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You play Phantomas a vigilante android, who must destroy evil Count Dracula in his vast castle of 95 rooms. Within the castle are three objects you must collect to have any chance of defeating Count Dracula.

These are a cross, a stake and a hammer. Not only will you need these objects but you must also open six windows within the castle, allowing sunlight to shine through weakening the Count's strength.

There are five keys to find allowing you access to areas you may think are blocked off. In essence this is another one of those avoidance type games, with only left, right and up for jump as your controls.

I found the lack of a crouch function, or the ability to crack a whip (a la Castlevania) or chuck some knives, quite limiting. Gamers like me love to press the trigger button!

Game developers Santiago Ontanon and Jordi Sureda got together to create their first CPC game as 1) a remake to the original game Vampire (republished by Codemasters, 1986) otherwise known as Phantomas 2 in Spanish (published by Dinamic) and 2) pay tribute to the original coder Emilio Salgueiro who was tragically killed in a road accident in 1996. They also had the game released on a physical tape which looks awesome.

Phantomas 2.0 oozes CPC colour, so much so that you would not think that the game is based on an original 4-colour Spectrum port. To be more accurate the original CPC version with the use of rasters had 6 colours but it still looked like a Speccy port unfortunately. Other differences between this remake and the original is the inclusion of music, which does wonders for the atmosphere of the game. The jumping aspect of the game is a great deal more intuitive than its predecessor but the game is still as hard as they come, just like the Spanish guys like it. My major criticism of Phantomas 2.0 however, is that the lives system of the original game has been altered.

In this new version, you just don't get enough life energy. I think the original system should have been retained as it makes the game more fun and gives it greater staying power.

Phantomas 2.0 is a fantastic looking game. The visuals showcase the awesome CPC colour palette with cool platform action. Overall, it's a great tribute and remake that perhaps could have been improved ever so slightly in a few areas.