Reviews

Rebelstar was Julian Gollop's semi-sequel to Rebelstar Raiders, a turn-based tactical game from Red Shift. Rebelstar smooths out the rough edges of the previous game and in the process Gollop created one of the finest experiences on the Speccy.

Playing either the Raiders or the Operatives, the mission is simple: get inside the lunar base and destroy the main computer. Lacking the complexity of Laser Squad, Rebelstar doesn't have any hidden movement, animation or automatic opportunity fire, but it was still a great way to waste an afternoon, especially if you utilised the nifty 2-player option.

A classic.

Flying Shark from Firebird is one of the finest arcade conversions on the Spectrum. It has very responsive keys and an excellent difficulty curve - you always feel you can get just one bit further!

It's monochrome but has nice big bullets so there's no invisible bullet syndrome!

I remember seeing Exolon in Crash for the first time. What colour! Even better, when I loaded it up and saw the beautiful explosions!

At heart a simple run and gunner, Exolon may have too basic gameplay for some, but I will always think it's a great game!

Nemesis was my favourite arcade shooter of the late 80's. I thought the game had everything, speed, colour, great sound, power ups...I dread to think of how many 10p's Nemesis and its sequel, Salamander extracted from me.

Imagine (ie Ocean) had done a fair job on a few Konami conversions when Konami decided to have a go on their own. They started with the terrible Jailbreak and sadly Nemesis was only marginally better.

I was too impatient though, and couldn't wait for the Crash review. I rushed out and bought Nemesis and have cursed it to this day. The main problem with the Speccy conversion is the terrible controls - it's just so sluggish compared to the arcade version. The sound is pap and power ups are missing. It could have been a great shooter with that extra bit of effort which is what makes it even more disappointing.