For a while I thought that the extra facilities of the Commodore 128 (and 128K machines in general) were going to be ignored in consideration of the commercial pressures of keeping to the lowest common denominator (i.e. C64 mode). Not so Mastertronic. The Last V8 and Kickstart (the other 128 title) may be testing the C128 water for Mastertronic, but they will be appreciated by the growing number of C128 owners out there.

The extended version of The Last V(12)8 is disk only at the moment and features an extra level to the two that exist on the C64. On the C64, the scenario is based on a car left on the surface of the earth suffering the after-effects of a nuclear war. Your mission is to return to base carrying any survivors that may still be left alive.

So follows a hair-raising run across the surface with only a few seconds left before a nuclear explosion that would destroy you.

After this level comes the run through a maze to find your base, of course most of the maze is radioactive - yet another opportunity to die horribly.

The extra level on the C128 version changes the scenario a bit. You are now set on Mars, the last surviving remnants of the human race (the rest being wiped out in the global war). But wait! Signals have been received from the mother planet... could there still be survivors? You are selected to go and lead the search party.

But first you must get all the fuel crystals from the surface of Mars, switching off the electric fences and avoiding the craters as you go. Then it's down to earth and the game progresses much as the original C64 version did.

As usual, the graphics are fairly stunning - especially the surface of Mars - the music is dynamic and fits the pace of the game well, and the speech synthesis is almost unhearable - but who cares?

Definitely one of the better games on the C64 is now (almost by default) the best game on the C128. If you have a C128 it is worth getting this game just to justify not saving some money and getting a C64 in the first place!