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In a machine-to-machine comparison the Amiga version knocks the freckles off the C64 version. Even though Altered Beast on the C64 plays slightly faster than the Amiga version, the graphics are pretty badly designed and animated, hence the speed. The soundtrack has pretty reasonable effects.

On the bright side, all the main features have been copied across faithfully. The main characters politely mutate at the touch of a pod, the zombies erupt and the end-of-level guardians are as vulgar and as tactless as ever. The visual effects do tend to get pretty cluttered at times leaving you stranded in a few awkward positions, e.g. trapped by half a dozen snakes, parrots and zombies, salvageable with the two player mode by using the special attack. Some of the later levels get very hairy indeed, with surprise attacks coming from every corner, and increased difficulty in obtaining the vital power pods.

This may be a slightly disappointing game for those who played the arcade predecessor but quite an interesting romp for anybody new to the game. So don't be put off by the screen shots, it plays a whole lot better than it looks.