Reviews

A very competent vertical SEU that was a YS cover freebie. Loads of sprite deatail and varied angles of attack, it owes a good deal to games like Xecutor but still holds up well in the playability stakes.

In my first review in yonks, I return with a review on Ano Gaia, a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up which came free in Issue 89 of Your Sinclair magazine.

The game itself is terrific, nicely detailed graphics with lots of colour given the Speccy's limitations. Gameplay's just the same as any ordinary shooter, if it moves, shoot it till its destroyed, but the gameplay is fast and smooth unlike some shoot-em-ups for the Spectrum which can be slow and somewhat unresponsive, oh and monochrome as well, unlike Ano Gaia. The opening music is very well composed, again given Spectrum's limitations and the fact that its a beeper sound rather than the AY sound.

With exceptional gameplay, highly detailed graphics and of course colour, Ano Gaia is a very good game and a lot better than some of the other shooters for the Spectrum which we had to pay for. Definately worth playing.

A pretty poor clone of Xecutor which came as a free game with a Your Sinclair cover tape, Ano Gaia (a title sounding quite dubious for Italian and Spanish speakers!) is just another run-of-the mill shooter with bland graphics, sparse sound and absolutely nothing to make it stand out of the crowd.

This isn't really a review. I wrote this game, and I just wanted to point out one thing. I have never played Xecutor or even heard of it before coming here.
I've checked the game out on YouTube since reading the other reviews here, and I have to agree that it's really spooky how similar the two games are. Xecutor's graphics are better - mine are what you get when a programmer does the graphics! But I think Ano Gaia runs a lot smoother; it manages a rock solid 25 FPS - with real speccy hardware of course - which gives it a really Arcady feel. Your emulator may vary...

Oh, and the game was mainly inspired by Zynaps, but I wanted to do it in a vertical format.

By the way, I left a rating of 3 - Average. Just so that I don't muck up the ratings. :-)

A very smooth and pretty acceptable scrolling shooter !

Quite decent for its day .


It plays fast and smooth , and the key response is a real delight .

Very recommendable , especially for shooter lovers , unlike myself ! :(

3,5 out of 5 .

Not a bad game, in fact its quite playable and enjoyable. The movements are smooth but rather stuck on one speed only which diminishes the action seen in other similar games. Overall I think its slightly above average.

3,5 points

As a shooter it's pretty nice, the graphics are colourful and stand out and the gameplay is adequate for what it's meant to be, but then the firing is the main gripe for me. Shooting at the enemies consists of a weapon which fires from side to side, so it fires from the right side, then left, right, left, right, left and so on and I don't like that, it was very off-putting to try and shoot an enemy but it fires from the right side and misses him leaving me a sitting duck for it to hit me instead. It's actually not a bad game for a covertape and I was somewhat gutted to learn that this was the programmer's only game, but I have played better and more thrilling shooters on the Spectrum compared to this, and ones that fire better too, simple as that really.