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There's a theory that any civilization with faster-than-light space travel must be intellectually advanced and essentially peace-loving. Otherwise they'd have surely blown themselves up in a war.

Wrong. In Retrograde, there's a competition between seven alien races, and it's not called 'Going For Gold'. Seven distinctly overweight, smelly and very nasty dictators are each trying to invade the most planets in the Thwok solar system. Already seven of the eight planets have been taken over and yours, Choom, is next.

Any reasonably intelligent being would take the next space flight out, pausing only to buy the latest copy of Zzap! But sanity is obviously in short measure in a solar system called Thwok, and you've volunteered to take on *seven* alien invasion forces, routing the whole miserable lot of spacefaring scum.

Each of the seven planets is controlled by nerve centres buried deep underground, and protected by locked bunkers. To get in, you must first find a planetbuster, these are carried by aliens walking on the planet surface. Once you get one of these you have to get it primed at the last bastion of native resistance - the corner shop. Needless to say, they're not going to do it for free, so you need lots of cash.

Fortunately, when you destroy members of the alien defence forces they usually deposit crystals easily converted into ARA - the local currency. Once you prime the planetbuster all you have to do is find the opened bunker and drop down. The game then switches to vertically-scrolling mode, but all your add-on hardware is checked on entry leaving you with just a powerfist to punch the baddies. Make your way down to the bottom of the nerve centre and defeat the last alien to blow up the base. Destroy all the nerve centres and the level is complete.

Getting to the next planet is no picnic however, as a swift bit of multi-loading calls into action a massive monster. During this part of the game you are fixed at the centre of the screen, with controls scrolling the massive alien around you.

To stand a chance against these hideous creatures you'll need to be fully loaded up with weapons from the shop. The biggest range of weapons are in the Flying Weapons section. weapons can fire from *sixteen* points around the player, and you can install weapons on all of these clip-on points. But there's only nine power points to supply energy.

There are twelve different types of weapon, most of which can be upgraded many times. Sadly, the planets only have a limited range of weapons so to get the better weapons you have to get onto the higher levels.

Also of limited availability are powerfist upgrades which improve your punching power for the vertically scrolling nerve centre sections. All the weapons and upgrades can be sold off, for a fraction of their cost, if you want to install a different weapon.

There are seven completely different planets, each a separate load, complete with separate high-scores which are totalled up when you die. Losing all your lives sends you straight back to the start of the game - no continue plays - but extra lives are picked up every 20,000 points and power-ups can be collected to restore your energy.

A bigger and more dramatic range of weapons has yet to be seen, many of the twelve basic weapons change their looks (as well as their effectiveness) quite dramatically as they upgrade, making for some truly awesome mega-blasting.

The nerve centre and end-of-level monsters add variety to the basic shoot-'em-up action which, combined with all the levels, results in an incredible value-for-money package. This is one of those games, increasingly rare these days, written specifically for the C64 and it shows!

All in all, a great start to the Nineties for Thalamus.

And I thought it was doing to be a pretty dull Xmas when it came to horizontal scroller shoot-'em-ups!! This rather quiet release, programmed by some virtual unknowns, very nearly equals my all-time fave blast Armalyte for sheer brilliance.

In terms of all-out slaughter, Retrograde is light-years better and meaner, with more weapons than you could possibly cope with along with thousands of aliens to take out.

I love the idea of having to sell off weapons (at a fraction of their cost) in order to make available space to install better weapons - bang goes any hopes of buying every single weapon going and romping through the game! You need to use some of the old grey matter to try and get through this baby (along with a very sturdy autofire joystick).

In itself, the above-planet action would make for a pretty damn good blast, but Transmission Software have added brilliant, underground downward-scrolling sections and some of the hardest mother aliens you'll ever want to tackle to make one brilliant shoot-'em-up.

The challenging, but supremely enjoyable gameplay, is perfectly complemented by some superb and amazingly varied graphics and excellent tunes.

Even the disk multi-load is extremely rapid (although my aching trigger finger could have done with a longer rest between levels!). Retrograde is a classic C64 shoot-'em-up - don't miss it!

Presentation 94%
Great loading screen, option to listen to some of the tunes, great shop screens, high score table and fab Olli cover art!

Graphics 95%
Good above-ground aliens, great underground and end-of-level sections, brilliant variety and superlative weapons.

Sound 95%
Different tunes for the high score, new levels, situations - and all pretty brill!

Hookability 94%
Immediately addictive, starts off simple but different stages add variety.

Lastability 95%
Seven huge levels and daunting end-of-level monsters add up to a massive challenge.

Overall 94%
An utterly awesome shoot-'em-up.