Reviews

After the excellent Light Force, there was much anticipation around this cyberpunk themed second offering from FTL.

The game is quite a novel idea. There are three moving walkways between which you can jump, as well as shuffling back and forth along them. As well as a few innocent bystanders, members of other rival gangs will come along the walkways and attack you. By careful movement you can sometimes evade them, although it's a better tactic to arm yourself with the piles of bricks or other weapons to be found by the side of the Shockway.

Graphically, it's pretty good, although nowhere near as colourful as Light Force with graphics not too dissimilar to the earlier Gargoyle games. However, the gameplay rather suffers from a high level of unpredictability that leaves just a bit too much to luck no matter how much you practice and can easily kill you off very quickly when you're trying to figure out what to do.

Overall it's a nice original idea for a game, and a very well presented one, that just doesn't quite come together when you play it.

Shockway rider literally knocked your head off (repeatedly) with a high paced original arcade concept that played very smoothly but wasn't kind to beginners... or anyone else really.

You are playing for your lives here.

There are 3 conveyer belts of different speed and enemies that can kill you on contact.

Each level has it's own way of gaining lives and it is this that you need to master to proceed in the game.

You may need to shoot a set number of enemies, targets or collect items. But you must gain lives faster than you are losing them or it's game over time.

Practice does help you beat this game as you get better at avoiding those enemies but luck does play it's part.

I got this game on a magazine covertape and played it for months afterwards. It is one I used to be able to go a long way in but now struggle to complete more than a few levels without dieing.

Well worth persisting with - It is a great idea! Just a little too frustrating to be a real classic.

A bleak future is writ large in this mug the muggers brick an blood-fest.

Shockway, with points and bonus lives to be won for murdering the innocent, was ahead of its time - both in terms of the imaginative vigilante setting and the three lane, 3 speed Shockway itself, sliding you forwards all of the time towards the threat of decapitation. By subject and gameplay it is very much in tune with games that trend on Android or iOS in 2014.

Black humour and the gesticulating cartoony characters lift the gloom in a game that balances sophisticated theatre with quite a simple hit or be hit game mechanic that is very compelling to play in the short run but lacks truly lasting appeal.

1987 Faster Than Light (UK)
by Greg Follis and Roy Carter

A fun action game, which requires fast reflexes and a lot of attention, but above all, patience. Yes, the action happens slowly and the key response seems delayed a few milisecs, but what can you do with so many large graphics moving around on an oldie 48K? Not much. Graphically the characters aren't pretty, the backgrounds are monotonous and even the start menu is way too simple. The positive note, is that the gameplay is quite good, you have a few interlinked arcade genres in one game, well, mainly shooting and racing. But there is an addictive quality behind the game that sticks with you and is common in popular arcade games. I'm not sure if this was ever released as a coin 'op, but if it was I sure would have played it.

Brick throwing on moving pavements. Faster Than Light arcade games are mabye slightly underrated.
3,75/5

I remember a mate having the Amstrad version and it was brilliant, it had a great tune playing (which I have stuck in my head now) and it was great fun. So I was well pleased when I saw it on the Spectrum, instantly had to buy it, first thing I discovered upon loading, no music, I was bummed. But in fairness you still had the nice yet somewhat offensive gameplay in it, well I mean we're hitting grannies after all aren't we. It was still pretty nice to play and enjoyable nevertheless, but I always huffed at this game knowing my mate's Amstrad version was better.