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There's neither silk or worms in this game, but Silkworm is worth a look nonetheless. One of the not-so-famous 1988 arcade games which was converted to the CPC in 1989.

Silkworm is a left-to-right sideways scrolling shoot-'em-up, where the player can control a jeep or a helicopter, with the option of two players working cooperatively against a whole range of enemy-ridden terrain. The jeep shoots machine gun or jumps and the helicopter shoots a machine gun or cannon. You must shoot down as much of the enemy forces and avoid their barrage of shots at you, until the "MH-C2" is reached. Destroy it and save the world from its evil tyranny.

The arcade version looks so bloomin' lovely and other formats like the C64 and Amiga had background graphics, but the CPC version does not. It doesn't make much of a difference. For example: it cuts out the confusion that the background graphics sometimes has on the play and the all-black background on the CPC version makes it feel much more atmospheric: more eerie and more a feel of being in space on an unknown planet.

The two player option - where one player can choose the helicopter and the other player the jeep - is great, but even more wonderful is that you can set up the keys so that the joystick controls both the helicopter and jeep. This is great and double the fun in one player mode.

As you begin playing hordes and hordes of enemy planes, helicopters, ground missile launchers attack you non-stop: the action is frantic. There's a small stop in the enemy attack before they launch huge bouncing mines. Then the ground missile launchers fire at you, enemy air force strike at you, and the tanks roll out. It's a massive armada wanting to make sure you're killed and don't cause them any trouble. Look out for that huge ballistic missile that fires without warning, aaaaarrggrhh... It's panic stations all round.

Once you've shot down forty of the enemy - be it missiles, planes, tanks, missile launchers, bouncing mines or whatever - they then attack you when your chance to get extra firepower appears. It's not actually 40 items to kill, as the count goes down from 40 then 3a, 3b, 3c etc. then counts down as 39, 38, 37...

This seems impossible, but thankfully there is help in the way of land mines that, once shot, wipe out all the enemy on the screen like a smart bomb: which gets the shot count down faster. You can also use this land mine as a cloaking device that flies into the air and you can wear it like a protective halo.

Once the shot count reaches zero an orange blob scrolls from left to right. When it reaches the top right it smart bombs the enemy on screen and then turns into a helicopter that is constructed piece by piece... Shoot this as fast as you can and as many times as you can. The faster you shoot it down the better your bonus points, but even though this wobbly ship doesn't fire at you, don't run into it or you'll be killed.

Once it's been shot down two huge bonus circles appear on the screen: one for added firepower and the other for extra points. As this bonus ship is downed the shot counter will begin again from 40, so keep firing at the enemy as you need all the bonuses you can get. Look out for the end of level war helicopter out to get you, it's packed to the rafters with all sorts of fire power coming from all directions.

You thought level one was tough going, but it gets a lot tougher and there's eleven levels in total. Come on commander pull your finger out and kill those enemy planes and tanks. The game gets very tricky without additional firepower because once killed you revert to standard arms. Your progress without the extra firepower can be tough and you only have three lives to get you to the end.

Graphics-wise Silkworm might not be a silky smooth game, but it sure is fun to play. The sprites are well animated and drawn large enough. However the screen slows down a little when masses of enemy are on screen, which can be really annoying: in particular the bouncing mines approach. A really great feature of the graphics is the explosions that look great.

A thumping tune plays on the main screen, but there isn't anything during the actual game. It's a really nice tune and would have enjoyed listening to this while playing the game, and the explosions and gun noise effects are well executed.

On the face of it, Silkworm translates well onto the CPC. It's got loads of levels and heaps to shoot at. The enemy makes it tough for you, but it keeps you coming back again to get those bonus firepower. The end of level helicopter flickers a lot, so watch out where the shots are being fired. I would have liked to have seen a longer level and a few more bonuses along the way.

Defeat the end-of-level-one boss.

Graphics 79%
Looks fab, well animated.

Sound 73%
P. Cool title music.
P. Nice explosions and effects.

Grab Factor 86%
One or two players with great options.

Staying Power 82%
Eleven levels but only three lives.

Overall 78%
Fun, fun, fun!