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Now we're talking, fellow game lovers. As all you fanatical disciples of my recent series of All-Time Top 100 Speccy Games articles will already know, this is in my not-even-vaguely-approaching-humble opinion one of the very finest arcade games you can do your Speccy the honour of loading.

Not for programmers Special FX the feeble cop-out approach favoured by so many converters of top coin-ops, all monochrome and sprites and multiloads, oh by jingo no. Midnight Resistance throws colour around like the vomit of someone who's just eaten 143 packets of Rainbow Drops in one go, and believe me (for I speak from bitter experience) that's a lot of flippin' colour. A fairly simple platforms-'n-blasting game in concept, this rises above the morass of tedious trudgealong GBH-a-thons by virtue of reasonably varied gameplay (in the sense of having differently-shaped levels to slaughter your way through, at least) and groovy control that, once mastered (the work of five minutes), provides you with far greater influence over your sprite's actions than in any other comparable game. Moving and firing independently in eight directions has never been easier.

Don't get cocky, though. That's not to say that the game itself is easy, far from it. You'll be stuck at this one for ages, battling the hordes of enemy soldiers and armaments, including horrifying linked buzzsaws, enormous warships bristling with gun emplacements, grotesque brains spitting out wormy snake things, big tanks blocking your route across bridges past waterfalls, and entire squadrons of heavily-armed jet aircraft, but you'll love every single minute of it. The action never lets up in Midnight Resistance, but it never gets frustrating enough to make you want to surrender... And that, as any arcade owner will tell you, is the secret of truly addictive gameplay.

Both visually and spiritually, this is one of the closest arcade-to-Speccy ports you'll ever have the joy of encountering, and if you've ever liked to shoot things, get out there and buy this game right this minute.