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On the C64, Io is an evil game; it's got a very steep difficulty curve and despite being beautiful courtesy of C64 graphics supremo Bob Stevenson, it's one of those shoot 'em ups that most people will give up on because it actively seems to be out to get them! Most of the attackers shoot, they all have excellent aim and there's a lot of the little bleeders to boot. However, for some gamers (myself included) that's a call to arms and Io can be learnt and played well in the same way that the classic arcade shooters like R-Type and Gradius are; it just requires a lot of time, effort and indeed patience to succeed.

Although it polarises opinion because of that difficulty level, Io is certainly playable enough that considering it for a remake seems fairly sensible; so it was pulled apart by Trevor "Smila" Storey, some up-to-date graphics and sound whacked in, the parts reassembled and bingo - a playable, pretty-looking game... in theory. Although that might sound easy to do, this process can fall apart when the game mechanics for some reason don't survive the transition, usually because something gets missed or changed and, in the case of Io - The Remake, the problems generated run very deep indeed.

The far slower playing speed, automatic firing being added and the ship being able to unleash a hail of bullets even before powering up has begun aside, the collision detection hasn't been tuned to anywhere near the looseness of the original game and this has a knock-on effect of making the majority of the first level's mobile ground-based guns impossible to destroy. Although the layout of the level itself and their positioning hasn't changed substantially, those far less generous collisions simply won't allow the ship to partially overlap the landscape, meaning it can no longer get a shot in that will actually hit the guns. Considering how good a shot they are, leaving them in play makes the level quite a bit more difficult than it was previously.

Similarly, the chains of spinning rings on the fourth level that follow a large curve as they move from right to left just wobble over half the height now and, more importantly, the spikes that were meant to break away from the landscape as the player approached them have been removed entirely so, ironically, the last level of the game becomes far easier and is now less difficult than the more claustrophobic third level - what started on the C64 original as a steep but fairly consistent difficulty curve actually arcs back down towards the end of the game. Other changes to what were previously well designed attack patterns are abound too; the snakes that have different movement patterns as the game progresses are now limited to a single sequence and no longer explode into shrapnel on being shot, the way that the third level's guardian is destroyed has been made far easier (performing the sequence of events on the C64 incorrectly resulted in a hail of bullets) and indeed less interesting... they say the Devil is in the details and that's certainly true here, the lack of attention to what made the original the game it is becomes painfully obvious.

And what really doesn't help is that Io - The Remake is bugged as well; shooting a snake's head to make it explode won't kill off any part of it's body that has yet to appear on the screen, leaving those remaining segments chasing around and impervious to anything the ship can do to them. On the death of the player, all power-ups are meant to be lost but sometimes the ship can be respawned "nude" and others it'll arrive from the factory with with firing power-ups or even outriders in place. But the worst bug of all has to be in the power-up icons, which are shot to make them cycle between smart bombs and weapon enhancements; these can "stall", so they no longer react to any contact from ship or bullets and so far the only way I've found to reactivate them is to blow the ship up!

Tampering heavily with the balance of a game that is being remade doesn't make sense, after all the primary motivation for remaking a game is to preserve that playability and update the surrounding cosmetic details - but to introduce some nasty bugs into the bargain like this is simply ridiculous. I can't recommend this game to anybody, hardened Io fans will immediately notice how "wrong" it feels because it's so far off the mark whilst casual gamers will soon be frustrated by the first level's new, tougher difficulty level and the power-up system jamming solid. Yes it looks nice (although it had a hard act to follow and isn't anywhere near as impressive as the original was in context) and sounds reasonable with a mixture of samples and C64 sound effects, but that all-important playability has been mortally wounded.

IO wasn't a game I had a lot of love for on the C64. Graphically excellent but resolutely old-school even for its time, its pattern-based game-play was extremely restrictive, (more so than the likes of Thalamus' Delta) and its power-up system was frankly rubbish. Getting through the game was a test of endurance in simply playing for ages and dying a whole bunch in order to learn where on screen to the exact pixel to position your ship for each of the various enemy attack formations. And then punishingly bashing the fire button to kingdom come until you made it to the last boss. Not my idea of a good time.

IO 'the remake' unfortunately fixes none of the flaws of the original game and adds a few of its own making. Firstly the whole thing is just ridiculously slow - I don't remember playing a shooter this snooze-like in a long time. Your ship moves like it's flying through treacle, and your bullets aren't much quicker. The original C64 game was a lot breezier than this. Secondly, your ship sprite is much bigger than the original one and because of the way it's animated when you move (rotating to a side-on view a la Uridium then flattening out again when you stop) you tend to smack into the scenery an awful lot if you get anywhere at all near it. There's no joystick support so it's a case of crouching over the cursor keys to play it, and lastly the restart point system is far too harsh, putting you back half a level when you snuff it making and you play for several minutes just to get back to the bit that killed you.

It's a shame as these flaws completely suck any fun-factor from the game for me. The graphics aren't bad (I've always liked the opening drop-off by the mothership which is replicated nicely here), but obviously don't have the 'wow' factor that the original had 20 years ago. I'm feeling bad because Smila has made this remake available for free, and he has obviously spent a lot of time working on it. But you'd be better off paying a few quid for Space Tripper or Jets 'n' Guns or even firing up Vice and playing the original (at least it's speedy) than punishing yourselves with this remake unless you're either masochistic or a deranged IO fan. Smila - I appreciate the effort but you picked the wrong game. Zynaps next, please.