ST Format


Blue Lightning

Author: Andy Hutchinson
Publisher: Atarisoft
Machine: Atari Lynx

 
Published in ST Format #41

Blue Lightning

It's every boy and - sexually non-stereotyped - girl's dream to fly a top secret jet airplane. The Blue Lightning jet is a phallic love monster with the kind of manoeuvrability and firepower that only a seriously frustrated games designer - who really rather enjoyed the Bay City Rollers' gigs in Blackpool and Michael Rodd's greatest hour with the Twicky robot on Tomorrow's World - can invent.

Blue Lightning is seriously brilliant. Right from the start, you're likely to realise this is a game you could spend hundreds of pounds on if it was in an arcade, let alone on a Lynx. The designers have invested a brilliant amount of detail in the game, and it shows in every lovingly carved pixel.

The idea is to battle your way through nine missions. These missions range from blowing up convoys to performing daring night-time runs into enemy territory. For each mission you have the same weapons: an endless supply of bullets not to mention 40 sidewinder missiles. Your onboard computer picks out targets and by tapping the Option-1 button you let loose a sidewinder and it jsut happens to go swiftly up the exhaust port of some unsuspecting tank commander's pride and joy.

Blue Lightning

The gameplay is extremely frantic and massively satisfying. You throw Blue Lightning around the sky with gay abandon, unleashing salvo after salvo of missiles. That is, until you run out of them, of course, at which point you wish you'd saved a couple for the squadron of jets that are frighteningly bearing down on your six.

It's the speed of this game which is its most stunning feature. The wonderful texture-mapped planet zips along below and jets bear down on you without slowing down. When you zoom up into the air and hide among the clouds or fly through a forest, there's a brilliant feeling of freedom. If things get a bit too hectic for you to cope with, you can perform a wicked barrel roll which throws off the most efficient heat-seeking missile.

Blue Lightning has a password facility so you can join the action at any point. The game's shelf-life is unlimited - even when you've completed all the missions, you're still going to want to plug this in and play it for a quick blast. There's no finer advertisement for the Lynx than Blue Lightning. It's one seriously excellent testosterone blastorama. Load, lock and unleash.

Andy Hutchinson

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