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SOMETHING TO PUT THE WIND UP YOU?

Dear me, I'm afraid these Japanese scenarios areas innovative as their cars. In brief; it's the future, the mechanoid aliens are trying to invade, you've volunteered to fight them off, first in a F-14, then a helicopter. There are six levels of this and you start the game with a standard machine gun. a limited supply of bombs (useful for dropping on unsuspecting mechanoids bonces) and a smart bomb, one per life.

Naturally, after destroy a fairly large quantity of aliens a token is deposited by the alien wreckage which should enable you to kill even more of them. (About as smart as those 'smart' bombs which blow themselves up, I'd say.) These tokens provide more powerful weapons such as more bombs, lasers and missiles. By skilful use of these mega-weapons you can fight through to the end of the level where the humongous enemy they should have thrown at you in the first place lurks. These are pretty tough dudes and will take every bit of available firepower to defeat them (it's too late to wish you had picked up that extra missile token that whined past you on the previous screen). But you're such a courageous person that you attack nevertheless, because the freedom of your planet is at stake. So with the battle of the last level still ringing in your ears, you attack and hope that you survive.

Graphically Typhoon is similar to Capcom's 1943, the same style of monochromatic sprites have been used, and to my mind look just as bland, albeit more detailed. Enemies swarm around the player's aircraft causing as much trouble as possible, and generally their defences are hard to crack. Playability isn't terrible, but the combination of poor presentation and totally unoriginal format gave me little incentive to play on. A mediocre game which should never have been converted.

MARK ... 55%

THE ESSENTIALS Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: simple sprites on messy and confusing backdrops Sound: great 128K title tune, but nothing too special during play

'Another conversion hot from the arcade machine, this time it's the action packed air/sea combat game, Typhoon. And this is one conversion that has retained its addictiveness and playability on the Spectrum. There are excellent sound effects and a great tune to begin each game. The stages get harder as you fight your way through each wave of dogfights, until it is almost impossible to stay alive for more than a few seconds! From F-14 to chopper, it's non stop arcade action all the way. Ignore James Brown and the sheep farmer - try this great coin-op conversion!'