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Twister is the name of a demon from the depths of hell. Apparently she's one of the worst. Together with her horde of unspeakable nasties, she intends to ruin mankind once and for all. Out of the world's 4.5 billion population, you have been chosen to fight for mankind's survival. To do this, you have to travel through your own subconscious in order to gather various sacred symbols that will enable you to vanquish Twister and her mob of killjoys.

The first section involves jumping across a series of platforms as they approach and collecting the objects that appear on many of them. Whilst you are attempting to do this, Twister's twisted minions appear above you. To avoid their wrath it 's necessary to shoot them down using psychic weaponry with which you have become equipped whilst collecting four special suits of cards that appear while you're fighting.

The next section has you travelling down a grid-work corridor and again you must avoid the demons. This time characters of the word of Ultimate Power have to be collected. The next corridor is walled but is otherwise similar to the last screen except that signs of the Zodiac have to be collected. If success is achieved here, a jet pack appears on the back of your character and amidst dramatic bolts of lightning, he rises from the corridor. At the top of the screen, the Evil twister appears as a snake wrapping itself around a planet. Demons must be eliminated before the triangle of truth finally materialises. If that's touched in time, the warhead of the psychic bolt displayed at the base of the screen begins to flash. A direct hit down Twister's throat is necessary to kill her and you only have one chance. Time your shot well...

The objects appear one by one every time you shoot a demon. Touching one allows you to pick it up. However, two objects cause either a loss of energy or the loss of the last object to have been picked up. One of the useful objects is a triangle of darts which gives extra firepower when collected.

The layout is simple enough. At the base of the screen an energy bar indicates current strength whilst the number of shots remaining are also displayed.

At the top of the screen, any important objects that have been collected are shown. The background is black with yellow platforms approaching from the void, becoming larger as they get nearer.

Control keys: left/right O/P; S to jump; A to thrust; X to fire
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor
Keyboard play: reasonable
Use of colour: unimaginative
Graphics: beautiful sprites, good forward scrolling
Sound: rather limited
Skill levels: 1
Screens: 6

'Despite the rather inane plot, this proved to be an enjoyable shoot em up. It's not too difficult to get quite far in the game so perhaps expert blasters will find it lacking as a challenge. Even so, the sprites are well drawn and animated, often being quite imaginative and amusing. One of the corridor screens is very much like Atari's old Tempest game but otherwise there's a reasonable degree of originality to be found. If you're after a fast, fun arcade game then this could be just what you're looking for'

'Twister Mother of Charlotte is one of those games that I can't get my teeth into at all. The graphics are very good, there are many detailed characters and the forward scrolling of the platforms/stepping stones is brilliant. The sound is fair with no tune on the title screen and only a few spot effects during the game itself. I just about managed to get onto the forth screen after about half an hour of play so it shouldn't be too hard to complete, if you can be bothered. The best thing about Twister in my view is the colourful front end which is quite entertaining. if you like fairly simple games with lovely graphics and no brain ache involved in playing then I recommend this game.'

'Although the scenario is all a bit daft, the game itself is quite a neatly presented shoot em up with lots of interesting monsters to avoid or shoot. The scrolling playing areas which zoom out at you lend the game a fair old pace, and leaping around colt acting the right objects while avoiding the wrong ones and killing the nasties can get frantic. I enjoyed the Twister, no matter who Charlotte is!'