Loom - A highly collectable Adventure game gets a Cola Powered Gamer review

The 90s was a decade with a lot of experimentation and uniquely designed games, and also a lot of them were fantasy themed. LucasArts’, developed only one original high fantasy game, Loom. Looking at the games developed at the time, and especially adventure games, there were a lot of fantasy-themed games. Titles like King’s Quest, Quest for Glory, Simon the Sorcerer, and many more, one would think that a giant like LucasArts’ would develop more fantasy-themed games. Loom was their only game set in the high fantasy setting (not counting the Labyrinth, their first video games, which was based on a movie).

Bio Menace - Classic action game from the 90's gets a Cola Powered Gamer review

Apogee during the early 90s was considered the king of platform games. While most of them can be considered family-friendly, Bio Menace is more action-oriented and definitely not PG-13. Developed by Jim Norwood, with help from id Software (mainly John Carmack), and published by Apogee Games, it was released in 1993. The game was developed under the working title “Bio Hazard”, it was supposed to be released in November of 1991, but due to modifying the engine (the same one used in Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy), it spent two years more years in development. Excluding the engine and the music (by Bobby Prince), the majority of the game was created by its designer, Jim Norwood.

Wing Commander Privateer - Cola Powered Gamer reviews an adventure space flight simulation classic!

After the success of Wing Commander II, the franchise received its first spin-off game. Wing Commander: Privateer or simply Privateer. It can be looked at as Origin Systems take on open-ended gameplay, and their take on the legendary Elite (1984).

Released in the Fall of 1993, Privateer had an interesting development history. The working title for the game was “Trade Commander”, and at one point Origin Systems considered naming all of their games with the suffix “Commander”. The game uses a vastly improved Wing Commander II engine, with some features that were also used in Strike Commander, a different Origin game. It was designed by Joel Manners, and it was helped by Chris Roberts, who at the time was working on Wing Commander II, Strike Commander and Privateer.

Under The Radar: Cyberpunk Games - Cola Powered Gamer gives us a special treat for October!

Cyberpunk was covered extensively in film, TV and of course video games. The games covered here will be those that you probably haven’t heard of or have simply gone under your radar. So here's a personal selection from me, Cola Powered Gamer!

Space Quest III - A classic Sci-fi adventure sequel reviewed by Cola Powered Gamer

Space Quest III is one of the funniest and self-aware video games ever. An improvement on almost everything from the previous two games, Space Quest II and it really shows. Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon, developed by Sierra and its duo Two Guys From Andromeda, and released in 1989, it’s simply known as Space Quest III. The game brings a few improvements and several changes.

Wing Commander II - Cola Powered Gamer reviews a brilliant sequel!

Following the success of Wing Commander, Origin System decided to create a sequel. Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, or simply Wing Commander II is everything a good sequel should be. Released in 1991, about the year after the release of the first game, Wing Commander II had several improvements over its predecessor.

Lost Patrol - Retro game set during the Vietnam War in 1966 reviewed by Cola Powered Gamer

Vietnam War, like all wars in history, is greatly covered in almost all types of media, and video games are no exceptions. Lost Patrol was among the first games that focused on the Vietnam War, but it covered it in a very unique way. Developed by the duo Ian Harding and Simon Cooke (Shadow Development), and released by Ocean Software around Christmas of 1989 (MS-DOS version in 1991), Lost Patrol had interesting development history.

Silent Hill - Playstation game of Horror reviewed by Cola Powered Gamer

Developed in 1999, near the end of the PS1 age, Silent Hill uses an established formula of survival horror and changes it to make something different. Silent Hill uses a psychological horror, rather than an action approach and visceral horror seen in games like Resident Evil.

Beneath a Steel Sky - A great sci-fi Adventure from 1994 reviewed by Cola Powered Gamer

Beneath a Steel Sky is a second game made by Revolution Software, after the decent success of their first game Lure of the Temptress. For this game Revolution Software really put the effort and love in this game. Writers Cecil Charles and Dave Cummins goal was to find a mix between the seriousness of Sierra games and the comedy of LucasArts’ games.

Fallout - An amazing game reviewed by Cola Powered Gamer

Fallout can be considered the godfather of modern RPGs. While it may look and play differently than modern RPGs, almost everything that you see in today’s RPGs, Fallout did in one way or another. Released in 1997 and developed by Interplay, Fallout is certainly one of the most important RPGs ever developed. Its development process was rough and full of problems, but the result is one great game

Wing Commander - An incredible space sim gets a BIG Cola Powered Gamer review

When talking about space sims, sooner or later someone will mention Wing Commander. Developed by Origin Systems, Wing Commander can be considered one of the best and influential space sim ever created.

Wing Commander had a different take on the then established space sim formula, bringing the game and space combat to the levels of Hollywood blockbusters. The game is set in 2654 and follows the Terran Confederation and the ongoing war against a predatory feline race called the Kilrathi (they were inspired by Kzinti of Larry Niven’s “Know Space” series). In Chris Roberts words the game is inspired by WW2, especially the Pacific War. When you start a game you have just finished a training sim session, and you must enter your name and callsign. The player character has no name, but internally in Origin, he was nicknamed “BlueHair”, because his hair although black, had highlights of blue (due to a limited color palette), which was what probably the reason they named him Blair in the later games.

Space Quest I Review - A classic Sci-fi adventure reviewed by Cola Powered Gamer

Finding good sci-fi games can be hard, and finding good comedy sci-fi games can be even harder. Fortunately, Sierra developed one of the best comedy sci-fi games ever, Space Quest.

Space Quest: Chapter I – The Sarien Encounter, or more commonly known as Space Quest I, was released in 1986, developed and published by Sierra. After Sierra gained popularity with King’s Quest in 1984, Sierra continued to create more adventure games with various themes, like Police Quest, Quest for Glory, Leisure Suit Larry and of course Space Quest.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - An amazing Adventure classic gets a BIG review by Cola Powered Gamer

When playing licensed video games, one will for the most of time encounter bad games, but there are exceptions. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is one such game, that understands its world and characters, and most importantly carries the spirit of the series.

Developed by LucasArts, and released in June 1992, the game was designed by Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein, who rejected the idea of using the unused movie script, and instead, they created their own script. They came up with a final concept, after searching for a suitable plot device. The game uses SCUMM Engine (Scripting Utility for Maniac Mansion), which was previously used in Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island, although an updated version. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was the seventh game to use the SCUMM engine, and at the time required at least a 286 based PC, and there is also a CD-ROM talkie version. Also, the CD-ROM version required EMS memory enabled to load the voice data.

UFO: Enemy Unknown - A brilliant Strategy game reviewed by Cola Powered Gamer

When someone asks you what is the best turn-based strategy game, you can confidently say UFO: Enemy Unknown.

UFO: Enemy Unknown (or X-COM: UFO Defense as it was known in North America), released in 1994, and developed Mythos Games and published by MicroProse. UFO: Enemy Unknown was originally planned as a sequel for 1988 game Laser Squad, also developed by Julian Gollop the developer of UFO/XCOM Franchise. UFO: Enemy Unknown is an amalgamation of all of the games Gollop previously worked on, with some expanded concepts. The first games that Gollop developed were also strategy games such as Rebelstar Raiders (1984), Laser Squad (1988) and their sequels were all turn-based strategy games, so Gollop already had a solid foundation to build his next game.