strategy gameplay and custom-made storytelling. Every anomaly you research has the potential to turn into a multi-episodic story that changes your society forever.

This may sound like it limits your freedom. Among the most well-known games on our list is Kerbal Space Program, a physics-based space exploration simulator with an educational focus. Developed by Squad, this quirky game lets you design, build, and launch spaceships operated by little green men.

But stuff like calculating the right angle your ship needs to breach the atmosphere will slowly become second nature. Well, if you keep at it. This ambitious MMORPG seeks to give players a complete simulation of what living in a galactic empire would be like, together with some more fantastical elements to keep things interesting.

All of these are littered with resources to obtain, NPCs to meet, and challenges to overcome. But CCP Games has been focusing on streamlining the new player experience as much as possible for the last couple of years.

Give this a try if you never have before. Here are 30 of those classics. How many can you remember? Soul Edge is a fighting game and the first title in the Soul Caliber series. It was originally released as an arcade game before being renamed Soul Blade for its release on PlayStation. The game was an experiment by Namco in exploring the idea of a weapon based fighting game. It was the first motion capture based game to be created. It is often forgotten however due to the fact that the rest of the series of games are all called So ul Caliber.

Unreal is often overshadowed by Unreal Tournament but it's actually an amazing first-person shooter. The plot centers around a prisoner aboard a spacecraft which crash lands. You take the role of that prisoner, the one human survivor who has nothing to lose.

Virtua Fighter first became popular in the arcades back in the early to mid 90s. It was first released to arcades in and later to the Sega Saturn in and the Sega 32X in It was the first fighting game to use 3D polygon graphics.

The game sparked a popular franchise with many fighting game fans flocking to play both the original and the sequels and spin-offs released throughout the decade. This classic side-scrolling platformer was hugely popular in the mid 90s. The edgy art style and surreal humor helped it stand out from the crowd. Throughout the decade Earthworm Jim was found on many consoles across the globe. Four games were released between and Over this time the series evolved from its 2D side-scrolling start to a free-roaming 3D extravaganza.

As the gameplay and graphics evolved the series zaniness remained a constant, drawing in fans. Back in a string of developers worked together to produce massively multiplayer online role-playing game Everquest. Everquest has its roots in MUD multi-user dungeon games and is also inspired by traditional role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons.

Positive reviews and a string of awards helped the game gain popularity early on. Despite many of us putting the title to the back of our minds the game actually continues to this day, with the latest expansion, The Burning Lands, due to hit shelves on December 11 th. One of the first ninja games to incorporate stealth, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins was an action-adventure game released in The involving gameplay and interesting mechanics made this game a success.

It features 10 levels which increase in difficulty. Each level can be repeated as many times as needed to progress. The Japanese version of the game is very different to the one we saw in North America and Europe. All versions however feature moves from martial artist Sho Kosugi and his son Kane, acquired using motion capture technology.

Back in Worms was one of the go to titles for anyone with friends round to play games, especially over here in the UK. The first game was a 2D artillery tactile game. Each player takes a turn to fire weapons at the opposing players worms. The aim is to keep your own worms alive while destroying others. You could play against your friends or an AI opponent. This simple format was insanely popular and there have been many titles in the series, the last one being Worms W.

D in Ape Escape is a third-person perspective platformer in which players use a variety of gadgets to chase and capture apes. Released in the game was hugely popular and many cite it as a PlayStation classic.

The controls was the first to use dual shock functionality and makes heavy use of the analogue control sticks. A Infocom text-adventure which was released in , you are PRISM, the world's first sentient machine, you must go into the future and bring back information. Game for the C64 where you're a miner who had to walk over every inch of the floor with monsters? The layout of the game was similar to the original Donkey Kong but changed with each level.

From the same guys that made Oregon Trail and Number Munchers. The object was to mine gems from a cave using levers, pulleys, wheel and axles, and ramps. It was for the Apple ][ and it was awesome. Mixed-Up Mother Goose is a classic "Sierra-style" adventure game for kids, based on the various classic nursery rhymes Humpty Dumpty, etc.

All the rhymes from all over the land have gotten mixed up, and it is up to the child to find the missing pieces and give them back to who needs them. Lucasarts hilarious misadventures of the wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood.

In all the Monkey Island games Guybrush attempts to become a better pirate while fighting the evil LeChuck and attempting to rescue his true love, Governor Elaine Marley.

This entire series is a laughfest blast, including lastest one, Curse of Monkey Island. Two player only version of the board game classic. Space bar rolled the dice and it was very easy to cheat whoever you were playing out of their money. I'm pretty sure this came out in the eighties. In the game, you're Gumby, and you're set out to find your brain. You go through 4 levels, collecting Spam so that you can get the different sections of your brain. It's a very bizarre game, and you only get one life Dungeons and Dragons feel-- shareware game, magic, weapons, maze levels.

Score points on horizontal lines which form the mountain. Get the crown and try to make it to the top before bats can steal your crown. Unsure if the game was actually branded by Playskool or not. I seem to recall playing this in the mid to late 80's on a C It was a little more advanced than the "Face Maker" game previously mentioned here, but I have never been able to find additional info on this game and am only relying on memory.

One of my all time favorite games growing up. Players has the ability to pick classic monsters;Godzilla,Mothra,the Blob There were several different missions but the object was usually to destroy a city and then get out before the militairy killed you.

I remember it having decent graphics and the game play was better than most. This was a Texas Instruments game kind of like Pac-man but each level the bad guys would change. So like one level hair curlers would be chasing you, next level tornados Very Atari like visually the screen was green and black and you controlled Kermit, Fozzie and Piggy and the others through space. It was one of my first computer games I loved it, I just wish I could find it. You have to go through different rooms, looking for items that will eventually let you leave the house.

The original graphic adventure game this was probably the dominant genre in computer games right up until "Doom" came along by On-Line Systems Sierra. Horrible graphics, kinda dull plot. Later re-done as "The colonel's bequest" in the very late 80s. Important if not all that much of a game. NetHack was essentially a character terminal based RPG wherein the main player seeks the Amulet of Endor sic deep in the dungeon below.

An incredibly engrossing game that takes hundreds of hours to complete, it ate a lot of otherwise good programmer waking hours in the s. Another novel-based release from Interplay, you're a burned out cyberspace cowboy on the trail to find out what happened to your friend.

Part of it took place in the "sprawl" of Chiba City, and part took place on the internet before there was the internet. I believe Devo did the soundtrack. Well i can't remember much of it but i'm sure theres someone outthere that used to play this game as well. You had a certain amount of time and money to complete various tasks at famous landmarks in NYC. Among my favorites were climbing the Empire State Building to get a pretzel??

The way it worked you would create little creatures with premade body parts. For instance you could use a dog like head and put it on a cat like body. The point of the game was to see how many species you could get together before they reproduced an aggressive creature or if you accidentally created an aggressive creature you would have to create another just powerful enough to start killing your aggressive creatures. There was a good amount of combinations, but the best combos were usually when they mated.

I haven't played the game since high school so I might have a couple things wrong about it. I would love to play it again. Gorillas stand on a building and you have to figure out angle and velocity throw a banana and blow up a building.

On the Apple IIe systems at my school, we had a variety of educational games. One of these was Number Munchers, and I believe the idea was to eat only the numbers that were the product of two numbers at the top of the screen. You'd hit the spacebar to eat a number, and you had to watch out for these other monsters as well. A load of fun. It was for apple 2e computers, you used to select a fish you wanted to be.

Then you went around eating stuff, but if you ate the wrong food there would be a hook, you also had to watch out for bigger fish. All ten events As I recall the pole vault was really tough Very simple monochrome graphics, but very cool. Probably the most expensive game at the time! I got it for the Atari for nearly 0 mail order direct. The game came in a large, classy black padded loose leaf binder that could fold out to become a stand also, to support the very hefty instruction manual and the numerous floopies.

When you are finish your ship, you then buy goods from one planet and sell it at another one, hopefully for a profit. Along the way, you also might have to face other spacers and pirates ala very bare bone basic line graphics like the very first Microsoft Flight Simulator!!! It was micromanagement to the max, staring at screens after screens of database and spreadsheet in between the crude line graphics.

I still remember I even have to figure out the approach and landing angles and speeds when going planetside! I wish there are something similar out now that might measure up to it! Larry Bird and Dr.

J go one on one. Brake the backboard on dunks the 3 pointer that game had it all. Their have been variations on the theme over the years. This was one of those embarassing educational "games" that completely missed the mark. Now, we all know that educational games aren't fun-- it's either educational OR fun- it can't be both. And this monstrosity was not fun. Food was scarce and you'd have to shoot deer, rationing every bullet you had.

Every now and then your wife or son or father would die along the way from either starvation, disease, or something of that nature. I always wondered why you weren't allowed to eat the deceased family members if you were out of bullets and starving. I supposed that would be bad form for a game aims at youths age A man and his family travel through the plains of Oregon and have to make money, rest, and hunt for food.

I am surprised Pac-Man is not in here. If you were good you could complete the obstacle course at the end of the round. I used to play this game all the time on my Commodore The object is to deliver papers to the houses that subscribe as fast as possible without hitting any obstacles. Similar to Trashman, except you are a kid on a bike tossing newspapers. I think it hit arcades at some time. MS-DOS version. One of the best games for the C You started out as a basic cleaning robot and you had to destroy all the other robots in two ways 1 by taking over more powerful robots and 2 by shooting other robots.

The system for taking over other robots was ingeneous - your robot had to occupy more pieces of a circuit board in 30 seconds than the robot itself, the smaller your robot the less chances you had. Once you took a robot over you could only keep them for given time before you had to take another over or revert back to your orginal weak form - It got pretty hairy in rooms full of powerful robots where a combination if luck, fire power and quick takeovers was the way to win.

An old game that was on the Texas Instruments ti It was a game that was really fun and you flew a spaceship and shot at other space ships coming your way. You had to stop for gas and even go through an asteriod belt. Fight scene was monsters at top, PC at the bottom.

This was one of the educational games my school computer lab had and it was one of the best. The screen was a grid with about 12 squares and each round the grid would be filled with different objects. You would be asked to "chomp" things depending on color, size I think there was a time limit and if you chomped something that didn't fit in the category a big x would appear on the square.

I really liked this game :. An awesome Apple game where you actually used a graphical interface to create a pinball table. You could define boundaries and draw special bumpers and allot point totals and even alter the physics. There were rollovers and everything you'd expect in a pinball game at the resolution. Apparently it was the big reason a patrol in my boy scout troop held its own weekly meetings so efficiently.

Pirates cemented Sid Meier's claim to fame and stands as one the greatest combinations of role playing, strategy, resource management and action ever to have been produced. Pirates is an open ended game with a very loosely woven plot. You begin your pirate career as a slave in a sugar plantation in the Caribbean who has just bought his freedom. Your brother, sister and father have been lost in your struggles, and you are now on a quest to find them. This quest can be totally ignored; however, and you can completely dedicate yourself to pirating the seas of the Caribbean.

As captain of a ship you will have to navigate your vessels for you can build an entire fleet should you wish through treacherous waters, take advantage of favorable winds, calculate your coordinates, recruit men and manage your food supplies. In addition to these activities, you must decide whether to pledge allegiance to one of the four nations colonizing the region, whether to betray your masters, ransack cities, search for buried treasure or even marry the daughter of a governor in order to gain title and prestige.

The open ended nature of this game would most likely be its Achilles heel if it wasn't for the fact that you age, and if you don't put a timely end to your swashbuckling antics by settling down and retiring, you will see even simple battles come to a most unfortunate end.

Depending on the riches you own at the time of your retirement, you will be given a different fate -- from a beggar weeping over his lost glory, to the governor of a colonial empire.

I was surprized you don't have Pitfall listed. You type in words and your imagination replace graphics. All text game. There were 4 "families" any not played by an actual person were played by a computer that would lauch spacecraft to various planets in our solar system hoping to be the first to claim a pre-generated number of mines on various planets. Each family had five space ships of various levels to do this with.

The level of the spaceship s on earth helped influence rulings made by the council who granted mine rights. The level of the spaceship s on the other planets dictated how successful the family was at sabotaging other family's ships and switching markers in order to obtain other family's mines.

Most of the strategy involved planning when to have a ship embark for a planet some planets such as Neptune and Pluto would take a very long time to travel to and how to utilize the powers of your ships most effectively. I believe this was an Avalon Hill computer game, but can't remember for sure. I played this pc game on the school spectrum computers, from what i remember pod was a red blob thing that you had to tell what to do, for example type pod fly and it flys or pod pop and it pops, a very funny game i wish i could play it again.

Yet another best-selling Sierra series, but this time you are involved in a police department, obviously. The game that started it all! Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale etc. Portal is an oft-overlooked adventure game. It was heavily hyped prior to its release on TV, radio and magazines about how it was going to "revolutionize" computer entertainment.

In truth, it was less a game than an interactive novel; it was a passable read but torturous to read on the slow 4-color machines of the day especially since after every chapter you had to swap disks. Nonetheless, it was a noteworthy game because it was the first game that tried to present computer entertainment to the masses as something more than arcade slashfests. Plus, I think it was also the game that coined the term "multimedia".

It was a time of darkness. While the sultan is off fighting a foreign war, his Grand Vizier Jaffar has seized the reins of power.

Throughout the land, the people groan under the yoke of tyranny, and dream of better days. You are the only obstacle between Jaffar and the throne Robbie the robot is attemptng to grow a flower.

It takes up to about five minutes to grow but Robbie has to fight off the many insects and pests that want to chomp on his beloved plant. But only certain sprays will kill each type of insect. The point of the game Many of the Psygnosis games out for the Atari ST. Barbarian, Obliterator, Baal, Chronoquest. Although they were from the later 80's, the graphics were stunning at the time. And even though Chronoquest was a text based adventure, it was still fantastic as were many text adventures.

Pud Pud flies around looking for 10 puddings? He starts off with 3 hearts as lives, but Mrs Pud Pud can instantly kill him so watch out for her as he flies around the maze screen. The first game starring Wally, the hapless fat chap who want on to star in the sequel, Everyone's A Wally. Lovely arcade adventure, with some ingenius little sub-games within.

Published by Mikrogen. Apologies for double send. This game had a "3D" board which cubert or q-bert possibly used to avoid falling objects whilst attempting to change the colour of each cube by landing on it. The round thing looks like ant eater and jumps around on a pyramid type thing changing its colors. Spectrum version of Paradroid, but in 3D. Much of the same gameplay, you had to either shoot, blast or take over the enemy robots the latter being a strategy bit.

Very, very good game with a great intro tune pushing the limits of the little speaker in the Speccy. Car game that allowed players to customize both the tracks including gravity controls and the cars. In destruction mode players had access to things such as oil slicks. Commodore computer game a rat eats a bunch of cheese similiar to a pac man style game.

A C64 cartridge game where you controlled a mouse running around in a top-down maze eating cheese ala Pacman only before pacman came out. If my memory serves me correctly this game didnt even use sprites instead relying on the C64s built in symbols to construct the maze, mice and cats. You started this game, a bum. Not sure how much money. You went back and forth through stages collecting money, jobs, etc, trying to avoid jail till you earned, I think, 2 mill.

This game gave you a chance to use a rocket launcher if you picked the angle right to blow up commies and take over Russia one city at a time. Now - they are friends! This is definitely one of the best games ever made.

The scenario is from the Cold War, back in the days when the Soviet Union existed. And of course they're up to no good. In fact, a nuclear attack on the good old US of A is imminent. Your task? To stop the attacks by destroying all Soviet launch sites and finally lead an assault on the Soviet Defense Center.

Here is a link to a page dedicated to it. An awesome C64 game where you assumed the identity of John Rambo. You started out at a crashed helicopter and had to make your way around killing vietcong left and right with your bow and arrows. Spectrum 48K game. You're a magician turned into a frog, and have to make your way through levels of dungeons filled with magical nasties.

You can take on magicians in a strategy battle using and collecting runes that make you more powerful. Similar to Quazitron, and just as enjoyable. But its 2D, and unexplored sections of levels remain dark. Softalk readers' Most Popular Program of I dont know when this came out but I remember playing it when I was 5 Primer for school, had a lot of minigames. I dont remember much else. Incredible for C64 game that was well ahaed of its time. Synopsis: The Soviet Union, under severe pressure after destruction of one of their biggest oil refineries, must secure a new source of oil, and to do that, they must disable the West And the only way NATO can prevent that from happening is to reinforce their forces with convoys from the US and other countries.

You are in command of one of the US attack submarines. You must hold the ocean against the Soviet navy at all costs, or the land battle will go badly. Part submarine simulator, part dynamic campaign, and part WW3 simulation, Red Storm Rising is an amazing look at modern warfare. Maybe not the first computer adventure game based on an sf novel but it was one of the most famous during the 80's even if the company putting it out Tellarium wasn't.

Follows Arthur C. Clarke's novel pretty closely. For floppys back then that translates into still less than 1 meg. But a lotta adventure plus two action type games that actually get incorporated into the story mostly involving landing the ship on RAMA.

Came out for AppleII and Commodore Land your spaceship on alien worlds to rescue downed pilots and gather space junk. By Activision for the C Back when realtime 3D meant SubLogic's flight simulator in wireframe, at 1 one! The premise: Land on the planet Fractalus and rescue downed pilots. But don't be too quick to let that humanoid form running towards you into your ship; it might be an enemy Jaggi in disguise and when that thing pops up on to your screen for the first time, you will jump.

You fly a helicopter and send tanks and jeeps and vans to destroy an enemy base. In-between the bases are automatic machine guns and little buildings with exploding balloons tethered to them. You have to fly your helicopter and assist the ground forces across to take over the other base. Graphic adventure with a real noir quality.

You played as "Blade" who was investigating an Asian mob boss intent on destroying the city. SSI released this post-nuke game. Loot cities, find gang members, rule entire towns, all while finding the scientists working on the cure to a mysterious disease.

You could do things like visit Disneyland or California's wine country but not without consequences. Came out with a sequel - Roadwar Europe. Just makes it into the 's. It's WW2 and you play the superhero Rocket Ranger. Your mission: to stop Hitler and his evil cohorts from global domination.

The game play was a combination of strategy and arcade action and revolved around placing spies in different countries to discover Nazi secret plans, and then flying there for a bit of biffo. It had a definite boys-own feel about it, like shooting down a zepplin to save a defecting German rocket scientist and his Best bit: if you lost the Nazi flag was unfurled down the front of the Whitehouse!!

Early 'rasslin game had surprisingly good play and alot of moves. You could be a hillbilly, a leather dude, a blonde dude, a masked dude or a punk dude. A "game" for the old Apple 2e's we had in grade school-You controlled a little orange raccoon named Rocky and helped him to attach a variety of components together to make a machine to solve a problem. The game itself was pretty simple, but if you beat the game you got to go to a room with a large amount of components to make your own Rube Goldberg-esque machines.

A Amstrad game by Amsoft Software, the object of the game was to find your way around a underground maze of scelingtons, vampires, bats, mummies, bugs, ghosts e. I used to play this on an Adam computer. There were 2 different parts of it. One part you had to serve root beer to customers as they appeared and disappeared along the bar. Every certain amount of levels this dude who looked like the hamburgler would pop up and shake 4 out of 5 cans of root beer and switch them all around.

You had to pick out the one he didn't shake. You were in control of a turret in the middle of the screen that started with it's gun pointed straight up. If a paratrooper landed he walked over to your turret and stood there. When enough landed they would form a human pyramid kind of like what cheerleaders or gymnists do and jump on your turret destroying it. As the game advanced the plane flew faster and if they flew low fast it was hard to get the paratroopers.

Great game. Spectrum game where you were a pith-helmeted adventurer wandering round the jungle trying to find the 4 parts to an amulet to allow you out of the exit. This was the first in the series that included Underwurlde also very good and Knight Lore. Sabeteur came out on the Amstrad. You had to run around killing guards and eventually plant a bomb, then escape I could never get that part.

You could get weapons and stuff from boxes round the place, and of course you were a ninja, so killing guards wasn't so hard. Dogs were the worst bit Great early computer chess game! We've come a long way, baby!!! These were five games for the Commodore Vic 20? They were all in text form, and everything that was given was needed no red herrings.

I don't remember the fifth. They were great fun! Another game by seirra in which you have to do a bunch of things like all other seirra games, but in this one you are searching for elvis! Great game for some mindless fun. Agent vs. You'd travel from town to town on train, and go to info booths in town capitals to see where the Fuzz had spread, and were given projected forecasts of its spread. To win, you had to defeat the Fuzz TV by having crystals and running into it.

Always a good stragetgy to let some citizens take your crystals to help you in your goal. Truly an early eighties classic, and you really needed to know your US geography. You're a serpent in a maze with computer serpents also. You started from Spain, like Columbis, and discovered the New World. You could trade with the natives or you could fight them into submission.

The point of the game was to find the fabled Cities. I think the quickest I ever finished it was in 'only' a week. It also came with a world creator that would draw a new world to explore.

It was revolutionary at the time with it's stereo sound and paralax scrolling! Simply amazing for a home computer game! Yes it is tough to play, but still was great and sold very well. It really showcased what the Amiga was capable of. It was in black and white, and soooooo simple.

You basically played air hockey against different aliens with varying degrees of difficulty. I had this game on my first computer ever! Great for early SID music lovers of the time. All music 3 voices would be visually dispayed on a keyboard, note by note, while the song played.

You could get songs inputed from others, or take the long and arduous route of putting them in yourself. A definite classic displaying the full capabilities of the SID chip. I use to play this game on a friend's Amiga back in the mids, you were controlling a USN sub in the Pacific during WWII, hunting for japanese surface ships, pretty cool.

Very detailed, vast game. My friend and I once tried to sail from the Phillipines to Hawaii, but only made it to Midway. You could either be a helicopter or a tank on the ground, and could select 2 player mode with one joystick controlling the helicopter and the other controlling the tank.

Totally addictive on my C64! The classic game that started the whole SIMS franchise. A major time waster. In this game you flew a spaceship through a cave. You had to make it through the cave with less than "hits".

The cave was filled with guns and rocket launchers that you either had to destroy or avoid. There were also force fields that you could blow up or go through very fast. It was a really cool game but I don't think I ever got past the third level.

Very simple floor plan game, smileyface characters, searching for a murderer and clues. This game was a ever growing colored snake in bad graphics. The game could be played for two players, alone or againgst the IntelliVision game console.

The game was a real time-spender. Today, this game still exists in all the newer Nokia cellular phones It originated in Also the most annoying game music EVER!!!

Stomping sneakers and other creatures requires varying techniques. Detective games where you got to drive with the space bar! Basically, the game features a little tank at the bottom of the screen which you control, and you shoot at the various little aliens at the top of the screen.

The aliens moved in different circular paterns across the screen, making it a little more entertaining than Space Invaders. The Space Quest series, one of the better Sierra games, stars the janitor who loves to take naps in the broom closet Roger Wilco. As his ship is taken over by hostile aliens, he must find a way to save his home planet, barter with a slimy old alien, and keep his skin intact while keeping his cool.

Another series from Sierra, where a couple of interstellar punks in their little ship have to save the galaxy repeatedly from an evil mastermind and according to the box,his "evil cartridge software company"! A space adventure game for the c64 on 4 discs if I remember right. You start off on a little cargo ship with no weapons and no direction, until you navigate from planet to planet completing missions along the way until you uncover a plot to destroy a planet which you must save It was good 2b moderator!!

C64 game where you had to navigate a flying taxicab around a series of platforms to pick up and drop off fares top earn money and points. A fun waste of time. An alien-like creature uses various pulleys, lifts and levers to deliver pizza to his impatient friends. This is the only computer game I remember in any detail. I forget what computer system it was made for, I know that it was a cartridge and the monitor was the TV screen that you hooked up to the computer.

The character was a spring, and using the arrow buttons he had to defeat all the levels, avoiding the enemies. I remeber it well, as my dad played it more than I did, almost to an obsession-like status. To this day, if Springster is mentioned, he reminds us all that he beat the game had to get to level 50 then back down again?

How do you operate a super-modified James Bond style car equipped with smoke screens, oil slicks, machine guns and missles armed with only a single button joystick? Plug in a second joystick, use your big toe on the button and cycle weapons by pressing the space bar!

This is an old apple game from 's. You were a spy a hat and two feet. Black vs White! The MAD Magazine duo trying to get the secret docs and fly away while setting booby traps to foil their opponent. Squeek was a little pink ball of fluff that had to turn all the blue tiles on each level to pink by running over them. Lots and lots of levels at least 50 that got progressively harder with slippery ice tiles and various opponents trying to stop him.

Great game, wish I knew where to find it. Still think about it after more than a decade! Those were the very first 4X space games for the 8-bit computers! I couldn't believe now, how a tiny speck of dot representing a plasma torpedo blinking closer and closer, chasing my own ship could create such tension and terror back then. CB I was the tactical portion, with individual ships jockeying for position to fire against the weakest enemy's shields while CB II was the strategic, planets and systems combat.

Gamers would spend hours designing ships with shields for different facing with different strengths, placing different weapon systems with different ranges covering different arcs! I remembered a rear-firing torpedo with a tight firing arc used to be an extremely nasty surprise for your enemy who thought he just blast through your weakest rear shields and coming in for the kill.

First baseball game that played the national anthem, had a strange isometric view from the first base side, forced you to choose a reliever at the 7th inning heat or knuckler? In it you took control of a very Star Trekkish-like ship in an advanced simulation for the time. Your goal was to defend the starbases in your quadrant against the Zylon invaders. The Zylons attacked with fleets of up to 4 ships in each sector.

You had to hunt them down and kill them before they could surround your starbases. This game was pretty well unsurpassed until Elite was released. The C64 version of the classic arcade. No vector graphics though; everything was raster e. That, along with the one button joystick made shooting those Tie Fighters increasingly difficult, but with practice you got pretty good at it.

All that was missing was the digitized voices of Obi-wan "may the force be with you" and Darth Vader's "I have you now," and of course Luke's "I've lost R2.

In Stellar 7, you drive the Raven, the most advanced Terran fighting vehicle. You are up against Gir Draxon and his evil Arcturan army. You will go from star system to star system, fighting his forces. When the enemys have been destroyed, a mothership flies overhead and beams down the Guardian of the star system, a giant enemy ship.