Popular games published by company Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd.
Monty On the Run is a platform-style game featuring Monty Mole, a coal thief fleeing across Europe to escape the Intermole agency. Players navigate Monty through 80 screens representing European landmarks, using various movement techniques like super-leaps and ceiling suspension. The goal is to collect Eurocheques and plane tickets while avoiding hazards. The game incorporates unique elements such as drunkenness effects from wine bottles and aerial combat sequences. As the third main entry in the Monty Mole series, it builds upon the gameplay mechanics of its predecessors while introducing new challenges and environments.
Zool is a fast-paced side-scrolling platformer. The protagonist can run, jump, climb walls, and shoot enemies. Power-ups for Zool are scattered across the levels. These include life-spending hearts, smart bombs, shields, more powerful jump-skill and a twin Zool. This "twin" makes imitates the original's motions a few seconds after he performs them.
The second Lotus game shifted focus to arcade-oriented gameplay. Being the first of the series released for a game console (for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive under the title Lotus Turbo Challenge), the fuel limit and difficulty levels were dropped, and the lap-based levels were replaced with course-based time trials, (not unlike arcade games such as Out Run), with the player required to complete each course within a specified time to qualify for the next one. In addition to the Esprit Turbo SE, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 also featured the Lotus Elan SE, hence 'Esprit' being dropped from the title. There was no choice of car however; the player runs with the Elan SE on odd levels, and with the Esprit on even levels. Lotus 2's single-player mode uses all of the game screen instead of half, and opponent cars appear in a variety of colors (opponent cars in the original game were all white). However, music is absent from racing altogether; the player instead hears the car's engine sound. Lotus 2 was developed for the Amiga and then converted for the other platforms.
Produced by Magnetic Fields, this game was on the amiga in the uk and was the basis for super cars international on the pc. It is linked to other Magnetic Fields games including: Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 2, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 3 and Super Cars
Utopia takes the Sim City gameplay concept and adds a military element to it. The game is set in the distant future, where your job is nothing less than Colony Administrator for a new settlement on some far-flung planet. Your aim is to provide the highest Quality of Life rating for the colonists. You do so by ensuring that there is enough life support, power, housing, employment, police and entertainment to keep the citizens of your colony happy. Hindering your goal are random events such as solar eclipses (which can render your solar panels inactive) and also a different, hostile alien race that inhabits the planets in the many scenarios at offer. Not only do you have to be a good mayor but you also have to be a good general. Resources must not only be attributed to civilian research but into weapons research, intelligence and the building of tanks and spaceships, if you wish to survive long enough to see your colony flourish into a metropolis. As a rule, you will have built a strong colony before the aliens come, but the final push towards a QOL of 80% or higher can only be achieved once there is no outside threat.
Super Cars is a top-view racing game from Gremlin Interactive, who later produced the Lotus series of games. Stylistically, the game is influenced by Super Sprint. There are 9 tracks at each of the 4 difficulty levels, which can be raced in any order (although the last track you race is made harder than usual). In the races you win money, which can be spent on temporary handling and power upgrades, plus armour plating and front/rear shooting missiles that can knock out other racers. The player must finish in the top 3 of each race to progress - initially there are 4 computer opponents, but more are added as you progress through the game. The car can be upgraded throughout the game via the shop section. The player is given an initial price, but also a number of options of things to say to the salesman - with the right combination, the price will drop.
Timing smiled on Gremlin with this licensed Formula 1 simulation, as Nigel's long quest for a championship had finally come good. The game was pitched somewhere in between a full-blown simulation like F1 GP and action games like Continental Circus. Only 12 cars were in each race, which could last from between 3 and 20 laps. Before each race you can customize wing downforce, gear ratio, tyre selection and fuel load choices – pitstops are a standard feature of the longer races. The 16-bit versions include a unique 'Improve With Mansell' mode, in which a digitized version of Nigel's head appears in the top corner of the screen, offering instructions and praise.
In Brain Bender, mirrors are manipulated in order to get them to reflect a laser beam into some balls of gas and destroy the satellite. Brain Bender features 120 different puzzles to solve.
In this beat-em-up from 1986, take on the role of Avenger, the ninja warrior, as he battles the forces of evil in defence of his faith and protection of the weak. Based on the popular series of fantasy adventure gamebooks.
An action / platformer based on the popular Mickey Mouse character
MASK II is a 2D horizontal scrolling shoot-em-up. The game featured many more of the M.A.S.K. vehicles, and included a selection process in which the player chose which vehicles to use before the game began. Only one vehicle could be controlled at a time but these could be quickly interchanged. Again, the game was received favorably in the press, where it was noted that it was a better tie-in to the franchise than the first, because it featured more of the vehicles
Super Scramble Simulator recreates the sport of scrambling/ motorcross, but in a manner similar to the Kikstart TV show and games. The basic aim is to ride a motocross bike through hazardous courses within the time limits. The game uses a split-screen display, with a big window viewed from the side as well as a longer-range aerial view - the latter is useful for dodging hazards to the left or right, as the side-view doesn't demonstrate these accurately. The bike has 3 gears, and you must use a low gear to go uphill. You will need to do wheelies to ensure good landings from the big jumps, and to clear divots in the ground.
Matt sets out for the moon where he must overcome the defences of V.E.N.O.M.'s base, rescue his son and steal a rocket back to earth. In his quest he is helped by special masks that give him special powers. For example one mask will give Matt the ability to shoot bullets others will allow him to fly, pass through solid objects, float across bodies of water, have temporary invulnerability and so on. However, Matt can only carry four masks and can only use one mask at a time. Each mask has just 99 units of energy, or bullets, and this number is reduced each time the mask is used so eventually the mask will need replacing.
Bounce around different platforming stages in this sequel to Thing on a Spring.
Billy 2 is a beat 'em up for the Amstrad CPC that also contains some mini-games.
A computer game based on the film starring Dolph Lundgren.
Your country is at war and as a Captain of a Battleship you must patrol an inner sea to find and destroy aircraft, missiles, ships and submarines. The main playing screen gives you various options and these include three radars, a map screen, status screen and three types of mini-game icons. The three radars are to track either aircraft, ships or submarines and these are represented by a white dot when they are within range. The map screen has two maps, one a map of the whole area and the other one showing a closer look at your location. On this screen you can control the speed of your ship and steer it with black dots showing the enemy forces. The status screen shows a profile of your ship and any damage is shown as red and if the whole ship is red then it is damaged and the game is over. When an attack is imminent then a gauge besides one of the mini-game icons turns yellow before turning red and that game can be played. If an aircraft is attacking then the game has you controlling a gun to shoot down the planes viewed from a 1st person perspective. You can move the gun left or right and move it up or down to hit the planes before they drop bombs on your ship. This screen is also used for any missile attack. If any convoy's of ships are attacking then you must fire a missile at the convoy by first lining up a sight that keeps moving while a timer counts down. When the time reaches zero and the sight is red then it will hit a ship but if it doesn't turn red then you have missed. The final game is when a submarine is attacking and the game switches to a 3D side view showing above and below the water. You control a helicopter above the water while the submarine is below. You can move the helicopter left or right, and in and out of the screen. A cursor of the left of the screen moves up and down and when fire is pressed this drops a depth charge which also stops the cursor and this shows the depth your depth charge will explode.
An 80's side-scrolling platform shoot 'em up.
Highway Encounter is a strategy/action game played from a 3D isometric perspective in which you must successfully chaperone a bomb along a long, straight stretch of highway and into the alien base at the end of it. There are thirty screens to pass through and most are filled with hazards that threaten to block your progress (such as barrels) or destroy you (aliens and explosive mines). Players control a robotic "Vorton" (resembling a dalek from Doctor Who) and one of the things that provides Highway Encounter with its unique appeal is that the bomb is constantly being pushed onwards by your extra lives - four more Vortons, who accompany you along the highway. A key strategic element to the game is for the player character to travel several screens ahead of the bomb to clear a safe path for it; normally this would be done by temporarily blocking the bomb's forward motion. However, if the bomb is left in an unsafe location, it is possible for all your extra lives to be lost without the player character being destroyed once. Once all spare lives are lost, the player character must manually push the bomb.
Monty has been thrown into Scudmore Prison for coal theft. Help Sam Stoat break him out!
