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One of the best debut programs ever, the men behind the code were Cyberdyne Systems who got their fancy name from the Terminator movie. The connection between some C64 programmers and a megalomaniac computer-run corporation which wants to run the world (and builds Arnie to dispose of human survivors) is unclear, although both are ambitious!

The plot of Armalyte certainly has little to do with androids, it is in fact the tale of a very dangerous treasure hunt in a spatial backwater called Delta. After the Damocles Force destroyed the hostile Hisifan Khamate (in Thalamus' Delta), the entire Hisifan armada was left to rust in Delta.

This is some rather valuable scrap, and a mission to recover it is launched. Unfortunately there are a few Hisifan robot guards still active...

In fact Armalyte was called Delta II mainly for marketing purposes, not that it needed it. The eight beautifully drawn level on offer are packed with some of the toughest enemy attack formations and mega-monsters ever seen on the C64! You start the game with just a basic laser cannon and either a remote drone ship or a second player as a partner. But there are crystals scattered around that, when shot, improve your firepower - and believe me you need all the help that you can get!

When Armalyte hit the Zzap! office in Issue 43, the reviewing team of the day were more than enthusiastic. Gordon Houghton said, "If you miss Armalyte, you're missing one of thie best C64 shoot-'em-ups of all time". Indeed, Paul Glancery echoed the sentiment when he commented. "Any shoot-'em-up fan should be ashamed to miss out on it."

The graphics and playability are still as impressive today, almost two-and-a-half years later - you are lucky I managed to drag myself away long enough to write the review!

Anyone silly enough to have missed Armalyte the first time round should be jolly annoyed with themselves, and rush out to buy it *now*.