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Now here's a curiosity - this isn't a new title but it is, in fact, a re-release of a monumentally obscure game released by Australian-based Vorlon Software in 1998 to average reviews. It wasn't a success by any means and became very difficult to track down (being released at the same time as the excellent T-Zer0 probably didn't help - JM). Luckily though, German publishers APC & TCP stepped in recently and are now selling it for the stampede-provoking price of 12.50 Euros.

I'd imagine you can guess from the name that this isn't a cute single-screen platformer. Ultra Violent Worlds (UVW from now on) is a vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up in the style of the likes of SWIV and Banshee. You would, therefore, expect plenty of action, inspired level design and lots of power-ups to collect. But you'd be wrong. So very, very wrong.

Let's start at the beginning. The game doesn't even have an icon so you have to switch on the 'Show All Files' option in Workbench to see it. A small point perhaps, but indicative of the amount of care that's gone into the program (strangely enough, the demo *does* have an icon, but the full game doesn't! - JM).

Next up, you're treated to an intro containing some well-rendered stills and plenty of boring text describing the plot, though this bit is so tedious and long I can't remember the first thing about it. Mercifully, you can skip it, but it wasn't much consolation to me as I sat there rapidly losing the will to live for the purpose of this review. Survive this and you're treated to a title screen that's minimalist to say the least. There are no options here, other than a one or two player game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as it means you don't have to spend forever tweaking all the different settings - instead you can get down to business and start playing straight away...

...but in this itself proves to be a huge mistake (and I think I'm going to seek counselling tomorrow). Bizarrely, you're presented with the shop screen (which makes an appearance after every level) before you've even started the first stage, which is a good example of sloppy programming. When the action actually starts, first impressions aren't bad. It's clear a lot of work has gone into the graphics - indeed, the enemies look reminiscent of Super Stardust, and are well animated, as is your ship. There's plenty of detail and colour in the backgrounds too - you can see why UVW requires AGA. The only criticism I have of them (but it's quite a big one) is they lack character in places - there are no little touches that really make it stand out from the numerous other blasters out there.

Sadly this becomes a theme throughout the game. The sound effects are sparse at best, and with no music (other than an awful-sounding tune in the intro) it's severely lacking in atmosphere (strangely enough, there are eleven audio tracks on the CD but they don't get played during the game. I can't tell you how good they are as I haven't plucked up the courage to listen to them).

Most importantly, though, the game itself is dreadful. The attack waves are some of the most uninspired I've ever seen. For the most part the aliens just wander aimlessly towards the bottom (or top) of the screen; there are no clever attack patterns to memorise here. Every enemy takes forever to kill too; you start off with a weedy weapon by default and even the earliest enemies take several hits to destroy. That's if you're lucky enough to hit them - the collision detection is shocking and the bullets often go straight through without affecting them, which is amateurish in the extreme and goes a long way to ruining the game on its own.

As you'd expect from a shooter that features a shop, you can collect credits during the level which you can save up and put towards a fancy power-up or even a new ship. This is fine in principle, but the coins appear at seemingly random intervals (and not, for example, when you successfully take out an entire wave) so you are at the mercy of the gods when it comes to collecting enough cash to buy something a little more effective. You almost certainly won't achieve this straight away - the most money I've got after the first stage was 800 credits, but the least expensive item to buy in the shop (other than an increase in energy) costs 1000 credits. There are also plenty of occasions when a coin appears right at the bottom (or at the sides) of the screen and you can only watch as it disappears straight off again. Of course, this results in nothing bought and, with the difficulty level ramped right up to 11 from the level two onwards, you will find it very hard to get much further.

The playing area is large, as you can scroll both left and right by about half-a-screen or so, but this presents its own problems. Even if you stay right in the middle, where most of the action takes place, you won't get rewarded financially or otherwise any more than you would by shifting to the extreme left or right of the map. It also results in the game feeling unfocused as there's so much room to manoeuvre - you can't help but feel the programmers would have been better off limiting the amount you can scroll horizontally and injecting some variety (the enemies attack you in more or less the same manner constantly, the only difference being there's more of them and they're harder to take out the further you get).

There's also a two-player mode, in which interestingly the second ship is slower but can take more hits before being killed. This idea is cancelled out by the fact you both end up fighting which way to scroll and you'll inevitably use up lives like they're going out of fashion. Maybe it's just my imagination, but credits seemed to appear more frequently with two people taking part, but you still usually end up with about 700-800 credits each. As a consequence, two people end up unhappy instead of one.

So overall, then, UVW looks promising but is sadly typical of late Amiga releases - visually it's impressive but the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. It's sub-PD standard design - the steep learning curve together with a total lack of imagination means you'll get bored with this quicker than you can say "Now where's my copy of Swiv?". It'll certainly make you ultra violent towards the programmers and that's the nicest thing you can say about it. I can only hope that if APC&TCP decide to publish any more long-forgotten games they make it worth your time and money, and if you desperately want to play a vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up on the Amiga, you are better sticking off with Banshee and Swiv - both are considerably more addictive, well put-together and fun.