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The ensuing battle between the Federal Resistance (hooray!) and the imperialistic Galactic Empire (boo, hiss!) is still raging. After the successful mission in Thrust you have once more been deemed fit to take on a new task; one that takes you to P2112, a planet captured by the Resistance sometime earlier in the war. The planet is atmospherically incomplete but the Resistance desperately it as a base, so your mission is to collect valuable orbs imperative for construction of a purification generator to clear the atmosphere.

As in the original Thrust the player controls a small triangular ship which can be manoeuvred either clockwise or anti-clockwise and then thrust in the appropriate direction. The screen scrolls in any direction so your ship generally remains in the centre while the landscape moves around it.

The first orbs are found on the planet's surface and provide manoeuvring practice before penetrating the underground city below. This is a vast underground network of tunnels and open caverns guarded by Imperial androids - colliding with either the walls or the droids automatically deprives the player of one of ten shields. There's a way in which to dispose of the androids - by using a chemical agent stored in boxes inside the planet. However, experimentation is necessary as not every chemical works with every android.

As orbs are removed from their holders and collected they are carried along by a force field, represented by a dotted line suspended from the ship. As the ship thrusts the orb moves with the inertia created. An extra problem is that the orbs all vary in mass so each has a different level of inertia. If the orb is destroyed so is the ship and vice versa. The game finishes when the purification generator has been successfully built.

Control keys: Q/W left/right, P to thrust, L to pick up orbs, Space to fire
Joystick: none
Use of colour: very limited
Graphics: small and linear with very jerky scrolling
Sound: poor
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling (of a sort) play area

'I didn't think this would be as good as its predecessor, but even so I was expecting a little more in the way of gameplay and content than this. Surely someone could have thought up a more original or exciting plot than this. Thrust II would be bearable if the graphics weren't so awful - as it stands though the flickery scrolling is enough to put anyone off playing for more than a few goes at a time. Even for budget software this is below average - not recommended.'

'What a pity that the follow up ended up looking and playing like this. I'm not saying it's a bad game: just that the original Spectrum version did have its problems, and I wouldn't have thought they'd be too difficult to fix on the sequel. Unfortunately, it seems that they've just seen fit to update the scenario and make a few adjustments to gameplay, it still suffers from some of the worst scrolling of any Spectrum arcade game, and the graphics are small and not particularly eye-opening. Not one I'd recommend hastily to Thrust fans, though at £1.99 some may well look upon it as good value.'