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Storm are living up to their name at the moment, releasing one rapid fire game after another. With a choice of helicopter or buggy, our reviewer decides to take off in search of the fearsome Silkworm IV missile, dodging radar by sticking to the nap of the Earth. Read what he has to say in this official debriefing...

The truth is out, finally we know what SWIV stands for. It's not Sexy Women Invade Venus, nor does it mean Slightly Wet In Venice. No, it actually has three meanings. The first is your primary objective - Secret Weapons Installation Verification. Next is your secondary objective and your means of attack - Special Weapons Interdiction Vehicles. The third refers to your enemy's new and rather potent missile, the Silkworm IV.

As in Silkworm, the game that may or may not be related to this one, you can take control of either a buggy or a helicopter. You can also invite a friend to take one vehicle while you control the other and play simultaneously, a rip-snorting option if ever I saw one. Depending upon your choice of vehicle, the nature of the task ahead varies considerably. The chopper allows you to fly over ground defences (though you'll still be at the mercy of their return firepower), whereas driving the buggy means avoiding buildings, rivers, ground cannons and so on. Route-finding skills play a major part for the buggyist. Piloting the chopper is dead simple; it always faces straight ahead so it's just a case of moving forwards, backwards, left and right and pressing Fire. The buddy is slightly more difficult to handle in that your weapon fires in the direction you're facing.

Each of the four levels is 41 screens long. The stages are pretty darn vast and action is as fast and unrelenting as this, they seem to go on forever. Level one takes you through a ghost town, then a desert. Level two conveys an airstrip, the sea and finally some grassland. Level three visits future zones - dried up riverbeds and a lake sandwiched in the middle. The fourth and final level is a volcanic lava field which leads ultimately to the Sci-Fi Zone (the final stage). The main difference between each of these stages is that the scenery changes. But your opponents just continue to attack relentlessly. One other point to note about the stages that when the watery areas appear, buggy drivers must transfer to an attack boat by running into it on the dockside jetty.

There are more baddies than our editor's had good ideas [You're not wrong there, Andy. My worst idea by far was employing you! - Ed]. Although different in appearance, many of an individual level's opponents share the same characteristics and attack formations. This matters not though, as there are still sufficiently large numbers of different attack waves to keep you pummelling away on level for ages before you become even vaguely familiar with the patterns.

So, to the beasties themselves. If you had to classify the opponents in SWIV they would fall very loosely into three categories: assorted bog-standard cannon fodder, the mid level toughies and the end-of-level guardians. Cannon fodder is a bit of a misnomer really as it's often you who becomes the fodder for their cannons. Enemy choppers are by far the most numerous form of adversary. Some waves merely harass you by being there, others fire back. On the ground, large cannons emerge menacingly from hidden underground bunkers while surface-based ground fire almost non-stop (dispatching them quickly of vital importance). Metallic birds only fire back when fired at themselves. This means that this incurably trigger happy will eventually get this come-uppance.

The end-of-level baddies are all fairy similar ground-based gun-clusters but each one is increasingly more elaborate and difficult to defeat as you battle through higher levels of the game.

SWIV's graphics are excellent. The animation is smooth and the backdrops and sprites work well together. Sound is a funky groove thang as well. A juicy soundtrack with stonking explosions and gunfire increase the adrenalin factor no end. Above all, it's hugely playable. The single player option is dead spiffy and the two player mode doubly so. A splendid shoot-'em-up which no self respecting gamester should overlook.

1. The levels are a smidge too similar in the gameplay department.
2. Boring end-of-level baddies.

1. Huge levels equal huge value for money!
2. Choice of chopper or buggy for two-pronged challenge.
3. The two player option calls for real teamwork.
4. Sound: ignore the parents, whack up the volume and live a little.
5. Almost faultless progression makes you yearn for game after game.
6. Sprite movements give a real feeling of depth. It really is a game on two levels.
7. Bucketloads of aliens.