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Thunderceptor is an interesting attempt to turn the shoot-'em-up into a sort of arcade adventure. Thunderceptor, developed by Ernieware in the Netherlands, features icon driven menus and a load/save feature. Ever seen that on a zap-to-kill game before? No, neither have we. And it almost works - if only the shoot-'em-up part had been just a smidgen faster.

Load in the game and you see a series of icons which allow you to load/save your hi-score and position in the game, check out your hi-score and any medals you may have won, look at the configuration of the enemy fleet and the number of these craft you have knocked out of the sky and finally re-arm your ship between levels.

All nice touches which make Thunderceptor stand above the normal shoot-'em-up in terms of presentation. Graphically, the shoot-'em part is pretty good. Big ships, nice animation - but it lacks the sort of urgency that a classic zapper needs to keep you coming back for more.

It's a scrolling shoot-'em-up in the Defender/Salamander style - but falls short of the classiness of those two games.

The action seems a mite slow - although it is difficult to zap the approaching enemy craft, which come in many and varied forms. Shame all the neat icon-driven additions weren't coupled with a hotter game.