Zeppelin Games
£2.99

Calling all prospective Tom Cruises! F1 Tornado takes you on a trip through rugged enemy terrain that you'll never forget! Levels packed with planes, helicopters, boats, tanks and the big end-of-level enemies take a lot of pounding to complete. You start off with nothing but a single-shot machine gun: your finger won't stop pounding the fire button, but a limited supply of extra weapons can be collected to increase your fighting power: reverse fire, missiles, bombs and a speed up are all available.

You can tell at first glance that this is a budget game. The well drawn but simple graphics and unchallenging gameplay certainly don't keep you glued to the screen. The only real difference between levels is the colour! if you want a cheap shoot-'em-up to try out your new joystick on, this is it. If you want something that provides more than half an hour's entertainment, look elsewhere.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

It's damp and it's dark
But it's always quite merry
When you're locked down the cellar
With PILLAR & PELLEY!

Zeppelin
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

There's a rather unfortunate plot to go with this one involving you, in a F1 Tornado, taking off from an aircraft carrier situated on the edge of the Gulf, and flying through enemy territory shooting down planes and bombing things on the ground. A big "ahem" for Zeppelin, but merely a left-to-right scrolling shootem- up for the rest of us.

But is it any good? Well, yes, it is, although it is admittedly very simple. The baddies consist of planes which fly across the screen with no fancy movement patterns or anything (just straight), and have to be shot down or avoided. There are also gun turrets on the ground and on the back of ships which fire at you - these are best shot from low range or bombed. But you can only bomb them if you've picked up the bomb add-on weapon en route. Other weapons available are reverse fire, double fire, speed-up, and heat-seeking missiles (which I would imagine are pretty self-explanatory) which only last for a limited amount of time.

Er, what else? Well, the graphics are nice - big, chunky and monochrome which seems to suit the game somehow. There are some nice touches too like the difference between your bullets and the enemy's (which makes things much clearer and would do wonders quite a few other shoot-'em-ups). As I've said, this is a very simple game, making it spookily addictive to begin with, but as not much changes throughout, you may lose the incentive to play before you've got particularly far - we're not talking R-Type status or anything. But then again, if you've got a soft spot for shoot- 'em-ups, and you don't like yours particularly hard, then I'd say this is certainly one worth 'checking out' (if not buying).