This is an interesting adaptation of Konami's NES game from the team who would go on to make Earthworm Jim. The game is a platformer where you explore a top-down overworld with points that lead to side-view platforming levels where you fulfil objectives and find items. This version feels like a more forgiving, mini version of the NES original. The combat is less bombastic, but most of the brutal jumping sections have been removed and its a much easier and often more accessible game as a result. The title is well programmed and has some impressive graphics, with very little colour clash and even some parallax scrolling included.

Probably the most advanced Football game on Spectrum, Emlyn Hughes built on the pedigree of earlier Spectrum classics like Match Day, providing lots more options and adding modern staples like sliding tackles to the player's repertoire.

Very polished action-adventure game (with the emphasis being on action) based on the popular British comic character of the 1950s. The aim is to search the environment for bombs, pick them up, and take them to a bomb disposal room, each time you do this successfully the game opens up a door and gives you access to a new area to search. The game is much more accessible than many of the Spectrum adventure titles as its mainly just about shooting and platforming, you get time to learn each section before new areas are added, and there's no lives. Instead you get a time limit and every time you're captured the time decreases. Its a fun game and the graphics were definitely some of the best for its day, with the programmers pioneering the usage of foreground objects to avoid colour clash and using dithering to give the appearance of more colour.

Unfortunately the Spectrum ports of Konami's shmups turned out pretty poor. Thankfully Hewson came to the rescue with their own excellent Gradius inspired game here with Zynaps. The shmup has a similar power-up system to Gradius but with some tweaks to work on a one button controller. If you pick up a power-up it just advances the selection box by one, if you're holding down fire when you pick it up instead you'll gain the highlighted power-up. Some weapons (such as the front guns and bombs) can be powered up more than once. Everything about the game is very polished, the power-ups are pretty cool, with the homing shot (hold down fire) being tricky to use at first but rewarding to learn, the scrolling is pretty smooth, and there's even some impressive boss fights too. I'd say avoid the other ports of the game.

This is a brilliant early 3D style game (it even scrolls and has a manually changeable camera view) where you have to use the radar scan to search through an abandoned city for your loved one and then bring them to safety, throwing grenades at giant ants along the way. The game is another pretty influential title, being said to be one of the inspirations for 1984's Knight Lore. It has piles of atmosphere and still plays quite well for such an old and original title.

Fairlight is another isometric adventure game, this time arriving in 1985 and representing a very ambitious title for that year. The game offered much more fleshed out storytelling and item manipulation than prior games, with you able to move and hoard objects around the map, permanently trap the enemies, and hold onto health potions for later use. There were even limits to what you could carry that were based on the actual weight of the objects. The game's puzzles are unfortunately sometimes obtuse and nonsensical, leading to some frustration, but in a world where Zelda is often heralded as the originator of all things, the importance of games like Fairlight cannot be allowed to be forgotten.

Optimal port of the Konami arcade game. Wec Le Mans is smooth, has some well judged, discreet use of colour, and controls like a dream. Again, the game is a racing title where the only real opponent is the timer, when it hits zero the game is over, passing across checkpoints refills it.

Julian Gollop goes in a slightly different direction here with this sequel to his immensely popular game Chaos. The foundation of Chaos is still here, its a single or multiplayer game where wizards take turns in casting spells and creatures to fight each other, but Lords of Chaos adds in a bunch of RPG elements and customisation, as well as a proper single player campaign mode. The game isn't quite as accessible as Chaos, but the changes to it make for a very different experience, one of character creation and building.

A good port of the wireframe 3D adventure game originally from the Atari 8-bit computers. The game has you crash landing on a planet that you need to explore either on foot or by plane, carrying out missions and progressing the story. It makes for a pretty engrossing experience and does a great job of creating a large world to explore. The game has some labyrinthine sections so I'd recommend that you draw out some maps yourself to help you along.

After a string of fun arcade-style games, Atic Atac marked RARE's first foray into action-adventure gaming, a genre they would stay with for the rest of their time on Spectrum. The game is an influential, top down flick screen game where the aim is to escape a haunted mansion by collecting the three parts of the ACG key. Being such an early release in the genre the gameplay is fairly simple, find all the coloured keys and open every door you can find until you've come across the three parts of the main door key, then dump the coloured keys, grab the three parts and leave through the front door. As a secondary goal you can work out which items deal with the four legendary monsters in the mansion, but its not required. The game is an important pre-zelda release in the genre, and is (after a preliminary bout of being lost, before you get your bearings) still quite a fun and easy-going action game.