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This shoot-'em-up is a welcome blast from the past. Veteran gamers will remember Dropzone as the essential blastathon that every self-respecting Commodore 64 owner had bac when it was released during - surely, not that long ago? - 1984. The C64, or the uninitiated, was one of the two main home computers of the Eighties (the other being the ZX Spectrum).

Dropzone puts you in the role of a heroic, jet-pack equipped dude on a mission to rescue a group of fellow humans from the hostile second moon of Jupiter, IO. Although it may sound simple, you will soon ind that a veritable horde of alien warriors are determined to prevent you from rescuing your buds and returning them to IO's moonbase. It is just as well that you have a handy laser cannon, a cloaking device, and a few strata bombs (i.e smart bombs) at your disposal... believe me, you are going to need 'em!

From the outset, Dropzone's gameplay is extremely fast and frighteningly frenetic. You'll spend your first few games flying left and right across the map, shooting at anything that moves, and will no doubt lose quite a few lives by colliding with the enemy. However, once you become acclimatised to the tricky control of your jet-packed hero, you'll be picking up your men and depositing them at the moonbase with the best of them.

Dropzone on the Game Boy Color is the spitting image of its Commodore 64 predecessor, which is a bad thing as well as a good thing. Basically, a pixel perfect port of a 15 year-old game on the latest handheld technology is no real great achievement in itself. It would have been nice if Acclaim had taken a leaf out of Nintendo's book and included a more modern spin on Dropzone, utilising Game Boy Color's improved tech specs, as well as offering gamers the original in all its glory. Ninento's most recent example of this is its Game & Watch Gallery series, where you can play the games in their original format, as well as the updated interpretations.

In spite of this omission, Dropzone is without a doubt a fiendishly addictive blaster, and that is why it has scored so well. It will appeal to nostalgic gamers and newbies alike with its appealingly simple shoot-'em-up antics - but it could have been so much better!