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Created using AGD (Arcade Game Designer), arcade shoot 'em up Dead Zone received 16th place (10,512 points) from the judges of the 2018 ZX DEV MIA Remakes competition. As with all the ZX DEV games you can download them for free; however, Matra Software have since given Dead Zone a physical tape release which you can purchase for €8.75.

PC Nono Games have primarily focused on developing apps and video games for Android and Windows-based systems. They have released five titles for those systems including Shapes and Colours, Hamster Cross, Tones, Get Over and Flappytrator. Dead Zone is their first ZX Spectrum game release.

You must save Earth's cities and their people who are under attack by aliens. UFOs fly down the screen and attempt to abduct the population and destroy everything in their wake. It's your job to blast the UFOs out of the sky using your crosshair. Once all UFOs have been eradicated you move on to the next city.

There are two versions of the game in separate loads. One lets you carry on the next game at the last city you reached before you died. The other hardcore, old school version makes you start all over again from the first city. Controls to move your crosshair are QAOP and space or you can play with Kempston or Sinclair joysticks. The status panel on the right shows your score, your ammo, your fuel, your temperature, the population remaining and the number of UFOs to destroy before you can move on to the next city.

The game is basically a take on the old Missile Command arcade game - only it's aliens attacking your city instead of enemy nukes. As well as attacking UFOs, helicopters fly across the screen from time to time. They drop bomb crates labeled with a 'B’. Once you collect one of these the centre of your crosshair says B and the next time you fire all UFOs currently on screen will be wiped out. They also drop auto-fire crates labeled 'A’. When you collect these you can hold your finger on the fire button and machine gun down your enemies.

There's also a jeep which drives along the bottom of the screen carrying vital supplies of fuel which keeps your petrol filled up, gun ammo which keeps your bullets replenished and repair kits which keep your engine temperature down to a reasonable level. You collect these by moving your crosshair over them. You must be very careful of the people on the ground. You can shoot them by accident. A speech bubble pops up saying 'NNOOOO!!' if that happens. It's a heart-wrenching moment to say the least.

You can move the crosshair around the screen quite quickly and smoothly and your targets have quite a generous hit area. This game is as fair as can be whilst still retaining enough of a challenge to keep it interesting. It's "Game Over" if you run out of fuel, overheat your engine or let everyone die or become abducted. It's all very stressful. The addition of a beer and cigarettes crate might have been nice. Once it is game over you're shown a little stats screen of your score population, fuel and damage.

The first mission is Giza where you are presented with a lovely depiction of the pyramids in the background. Next it's onto Paris where a bug eyed alien is introduced which fires an unseen laser at you causing your engine to overheat. Mission 3 is London. A mother ship appears at this stage and requires three or four hits to destroy. It also fires a laser which overheats your engine.

The penultimate mission is in New York. Here you have only one person to protect - while both the mother ship and bug eyed aliens appear. The last mission is literally the final battle. This is in the middle of nowhere against a massive alien flying around the screen in his spaceship. You need to shoot him as many times as you can, as fast as you can with your hits being registered by a colour flicking in the border of the screen. Use the jeep crates that come along to pick up repair kits to keep your engine from overheating and you should destroy him quite easily in the end.

The background graphics for each mission are quite detailed. You don't need to be told which city you are currently protecting to realise where you are. The graphics for your crosshair, the people, the helicopter, the jeep, the crates and the UFOs are all well done too. There's a suitably eerie tune once the game is loaded when the newspaper with the headline of a UFO attack is shown. The in-game tune isn't too bad and doesn't intrude on the game play. Spot effects for all the blasting and explosions are pretty good considering it's all beeper stuff.

The movement of the crosshair is spot on and its liberal damage area is generous without ruining the game or making it too easy. I also liked the variety of Dead Zone; each mission introduces a new foe as well as a different cityscape.

Your fuel level acts like a timer. If you run out, it's game over. The jeep drops are random so if fuel crates don't appear it's a game over state that you don't have control over. It's blind luck. When the game detects your fuel is low it should really send out a couple of fuel crates to at least give you a chance.

The movement of the crosshair is spot on and its liberal damage area is generous without ruining the game or making it too easy. I also liked the variety of Dead Zone; each mission introduces a new foe as well as a different cityscape. It's nice to see something a little different in AGD instead of yet another platform game. Dead Zone is an excellent example of what can be done and is a highly enjoyable game.