Dark Seed - Amiga CD32 (1993)

Set somewhere in small town America, author Mike Dawson has purchased a crumbling Gothic mansion desperately in need of renovation. Upon moving in, he begins to suffer terrible nightmares, plagued by visions of alien worlds and monstrous beings. It turns out that the house is some kind of nexus for a race of nightmarish inter-dimensional alien beings, which want to cross over from the "Dark World" and wreak havoc on the unwitting denizens of Earth. To make matters worse, an alien embryo is implanted in Dawson's brain and players, assuming control of the unwitting author, have only 3 days to figure out how to cross over into the alien's universe and stop them for good, as well as save his own skin.

Anyone with a passing interest in point-and-click adventure games will most likely have heard of Dark Seed. The game caused quite a stir in the gaming press at the time, owing to a collaboration between the developers and renowned artist H.R. Giger, whose exquisitely macabre artwork was featured prominently throughout the game. The combination of Giger's artistic talents and classic Lovecraftian horror should have been the perfect combination for an adventure game.

If I'm being honest, playing Dark Seed in 2022 proved to be a let-down. The lacklustre puzzles, lack of character building and inconsistent pacing means the game can't really hold a candle to equivalent LucasArts adventures of the same period, even with Giger's involvement. The inclusion of puzzles in which Mike can kill himself inadvertently leave a sour taste in one's mouth, especially when there is very little to suggest that there's any imminent danger.

Other criticisms include the fact this is yet another CD32 game which contains little the way in terms of improvements over its disk-based counterpart. Although the inclusion of the digitised speech samples and the lack of disk swapping are massively welcome, the fact the developers stuck with the grainy, low resolution OCS graphics mean the artwork lacks the fidelity of its PC counterpart.

Considering Giger's artwork was what made the game so unique, every effort should have been made to ensure the artwork was showcased to its fullest. As it stands, the AGA-equipped CD32 barely gets to stretch its legs here, which is a shame.

Developer: Cyberdreams
Publisher: Cyberdreams
Year of Release: 1993

RoboCop 3 - Commodore 64 (1992)

The original RoboCop remains one of the greatest movies of the 80s, but its risible sequels less so.

RoboCop 3 is a dull, insipid production devoid of any of the bite, satire, or any real impact. The production values look and feel more like a network TV show, which, unsurprisingly, came next, along with a slew of action toys and other stuff to be peddled at kids.

This means that RoboCop 3 the game has some rather rocky foundations, and the resultant C64 game certainly shows it. A near-impossible shooting gallery level is followed by a bunch of boring sideways scrolling platform sections where Robo plods along, shooting bad guys as they appear; It's all terribly dull.

The opening title music by Jeroen Tel is up to his usual level of sonic excellence, but the graphics by Hugh Riley (The Last Ninja) feel oddly out of place. I'm a great admirer of Riley's work, but the tiny sprites just don't suit the whole RoboCop universe.

Given the number of platforms which received a RoboCop 3 game, this is little more than another brick in the commercial marketing wall: it's dull, insipid, and a little too "by-the-numbers" to be particularly enjoyable.