Datasoft 1986
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Rating: 3/6
Licence: Commercial
System: C64

Some board games can be converted into computer games perfectly, because their rules are simple and logically structured enough. 221B Baker Street is such a case.

30 cases in classic style of Doyle's shorter Holmes stories are waiting to be solved by the player(s). As it was common back in the 80s, the nicely written introductions to these aren't presented 'in-game', but they can all be found in the accompanying casebook.

Avalon Hill 1991
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 4/6
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Acquire was one in a series of business board games created by Sid Sackson and released by 3M in the 1960s. Later, most of these games were released by Avalon Hill in the 1970s and 80s and are now the property of Hasbro. Acquire is probably the most exciting of this lot of games. It requires good thinking, great foresight, a little bit of luck and lots of attention. The computer version of the game can last only ten minutes, but these ten minutes will require your full attention. Due to the fact it is a board game, the replay value is extremely high.

Various 2004
Genre: Strategy, RPG
Rating: 5/6
Licence: Freeware
System: PC

Even people who don't really follow the development in this 'scene' will know that there are countless 'open source game projects' floating around the Internet. Many of them remakes of classic concepts, some highly original. Most are nowhere near a finished state. What you can see on their homepages is usually a 'roadmap' outlining what still needs to be done (pretty much everything), and a few early screenshots. Sometimes, you can even download some kind of 'alpha engine' which doesn't really do anything so far. Experience tells that more than 90% of these projects are abandoned before they've achieved anything.

Blue Byte 1991
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Battle Isle - the game which got two different groups of games into public focus: wargames and German games. Both had had their loyal fan-base before, but both had been small. Tactical wargames turned into a very popular genre following this game. German games stayed a niche market in spite of this game's success.

Blue Byte 1993
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

After two mission disks and the differently themed History Line: 1914-1918, Blue Byte followed their more successful game to date up with a real sequel. The evil robot armies are back and the Drullians saw no other way than to kidnap a great strategist to lead their armies - you. Stories have never been a strong point in strategy games (that made it even more surprising that a 'novelization' of the story actually came with the game).

SSI 1990
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 5/6
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

You know, some time ago (about 200 years or so...), there was a great man (I avoid saying 'big' at his 1.60m height) who liked war. Maybe a bit of a pertinent introduction, but no matter if you are French of Anglo-Saxon, you are going to enjoy this.

Dalali / Leisure Genius 1990
Genre: Puzzle
Rating: 3/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

An aristocrat mansion, a murdered host and one of the guests has to be the murderer. Each player takes over the role of one of those guests / suspects / detectives trying to find out the truth. Of course, this is the classic boardgame in the mystery genre: Cluedo.

SSI 1987
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 4/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Atari ST

War without bloodshed? Easy, just don't show the individual's fate, but take it to a more abstract level. A way more abstract level: Push around wodden blocks on a world map, and suddenly, even genocide becomes fun! Like in Colonial Conquest.

CDS 1989
Genre: Strategy
Rating: 3/6
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga

Chess might be the most known strategy games in existence. Who knows? One thing is for sure though: it is one of the simplest. At least the rules are simple. It's easy to learn how to play. Reminds my of the time back when I was working in the kindergarten where I taught this game to a bunch of interested children between 4 and 6. That was the time in my life when I played chess most frequently. Almost every day someone challenged me. Yeah, that was fun! At last some real competitors

Domark 1992
Genre: Puzzle
Rating: 2/6
Licence: Commercial
System: PC

Trivial Pursuit on the computer... always a tricky thing. The game lets you reveal the answer to the questions and asks if you made it correct. Basically completely nonsense to play alone and when playing with a friend the question remains why you don't play the "real" board game. I've always wondered who buys these games at all - but then again, obviously not too many as the game is out of sale (and I cannot remember having really seen it in the stores at all, might just be me, but I guess it wasn't exactly a bestseller and thus not many copies were in the shops). If you don't happen to own the board game this game makes for a somewhat decent replacement though. That weird turkeylike... person... asking the questions is a bit annoying - also he managed to annoy me very fast by endlessly demonstrating that the programmer was able to put my name into a variable and insert that into each and every statement after the question, success or not.