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Arcade addicts will know that crazy big round machine you actually jump inside and go round and round in until you're sick. I'm not talking about Lucy's bubble car (although that makes you sick) but the incredible 'total experience' G-LOC coin-op.

Not only is the game enclosed in the large globe of its casing, it actually spins around as you play. Indeed, it's more a case of loss of conciousness by vomiting than G-Force!

Speccy owners needn't panic, though - this version leaves you footed firmly on the ground. (Unless you pick someone up while they're playing it and turn them upside-down and so forth. This is inadvisable and we don't recommend you do it at home.

The object is to fly your remarkable Thunderfox jet, taking out enemy installations a-plenty. Set in the next century, the enemy are the Citizen's Defence Force (CDF), a ruthless and powerful vigilante army (i.e. the baddies).

Their organisation has arisen after the collapse of governments and the mass onset of war throughout the world (it was obviously going to happen sooner or later). The planet is lawless and the people are scared.

The last stand for good old democracy as we know it is the United Nations. Itself a crumbling force, the last chance is to deploy its Thunderfoxes (sound like the girls you see on Bon Jovi videos!).

These fighters represent the very pinnacle of aviation technology, but are as yet untested (Oh boy, I'm the guinea pig!).

You're up against the most fearsome of air and ground adversaries, seen from a 3D pilot's-eye view. After a spectacular take off and a quick 360-degree spin, you're straight into the battle.

There's no pussyfooting around here, unlike more realistic flight simulators. As soon as you get up there, your radar fills up with little blips homing in on you - and all spell trouble. Before you know it, the screen's full of enemy fighters.

Indeed, there's an astonishing number of sprites on-screen at once, all carefully drawn. And even with all this going on, the action remains phenomenally fast and furious.

So there you are, several thousand feet up in the air, being attacked by about eight planes at once, from different angles and varying distances. Mmmm, tricky situation this, even for Tom Cruise, but your Thunderfox has the technology to deal with such an assault.

For starters, you should let fly (ho ho!) with those machine guns almost all the time, in the vague hope of blasting the enemy down. It's a fairly clumsy weapon and isn't easy to train on fighters.

But you've got a Heads-Up Display to aid you. It's an amazing system that locks your sights onto an enemy and allows you to launch a heat-seeking missile to blow the vagabond to bits. However, it's advisable to save these useful missiles for later stages.

Your jet's equipped with afterburners to give bursts of ultra-speed to pursue enemies who flee in the face of your magnificent machine. Jolly good gun, but using turbo powers wastes more fuel than the Gulf War!

And when the fuel gauge hits zero, you can guess what happens. Yup, it's a case of a 'neeeeeow-Splat!' - one squidged pilot. The only way to avoid such a calamity is to blast the level's enemies before fuel runs out, and don't bother chasing the one that got away.

It's not easy getting the hang of this. You need to play it for quite some time before it begins to feel like you're not still on the demo! The controls are responsive but sometimes confusing. And the stifling speed (plus the number of enemies homing in like a swarm of bees) add still further to the bewilderment.

As programmer Rob Hylands of Images told us, the game's been designed to be "fast and frantic" like the stomach-churning original. The explosions, missiles coming right at you and death sequence are all impressive (how morbid I am). The accompanying engine roars and machine gun fire are appropriate - loud and ear-bashing!

I don't think that all you Red Barons, Tom Cruises and so on will be disappointed with this. It's an ambitious game for the Spectrum, which usually spells disaster, but it's certainly got some balls (you know what I mean, foul-minded youth!).

Pity the game doesn't come with a G-force simulator like the coin-op. But then, it might be a bit more expensive, and you couldn't play straight after din-dins.

"I feel the need, the need for speed." What the hell was Tom Cruise on when he shouted this in Top Gun (and could I have some, please?) My idea of "speed" is around 200mph (in Nick's car going down a steep hill, with the engine switched off), not three times the speed of sound where G-forces make the average human weigh about three tons.

We've waited a long time for G-LOC, but is it worth it? Well, fans of the coin-op (like me) are going to be disappointed. Graphically, Speccy G'LOC's good, there's no doubt about that. Although monochrome, the enemy planes and backgrounds are nicely drawn and shaded.

The main bugbear is the yawny gameplay; Snooze City (Arizona) was a place I frequently visited when writing this comment. The action is literally "blast the cack out of all and sundry". Unfortunately, the 360-degree "pass the sickbag, please Vicar" hydraulic seat of the arcade original isn't present.

I'm a great fan of the Afterburner genre and G-LOC's worth a look if you're of the same mind.

Overall 74%
Super-fast, super-hard coin-op action.