Supaplex

The Good
Supaplex was, maybe with the exception of Digger, the single most popular game in Israel in the early PC days (IBM PC and compatibles were only beginning to gain popularity here around 1989). It was so popular, in fact, that it's hard to find anyone who has ever used a computer and who hasn't played it.

Supaplex is a terrific puzzle-game which is, as Luiz mentioned (Actually, I mentioned it; you never know when or where the Editor will strike! Muahaha... -- Ed.), remarkably similar to the old (and inferiour IMO) Boulder Dash, while featuring better controls, smoother gameplay and overall better audiovisual quality. It features terrific VGA graphics (for the time and in general) and ran perfectly smooth on a 286, and had a fairly good tune (as far as I can remember) in the beginning. Once you got past the great graphics you will find an amazingly addictive game that is simply hard to beat, with a myriad of levels, some of them so amazingly challenging that you'll spend days and even weeks just to pass that one level. People here often bragged about where they managed to reach in Supaplex (most of them getting stuck around level 60 and the best managed to reach the hundred-ish levels), and playing it in groups was not uncommon.

In short, Supaplex is a phenomenon - a technical wonder with gameplay surpassing the popularity of recent successes like DX Ball.

The Bad
Some of the levels are just too damn hard -- I don't recall ever getting past level 80, and the entire game is based on trial and error - but some other games, at least it is obviously so and doesn't presume to be something else.

The Bottom Line
A terrific, challenging and addictive game. Get it, play it, love it. I know I did.

The Good
The game contains much levels, which have a slowly upgoing difficulty, but never is too easy that you get bored of it. All levels are replayable at any time which makes it fun to play a level again sometimes when you want.

The graphics were for the time it got released really good and especially very smooth. Also the game engine was very stable and everything always went the same way so you could calculate to solve puzzles.

Me and my family spent at least 500 hours on playing this game, from which 200 hours with levels which we didn't save yet (it counts the time you spend on not-saved-levels) but i'm pretty sure we spend at least as much time at replaying levels. With some friends after school, take turns on saving a level, that was fun!

The Bad
I liked allmost all of this game except maybe that some levels might be slightly to difficult or even close to impossible.

The Bottom Line
One of the best, most addictive and best designed puzzlegame of the past century. Fun for hours, for kids and adults. Everything a game should have is inside. The concept is taken from Boulderdash - but it's a damn good clone, so who cares!

The Good
Each level got you thinking, and strategizing. There were enough different "plots" so you never felt like you were doing the same thing over and over... You could sneak ahead (leaving three levels unfinished) so if you felt like you hit a wall, you could at least play the "easier" levels and go back to the unfinished ones later. Head hunter (I think it was level 70 or 71) was the hardest (in my opinion), so once I passed it (after a good 20 hours of trying!) I really enjoyed the challenge of finishing the whole game!

The Bad
How much I would get shouted at by my mother for spending too much time playing on the computer... (I was a teenager at the time) I wish that they had (would) release a version that operates on a Windows platform.

The Bottom Line
Totally absorbing... I must have spent a good year (maybe even more) working through all the levels and had over 500 hours of playtime!! My fondest memories of early gaming!