Producer: C.R.L.
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Adam

Ahhh! Here we go again - fasten your seat belts for the far uncharted regions of shoot em up space. The alien might is about to onslaught once more in this fast action game. Your mission is to clear the six sectors of the galaxy of their violent inhabitants. Your craft, naturally, is of the latest type, armed with a kill-o-zap laser and experimental anti-matter cloaking device. Use of the cloak does use up precious fuel however, as those who have seen Star Trek II will know.

Each of the six sectors contains three waves of attacking aliens and after each sector you must dock with the supply ship to refuel. Fuel and laser temperature gauges are shown on the sides of the playing area. The laser ceases to work if it overheats until time allows it to cool.

In play, as you may have already guessed, Ahhh!!! is a galaxo-variant with your ship moving left and right at the base of the screen and firing upwards at the jigging aliens, each wave of which are different in appearance. These enemy craft get lower and lower in random patterns, some of them dropping bombs. When three waves have been successfully defeated, the screen cuts to a shot of the refueling ship above your craft, which automatically moves upwards of its own accord, while you must guide it into the docking bay to refuel.

Ahhh!!! is Currah microspeech compatible, and this device makes the most of the arcade effects, with voice warnings about laser temperature.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 1/3 left/right, 0 to fire, O for the shield
Joystick: not really essential, none provided
Keyboard play: responsive, reasonable positions, although one reviewer found them tiring after a while
Use of colour: well used and variable
Graphics: large, fast with a reasonable amount of animation
Sound: good with Currah, a little thin otherwise
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 3
Screens: 18 waves plus docking screen

Ahhh!!! is a fast shoot em up game with graphics that are large, fast and well animated. The sound could have had a little more action or a couple of tunes to liven things up a bit. There are 18 types of alien in separate waves, and as you progress onto higher levels there are larger numbers of them. I found the shield pretty unusable because, as with most shields, it's hard to use it in time and it also uses up a lot of fuel. The one thing that really annoyed me was the key positions, which at first l thought were alright, but after about half an hour's play, my hands and fingers started to ache. I didn't really enjoy this one as it becomes a bit boring just shooting, dodging and cursing the shield button.

Typical shoot em up game here which is rather fast. After much playing I realised this was a good thing as anything less would be boring by today's standards. There's a bit of variation in the docking sequences. Generally the graphics are up to the standard one expects now and this is a fairly good shoot em up. In a way it's similar to Arcadia, although not quite as good! After enjoying this game I realised that there is still some life left in the shoot em up category.

This must be one of the fastest solely shoot em up games I've played for a long while - it's speed, in fact, is reminiscent of Arcadia, although it doesn't play the same way. The graphics are large, very colourful and fast with a reasonable variation of alien types. Like so many of these post-Galaxian type games, I found it became boring after a while, but what can you expect from a simple shoot em up? if you want one, then this is reasonable. The addition of Currah speech does add a lot to the otherwise limited sound effects.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys
FROM: CRL, £5.95

The title says it all - and so will you if you load up this game expecting anything original. Ahhh!!! is yet another exceptionally average Spectrum Galaxians. Graphics are colourful but rather jerky: everything slows down when you zap an alien. A game for those who are content to move left-right and fire.