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Life's been canny quiet since your grandfather, the original Gold Runner, defeated the evil pirate empire fifty years ago. Feet up, watch the telly, and let robots worry about keeping baddies at bay. Lurvely.

One night though (cue scary wooeeeooo sounds), those naughty pirates sneak in and pinch the robots, while they're turned off getting recharged, carting them off to bases up in space.

So off you blast to sort those blokes out, and get the robots back to safety. Failing that, just blow them up.

Easy, eh? Glad you think so!

My, there's been a lot of vertically scrolling shoot-'em-ups knocking around lately, hasn't there?

Some are really good and some are ace: Gold Runner II lies somewhere in the middle. Although there's no real advancement over the prequel, it is fun for a while (everyone likes a good blast).

Some of the graphics are a bit small, though the backdrops are nice, with interesting pictures of the Mona Lisa 'n stuff. Slightly aggravating music and run-of-the-mill speech and effects keep up the aural side of things and add some atmosphere to what is basically an average blast.

The big cafuffle about Gold Runner was the nippy vertical scrolling, so it comes as little surprise to see the same on the sequel.

Actually, most of Gold Runner II is similar to its predecessor: the sprites look the same, the backdrops look the same, the sound effects sound the same - they've even used the same spaceship on the box!

I did find the game enjoyable for a while, but then (as with most shoot-'em-ups), it started to get terribly samey.

If you like hard blasters, or were really hung up on Gold Runner, then check this one out. Otherwise, grab a glimpse first.

Presentation 78%
Clear, colourful screen display. Informative packaging and manual. Neat pause mode and in-game hints.

Graphics 70%
Tidy backdrops and very fast vertical scrolling. Some of the sprites are a bit on the small side, though.

Sound 63%
Average tune and effects which can be switched off. Some slightly irritating speech as well.

Hookability 65%
Great fun, if you like fast-action shooters.

Lastability 64%
Sixteen levels of increasing difficulty but you soon realise it's all been done before.

Overall 64%
Not much of an advance over the original, which has aged a bit itself.