Producer: Alternative Software
Retail Price: £1.99

Colonel Mentor, ace of air aces, has been ordered out of retirement to combat an enemy threat. Stretching out his arthritic limbs the old, bold Colonel goes to work, flying over alien territory.

As he moves onward, with the landscape scrolling vertically beneath him, the fighter pilot encounters hordes of enemy craft intent upon shooting him down. The Colonel's fighter is equipped with a basic blaster, aimed with a cursor, which can take out these irritating machines. For greater destructive power, Mentor can engage bombs which can destroy pulsing enemy ground installations.

This arsenal can further be increased if an enemy supply ship is captured by running into it. When Mentor does this, a hyper bomb becomes available. When the hyper bomb is detonated it destroys all enemy fighters in its vicinity.

But the fighter's fuel and the Colonel's lives are limited - this old soldier doesn't just fade away.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: none
Graphics: cramped and confused
Sound: uninteresting
Options: cheat mode

Yet more vertically-scrolling shoot-'em-ups [this one has cramped graphics, small, jerky, colourless and hard to distinguish from the ground. Good points are: no vile colours, and a useful aiming device.
BYM [64%]

Combat Zone is enough to put anyone off shoot-'em-ups for life. The scrolling is very slow and there's no evidence of sound. The sight used to aim is no help whatsoever, and neither is the optional cheat mode - because the intolerable game is easy enough anyway!
NATHAN [21%]