US Gold have just released two compilation tapes of old Ultimate games, both entitled Master Games (and with only the track listing allowing you to tell the two apart!). The first of the two contains the first four games that Ultimate ever produced, which were themselves amongst the first proper arcade games ever produced for the Spectrum (and if memory serves, all but one of them load in under 16K as they were produced in the days when the 16K Spectrum was still going strong).

Ultimate's very first game was Jetpac, a simple but highly addictive shoot-'em-up in which you have to collect fuel pods and treasure on a number of planets, all of which are swarming with deadly aliens. At the time, Jetpac was head and shoulders above any other game for the new Spectrum machine, with smooth, fast animation and good sound effects. I showed Jetpac to someone who didn't see it when it first came out and their reaction was that it looked a bit dated but was still fun to play.

The game is true of Lunar Jetman, the sequel to Jetpac. This was Ultimate's first 48K game and is a bit more complicated, though it's still essentially a shoot-'em-up. This time around the Jet Man has a moon buggy to control, as well as a number of objects to collect and aliens to blast. But while the two Jet Man games have remained enjoyable over the years, the other two titles on the tape have dated rather badly.

Pssst is a variation on the shoot-'em-up style in which you have to spray worms with a number of spray cans, while Trans-Am was an early driving game. Neither of these games really stand up any more being about the same standard as the average budget game.

So, whilst the two Jet Man titles are a tribute to the quality of early Ultimate games, this compilation as a whole doesn't really stand out when compared to some of the others available. On the other hand, the second Ultimate Compilation (reviewed elsewhere) is worth a closer look.