Reviews

It's really a pity that some promising colourful graphics and the atmosphere that strongly reminds of the Buffy Vampire Slayer series go to waste due to a total lack of playability.

GOOD THINGS
* Color graphics with no trace of color clash.
* Some digital effect sounds.
* Attractive atmosphere
BAD THINGS
* Very bad scroll
* Faulty projectiles

If you just see the screenshots you can be deceived that this game can be ok. It would be if it hadn't that awful scroll, where the only things that actually moves is the background. The character stands in the center and the enemies are unaffected by your right/left walking. You could think, well, at least I can smash them with my energy blast. Sadly, it has a tiny range or collision detection fails. The sure thing is that you will be double flanked and therefore dead in no time.

SUMMARY
Graphics/animation: 4/5 Looks good
Sound: 3/5 48k music intro but nothing special. The digital sound add 1+ but I'm not sure if the effects worth the game halt.
Playability: 1/5 I'm still wondering if 0/5 would be too harsh or not.
TOTAL: 2/5 A great game until you try to play it

Every now and then I come back to this game to save the galaxy. There is nothing outstanding in it but a mixture of nice touches to a fine game.

GOOD THINGS
* Cool sci-fi atmosphere (great manual)
* One of the best loading schemes I've ever seen (nice if you play in a real spectrum )
* Four different ships per side adds replay value
* Supports 2 player hotseat
* Lets you choose to focus on battles, management or both.

BAD THINGS
* AI is not very smart even in hardest setting
* When you master the battles, you will hardly lose a fight even vs better ships

The Graphics are ok, the intro screen and battle intros are colorful and well-done. The ships are monocrome and make a bit of color-clash with the stars, but nothing serious. I wish it had bigger and more detailed ships, but maybe the spectrum doesn't allow more than what it's in the game.

The sound is functional. It lacks music but there is a lot of beeps and bops when you move the cursor in the strategic map or in the battle part when a ship fires, when laser or missile hits and so.

The one player game is nice to play if you try not to think how easy it's to win. If you have a minimum experience with shoot'em ups it will be no challenge to win every fight. And in the strategic plane I was never pushed or something like that.

Where this game shines is in two player mode. When your opponent fights you back, and it's battled for every world, you get the most enjoyment from the game. Alliance players may have the high ground, because in my opinion, their ships are a bit better. I must say, though, that hierarchy ships are much funnier to play with.

SUMMARY
Graphics/animation: 3/5 Decent but not awesome
Sound: 2/5 At least it's not totally mute
Playability: 4/5 I dont think this game can hook you for a long time, but whenever you come back to it, it will be a pleasant experience.
Total: 4/5 It's easy but it's fun. And two player games are memorable.

If you want to play football in our beloved speccy, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer is the best choice.

GOOD THINGS
* A huge amount of customizable options
* Two player support, vs and cooperative
* Awesome physics for the spectrum
* Fine graphics

BAD THINGS
* Only eight teams in the league

The first thing you can notice when you load the game is its interface. Mouse-style cursor moves through redefinable keys, and its gui it's very advanced for its time.

In the menu you can select all the options that suits you better: team names, player names, player skill, pitch color, player ink color, game lenght and much more. Editing the teams at will is a great feature that increases the replay value.

The graphics are not perfect, but they make their job well. Players are clearly displayed and are more realistic than other games games like Match Day or its sequel. Animation is quite smooth and color clash is dealed in an usual manner, monochrome display.

For a newbie, it can be a bit tricky to get into the game, because dribbling or retrieving the ball may need a bit of practice to master the inertia, but there is a practice mode and ten difficulty levels.

The beeper is hardly used, although you can hear how the players kick the ball, some chants or the crowd celebrating a goal.

Game A.I. stands a reasonable challenge, besides you can ask a friend for help and double the fun. It also allows you both to play in different teams of the league.

SUMMARY
Graphics/animation: 4/5 Mono but detailed sprites
Sound: 2/5 Use of sound is pretty limited
Playability: 5/5 Man, that's football
TOTAL: 5/5 Soccer got no better in the spectrum

Game of my childhood, never knew back in those days what Pengo was, and frankly, I don't mind too much yet. Birdy was the game I played, it was really fun with cheeky sprites, decent colours and it even had ingame music.

A extremely colourful game.

This game cover most of what I think a Spectrum game should be.

Amazing graphics, it gets the max from the Speccy capabilities. It's also very playable and it has a decent 48k intro tune. Besides, its difficulty is in the sweet spot for me.

Definitely, a real spectrum gamer must have a go at this.

A great game. Kind of a simulator of a George Lucas merchandise factory, but much funnier than it sounds :)

Nice intro music, good effects, correct and detailed graphics and other little neat touches. The best is that it all plays very well together.

One of my Speccy favourites!

The first Ninja Turtles adventure for the Speccy is an excellent game. It is really colourful like other titles from its authors but this is their best work in my humble opinion. The enemies don't respawn without end like it happens in their other games. That could sound a small difference but for me it improves the gameplay a lot. When you kill the bad guys in a section, it makes sense doing so and you get the satisfaction to know that you are safe there unless for whatever reason you need to go out and back again. Besides, every turtle has his weapon and his mask colour... well, is not exactly like TV but close enough for the ZX. The difficulty is also in the good spot, not too easy but doable if you persist. The sound is not great, it has a 48k intro tune and while you play it has its beeps and zaps but no ingame music. If only it had had a 128k tune it could have been remembered as one of the best speccy games.

The David Perry and Nick Bruty team also gave us other great games like Savage, Extreme, Dan Dare III, Smash TV, Tintin... So, if this one could be considered their best, then this game is definitely no trifle

I love this game.

Maybe I do it for its graphics, its animation, the mythological background, the adventure style gameplay... Or maybe
I love the game for all of those