This SNK coin-op takes place in the aftermath of a cock-up, with the majority of a seven-man commando team captured soon after beginning their quest to stop Gylend, the mighty space dictator. In the coin-op, Yohan and Ben survive to provide simultaneous two-player action, but the Amiga and C64 conversions have only one survivor whose companions have been scattered through five Ages.

As you massacre Gylend's minions objects are dropped which can improve your weapon with Tri-Shoot, Missiles and Lasers. A Big Boss at each level's end guards one of your colleagues. Should the going get tough, you can use a warp gate to hop to another Age.

I was disappointed with the extreme difficulty of the C64 game and hoped for more of the Amiga game. Unfortunately, it's even more difficult, there isn't a two-player mode and the graphics are disappointing with a poor main sprite and mediocre animation generally.

Gameplay is incredibly hard, and made even more irritating by the painful delay in restarting the game when you die. If you've the patience, the five levels and graphic variety might provide a satisfying challenge, but I got very little enjoyment out of this.

Whatever went wrong with this conversion? The C64 game lacked the simultaneous two-player mode but made up for it with some impressive blitter-style guardians amongst other things.

Unbelievably the Amiga game lacks even an alternate two-player mode - I thought two-player action was a trademark of these Ikari Warriors-style games!

There's certainly a challenge with five worlds to go through: a pity it drove us up the wall trying to get through one level with no continue-plays and no desperately needed energy pods.

You really do learn to loathe the multi-load. And this is supposed to be the most faithful conversion? Try again, Electrocoin!

Presentation 39%
Mediocre start-up sequence, irritating disk accessing on dying. No two-player option.

Graphics 66%
Unremarkable ST-ish graphics, lacking in detail and colour.

Sound 60%
Choice of FX or music, both reasonable.

Hookability 37%
Fairly simple to get into, but very high difficulty proves very discouraging.

Lastability 38%
A big challenge, but only the most determined gamesplayer or dedicated fan of the coin-op will persist.

Overall 36%
A disappointing conversion, overly difficult and unexciting.