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R-Type is the shoot-'em-up that refuses to die. Originally a coin-op, it has made it to every format from the Commodore 64 to the Playstation. The Spectrum conversion has even been immortalised in an eBook - a very illuminating read named It's Behind You, by Bob Pape (Available free at bizzley.com).

R-Type's latest incarnation is on the Amstrad; R-Type 128, by Easter Egg productions. As you might have expected, the Amstrad was famous enough to have received its own version of R-Type in 1984. However, the 1984 version was essentially the 48K Spectrum version converted to the Amstrad, meaning the Amstrad's extra memory wasn't used. The Easter Egg team have created a version of R-Type more suited to the Amstrad; from the name R-Type 128 you can deduce that it uses the full 128K.

When a new version of a classic game is created, reviewers sometimes lose track of what's important. Instead of judging it on its merits as a shoot-'em-up, they get diverted into comparing the old version with the new one. So, to make this easy, let's imagine R-Type 128 is simply a brand new shoot-'em-up for the Amstrad, and judge it by those standards.

It begins atmospherically, with your drone ship seized by a crane and flung into the title sequence. It also allows the player to slowly upgrade the ship by collecting power-ups, and the first power-up is a ball which can attach to the front or the rear of the ship. It can be detached at will to unleash a hail of bullets in various directions. All very useful for dealing with R-Type's plentiful supply of aliens without needing to manoeuvre too closely towards them.

The graphics and sounds are also wonderful, with everything scrolling without the slightest flicker. But the game itself is very hard.

Even with ball, guns and the super-laser (which you enable by holding down the fire button for a while) the odds against you are stacked. And, essentially, whilst everything may scroll magnificently, your drone ship moves in quite a jerky manner. Indeed, the playing area is so cramped that when you're under attack, the screen explodes into too many sprites for the human eye to track. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0-OM0uW7tU

Of course, that's not to criticize Easter Egg. They have achieved exactly what they intended, to create a superior version of R-Type that pushes the Amstrad to its limits and works within its limitations. Ultimately though, the Sega Master System version is still better than both Amstrad versions, and although you may indeed marvel at R-Type 128, you may also wonder what the point of it is.

R-Type 128, and a CD of its soundtrack, is available free from www.rtype.fr.