Producer: Ariolasoft
Retail Price: £8.95
Author: Ray Tobey

Skyfox is the latest jet plane, capable of 3,000 mph whilst carrying a full pay load of weapons and you, the player, are put into the cockpit of this awesome fighting machine. It's a very fast full-blown 3D game - a sort of flight simulator without all the twiddly complicated bits.

Your task is made plain - defend your colony from the forces of invading aliens. The colony forms the combat area and is represented as a 25x25 grid, each section of grid forming a sector.

The invading force consists of some conventional Earth-type battleforces - tanks and planes and a number of fat motherships which drop the enemy. All the action takes place on the grid, and if you happen to fly off it then a message is printed up telling you that the plane is 'off colony'.

The title screen contains a series of options - five difficulty levels and fifteen different scenarios (including practice modes). They're all basically the same, the only difference being the type of attack patterns and the number of tanks, planes and motherships which take part in the invasion.

Starting in the colony base the player is given three lives and can select whether to start at high or low level (high level is at 30,000 feet up amongst the invading aircraft, and low level pits you against the marauding tank forces).

Skyfox is an advanced kind of machine, boasting comprehensive armament. The gunnery consists of a conventional laser which has unlimited firepower and is the weapon most used. Mounted under the wings are five heat seeking and five guided missiles. Each has to be primed before firing. When firing the guided missiles a little scanner appears showing the selected target and this is used to guide the missile home.

As you can imagine the enemy don't take your aggressive pursuits lying down and constantly fire at you when and where they can. Luckily Skyfox has a shielding system that allows a high number of shots to be fired into it before it fails and leaves you plunging out of the sky. Fuel is constantly eaten up by flying, forcing a return to the colony base to refuel and rearm. There are two bargraphs on the side of the screen showing the current state of fuel and shields so you've got no excuse if you crash (unless the colony base has been destroyed). Other displays include a constantly up dated radar map of the locality showing any alien forces nearby, the sector number you're in, a clock showing elapsed time since launch and the number of missiles left.

During the game you can call up the base computer (as long as it survives). This informs you of your current score, how many colonists have been bumped off by the alien attackers, the number of alien craft that have been destroyed and shield status for each colony installation. You can also cast a beady eye over a complete map of the colony which shows where the aliens are currently concentrating.

The final special feature is the autopilot. This saves time and energy - just press it when there are no aliens around and the autopilot flies you to the nearest aliens. If all the enemies have been eliminated then it whizzes you back home - nice.

COMMENTS

Control keys: I/M up/down; J/K left/right for cursors); plus other function keys
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair
Keyboard play: close 'cross keys' are subject to argument, and the game plays better with joystick
Use of colour: sparse, but avoids clashes
Graphics: great 3D and neat drawing
Sound: a few effects
Skill levels: 5
Screens: 15 scenarios

Yet another flight simulation hits the market, and sets out to be a good one. I didn't think Skyfox was going to appear on the Spectrum because of the delay since its Commodore release, but wait has been well worth it. The graphics are excellent but can be a little bit fussy. The colour is a bit plain, though acceptable, not much is used, but who needs move with a great game? More sound would make it a bit better and exciting. Overall this game is certainly great and will be in the charts for a long time yet.

Skyfox looks set for a long ride as the high-flying flight game. The graphics do jerk somewhat, but the general quality is very good. There's not much sound, but who needs it in a flight simulator? As to the fifteen scenarios, what can I say? There was a lot of pre-release hype for this, and it seems to live up to the claims made for it. It's going to take a long time to become Ace of the Base, as it means mastering some of the more strategic invasions and becoming triumphant against a massive onslaught. For sure, Ray Tobey is going to be held responsible for a lot of missed sleep and meals!

There is a lot more to Skyfox than first meets the eye - it's a very good mixture between an average shoot em up and an average flight simulator. The result is the best son of corn promise for those who think they hate flight simulators. It's not too hard to play if you're used to simulators, but the large shoot em up element adds to the strategy element - not unlike Codename Mat, ie lots of enemies closing in and you have to jump around the area deciding if to wipe 'em out or not. Skyfox features a good range of difficulty, which means you can start practically straight away and feel that you have done a good job in protecting Earth from invasion. A bad point is the way the screen seems to lock up when it's busy and the sound is buzzing, which makes fast play impossible. I think most people would be happy with this in their collection as the first flight simulator, but anyone who's got a few flight sims should be happy with what they've already got.

Skyfox, the ultimate war machine has arrived from the States. Ariolasoft has already started shipments for your Speccy. Now Phil South takes her up for a spin and goes crazy like a fox...

FAX BOX
Game: SKYFOX
Publisher: Ariolasoft
Price: £8.95
Joystick: Kempston or Sinclair
Keys: I - Nose Up, M- Nose Down, J- Left, L - Right, CAPS SHIFT - Fire!, C - Computer, A - Auto Pilot, plus many many many many more.

Clint Eastwood? Who he? No, this is the fight simulator. Yes, I said fight simulator. No airports, no stoopid maps, just wall to wall action, flyboys. You're in the hotseat of a hi-tech airborne killing machine of the first order, protecting your base from legions of tanks and flocks of deadly iron birds similar to your own. Yep, they keep on coming. But you're ready for them. Your'e the best there is.Well, in truth, soldier, you're the only one there is. So get out there, use your state of the art guidance systems and give 'em hell! Are you ready? Are you sharp? You bet! Do you want to give up now? The hell you will!

Does this sound like your kind of game? You bet it does. After keeping American kids blasting, and shooting to the tip top of the US charts like one of its own guided missiles, Skyfox is out now for the Speccy. And does it zoom blast pow zap the pants off every flight simulator/shoot 'em up you ever clapped eyes on - well yes it does! Skyfox is an arcade/strategy based on a cockpit view simulation of a powerful modern fighter aircraft. Now, I'm not much of a one for flight simulators; when most of my pals were building model aircraft I was reading Superman comics, so planes don't really turn me on. But this is not your average flight sim. You've got short and long range scanners, guided and heat seeking missiles (they don't like it up 'em saah!) to guide with the joystick or fire at their vapourtrails respectively, an on-board, heads-up display battle computer, solid state laser cannon (rapid fire type), and fifteen different scenarios to tax your tactical skills, an amazing seek and destroy auto pilot to zero in on enemy planes or tanks, and the standard photon deflector shields to divert the probing lasers of the enemy.

There are two training options, one for the tanks and one for the planes, and each option has three levels. And believe me, you're gonna need training for these guys are hard, and they never stop firing. Following these there's a final training mission where you face alternate waves of tanks and planes, to test your ability, high/low adaptibility-wise. And that brings the total to seven levels of training, after which you should be ready for anything. And boy, you'd better be.

FIGHT TO THE FINISH

Now for the main event - the battle. You can choose from eight battle scenarios - Combo, Small Invasion, Full invasion, Massive Onslaught, Halo, Alamo, Advancing Wall, Chess, and the aptly-named Cornered. This is the bit that sets this game head and shoulders above many others of its type - the strategy. This isn't just an average shoot 'em up, no sirree! By careful analysis of the enemy's movements while you're back at base, you can guess its strategy. Now it's down to you to choose targets to attack that'll destroy the enemy's bases, end so demoralise and confuse it. If you're really on top of your tactics, you can wipe them out entirely! So you have to have a quick mind, as well as a fast trigger.

The graphics are smooth and the foes are gruesomely life-like, but just so I don't swamp you with unqualified praise, I would say that my only real criticism is of the lack of colour in everything but the scanners. This isn't a major gripe though - after playing for a while, you get so caught up in the mastery of the graphic detail, you forget about it being largely black and white. Until you've chased a Foxbat nose-to-vapour-trail in some neck jerking turns in this baby, you've never played a flight/combat game.

So that about wraps it up. All that remains is for you to take your seat in your Skyfox, and zip off at Mach 1 into the sunset. (Cue sunset... okay Charlie, cue the victory roll... whadda ya mean "do you want butter on it, Mr Strohein?")

Publisher: Ariolasoft
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair

Would I like to fly one of these for real? Fly one of what? A Skyfox fighter - that's what!

Just crank up the auto-pilot and sit back until you're in the combat zone then zoom around at 200 mph, dropping to six feet above the ground, blasting alien tanks. Then up to 36,000 feet to take pot shots at enemy aircraft. Hell, you can even run the thing into the ground with impunity! The worst you get - on the lower levels, at least - is a message on your hi-tech console, warning you to take off again before you start collecting parking fines!

But flying a Skyfox for real is unlikely because despite its surface trappings of being a combat-orientated flight simulator, Skyfox is really unreal - a strange amalgam of all the military fetishist's wet dreams and a dose of sci-fi.

The graphics suggest nothing so much as Middle Eastern conflict with the rocky desert landscape and crawling tanks, and the jet fighters are undoubtedly earthly looking, but still the instructions talk about motherships, aliens and home bases. So don't expect a Fighter Pilot; let the computers in your plane and at home base do the navigating... and settle down to a good bit of blasting action.

First though, ignore the instructions reference to a multi-part load for different missions. It's an error to be grateful for, as the game is complete without delays for further sections of code. Secondly, while loading, search for the keyboard direction instructions. They sure weren't on our copy, so for those without a Kempston or Sinclair joystick to steer the machine, left is J, right is K, pull back on the stick is M and push forward I. And now you're ready to take on those reds, be they Martians or of a more terrestrial kind.

First the menu, which comes zooming down out of the sky into your cockpit. As well as your level - there are five, from the forgiving Cadet to the ultimately testing Ace of the Base - you choose the scenario. Recommended is Tank Training, which lets you zoom around at crop-dusting height but at 200 mph.

Here you'll get your first taste of how good the graphics are in this game. Though the approach of the tanks looks rather stepped, they're well drawn, shaded monochrome sprites. There are some nice sound effects as well, though as always one wishes the hardware could give them more volume.

At this easy level your flying will concentrate almost solely on turning and keeping as low as possible without scraping the ground. You may wish to accelerate away then dive back in, but that's slightly less than convenient - plus and minus are the speed controls, meaning you have to use symbol shift too.

Once you tire of this you can move up to Tank Training Two. Now the tanks are spread across the map and you'll need auto-pilot to take you from area to area. Not that pressing A will give you problems - it's just that you have to be ready for action immediately you begin to slow down from mach two.

There are three Plane Training Scenarios. The first one has that ever-handy auto to put you on the tail of the enemy - blast them quickly or they'll soon turn the tables. You'll need to be even quicker in the second scenario as they're coming straight at you, while the third presents a pattern spread around the map.

You'll find air combat calls for somewhat different flying techniques and much more dependence on your radar's vertical scan, which toggles with an overhead view. There's also a chance to use your missiles - you're equipped with limited numbers of both heat-seeking and guided. Arm them with the respective initial key, target the enemy, then let fly. Once again the sprites are effective, with an exciting sense of high speed jet combat.

Other practice modes introduce you to high and low combat, flying through a dead zone of clouds to take out forces on the ground and in the air, but by this time you'll be hungry for some real action - and Skyfox offers everything from a small invasion to a massive onslaught, where you'll have to face up to six motherships which you'll need to destroy before they launch even more tanks 'n' planes towards your base.

It's here that the real strategy appears. Using the base computer map you can check up on the position of the enemy so that you can defend your weak spots. The auto-pilot may still be useful but you'll also need human judgement. You'll also find yourself running out of fuel as you alternate between high and low combat, or using the power hungry afterburners for quick thrust, which means landing at your base to refuel and repair shields. Again this calls for instrument navigation, if you need to know the details of a map square, there's a handy zoom magnification facility.

Every so often a 'Launch Detected' message will flash up, which means that the mothership has sent out a bomber against your base. Intercept it during its run if you're to stay in the game. And if all that hasn't been enough, there are five special strategy attacks with multiple motherships to keep you on your toes.

There you have it. Skyfox isn't as complex to control as Fighter Pilot but that means it's a lot easier to get into and there are many thrills on the way. Apart from one or two complaints about control, such as the need to use shifted keys and a slight tendency for too fast a repeat, it's an exciting shoot 'em up that gets the adrenalin pumping. And real or not, I don't care who the enemy is... just let me at 'em!

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Ariolasoft
PRICE: £7.95

Skyfox was a big hit on the C64 - now it's available for the Spectrum. And a very workmanlike conversion the Spectrum version is too. The mainly monochrome graphics are effective. But the game, which is basically a fast moving shoot 'em up, lacks decent sound to complete the package.

The basic theme of the game is this. You are the pilot of a super-fighter Skyfox. Your job is to defend your bases from enemy attack.

Skyfox is a well presented game - but eventually becomes a bit boring after the umpteenth wave of tanks.

Spectrum & Amstrad
Ariolasoft
Shoot-'em-up
£9.95

Not so much a flight simulator as a combat emulator, this game combines elements of the shoot-em-up with the skill needed to fly a simulator.

There are a variety of scenario's. You are defending your base against wave after wave of enemy attacks. Enemy tanks will home in your base and enemy bombers fly in on hit and run raids.

Your fighter is equipped with the usual arsenal: cannon, heat seekers and guided missiles. You've got shields, an on-board computer and can reach some really hairy speeds in this hi-tech rubble maker. If you want to refurbish your shields and fuel, then its back to base. This is why it's vital to defend it. So watch the computer and take out anything that gets too close.

Just to make sure you don't waste valuable zapping time finding the enemy, you have autopilot, which finds the nearest baddie as well as the radar and computer. With all this, it doesn't take much time to get stuck into the enemy, slugging it out.

It is an immediately playable game - like any good shoot-em-up, but due to the large number of scenario's and levels, has lasting appeal. Below the clouds the tanks trundle around the green swathe in nice detail with full perspective. Up above, the enemy fighters don't exactly swarm out of the sun like a squadron of deadly gnats - but you get the idea?

A total of 15 different scenarios will give you plenty to zap. A thinking man's shoot-em-up!

FLYING HIGH

All of a sudden there's been a burst of aerial activity on the Spectrum, so let's go for a spin in some new simulators.

Ariolasoft
£8.95

The Skyfox fighter is a flying arsenal that will give hours of destructive pleasure as you pit yourself against endless waves of tanks and aircraft sent by the mysterious Motherships to destroy your base.

To give you some idea of the scope of the game there are seven different training flights recommended to prepare you for the really tough levels. You can find yourself on the tail of an enemy plane, or nose to nose or virtually any situation you might encounter on a full scale mission.

But first, a guided tour around the cockpit where you find not only a continuous laser cannon at your disposal but also guided missiles and heat seeking missiles to bulk up your firepower. There's also a computer which can be called upon to give your exact position, score summary, and the locations of the enemy.

A useful feature is an automatic pilot which will fly you to the nearest concentration of tanks and aircraft waiting to be wiped out.

There are enough dials and displays to swamp you with information including radar scanners, co-ordinate monitors and indicators for fuel, speed, altitude and shield strength. The game action proper offers you eight invasion permutations to thwart and the complexity is increased by having to defend your own base which, if destroyed, will rob your computer of vital data on the enemy's strength and positions.

Even in what is called the 'small invasion' you are ludicrously outnumbered but you can inflict heavy casualties before the shield buckles and the screen border flashes red indicating that the joyride has been terminated. Although you have unlimited laser cannons your guided and heat seeking missiles have to be used wisely. One unwise use is firing a guided missile into a wave of enemy forces while haphazardly flying into its flight path. There is enough to contend with without seeing your own missiles returning on a boomerang course.

It takes dedication to gain the strategic sense and flying technique needed to make a dent in the invasion forces on the higher levels. Even getting a glimpse of the Motherships is cause for celebration and if you opt for the 'Massive Onslaught' Invasion the only thing you are likely to see is that by now familiar flashing red border.

The graphics themselves are reasonable though the perspective shifts when attacking ground forces are confusing. In many cases when flying on a straight course targets that are beginning to loom large suddenly loom left or right for no apparent reason. Alternatively this could be battle fatigue causing the hand to tremble at the controls.

Skyfox is an unashamedly trigger happy game that contains sufficient levels of difficulty to sustain interest past the novelty stage. If you want an all out air war game for the Spectrum this is it.