Redrunner is, if the name wasn't a hint, the sequel to Aleksi Eeben's 2006 game Greenrunner and, like its forebear, it's an all-out hardcore blaster that takes it's cues from several different genres of game; certainly there seems to be elements of arena shooters like Robotron 2084 in there, but at the same time it's heritage seems in tune with titles like Centipede or Jeff Minter's takes on that game mechanic. In fact, if there are a couple of games it really shares a feel with, they would probably to be Minter's often-forgotten third installment in the 'Runner series Voidrunner, but combined with elements from another C16 classic, Mastertronic's Spore.

The action itself is very simple, the player or players are issued a ship each with four reasonable cannons mounted around them and holding the fire button down releases a torrent of plasma in four directions simultaneously. And if, knowing how much firepower the Cyanitizer and Yellowizer (the two player ships) wield doesn't give the game away, the objective is to twonk anything that holds still long enough... which is where it gets difficult, because things start off fast and it doesn't take very long before words like "fast", "manic" and "eeek!!" simply don't cover it any more! If things moved any faster than Redrunner already does at full tilt, it'd become impossible to follow but, despite this huge, dizzying turn of speed, Redrunner remains playable because it's just on that edge where repeatedly throwing the ship out of danger purely by hand to eye responses or possibly some kind of primal survival instinct is still possible even if tactical playing or simply trying to think about what the hell you're doing have long since given up the ghost (around the twentieth level, from my experience).

There's no respite between levels either, since each starts the moment the previous is completed with just a shower of explosions and a colour change to mark progress. And the speed doesn't make it impossible to grab the power-ups either, which either blow up everything currently on-screen, power up the already formidable cannons on the players' ship or, in slightly surreal fashion, turn everything into mushrooms!

Graphically this game is an improvement on Greenrunner, there's more colour in general and, despite the change from high resolution to the chunkier multicolour graphics and how small everything is, I found it easier to see what's going on when things start to get busy. And on the audio front the game is well-served with a soundtrack from Glenn Rune Gallefoss but, whilst the speech samples feature the voice of Antti Hukkannen (an artist with his own IMDb profile no less for the voiceover work he did on the trailer for sci-fi parody Star Wreck) the actual speech has been pared down a bit from Greenrunner so the voice of the Redrunner has just a little less to say for himself than his female counterpart. Of course, since the samples play very quietly on later models of C64, neither voice has a lot to say on those machines!

Okay, so the long term playability for the average gamer has to be considered here but, whilst there's no doubt that by level twenty this thing is seriously out to bury the player both figuratively and literally and that Mystical Gaming Ninja powers start to become a requirement, it's got enough variety in the earlier, relatively easier to survive levels to keep those who don't "zone out" in front of shoot 'em ups busy whilst the two player mode shifts the odds just a little more in the favour of a couple of reasonable gamers working as a team.

And if you are the sort of person who drifts into that slightly dazed, almost dreamlike state that has people worrying about you whilst playing Robotron, Geometry Wars or Jeff Minter's single screen blasters, this is very much the sort of game you'll find appealing. Grab a decent stick, wedge your thumb down on the fire button and lose yourself for a while.