G-LOC? Apparently means 'Loss of consciousness through G-force', which happens if you do whirly-whirly manoeuvres in one of those fandangle machines. Might as well just dive into a washing machine, really! Alan green looking a bit grubby so we've bundled him in and switched on.

Images
£11.99 cass, £16.99 disk

Arcade addicts will know that crazy big round machine you actually jump inside and go round and round in until you're sick. I'm not talking about Lucy's bubble car (although that makes you sick) but the incredible 'total experience' G-LOC coin-op.

Not only is the game enclosed in the large globe of its casing, it actually spins around as you play. Indeed, it's more often a loss of conciousness by vomiting then G-force!

Speccy owners needn't panic, though - this version leaves you rooted firmly on the ground. (Unless you pick someone up while they're playing it and turn them upside-down and so forth. This is inadvisable and we don't recommend you do it at home).

CRAZY LIKE A THUNDERFOX

The object's to fly your remarkable Thunderfox jet, taking out enemy installations a-plenty. Set in the next century, the enemy are the Citizens Defence Force (CDF), a ruthless and powerful vigilante army (ie, the baddies).

Their organization has arisen after the collapse of governments and the mass onset of war throughout the world (it was obviously going to happen sooner or later). The planet is lawless and the people are scared.

The last stand for good old democracy as we know it is the United Nations. Itself a crumbling force, the last chance is to deploy its Thunderfoxs (sounds like the girls you see on Bon Jovi videos).

These fighters represent the very pinnacle of aviation technology but are as yet untested (oh boy, I'm the guinea pig).

You're up against the most some of the most fearsome of air and ground adversaries, seen from a 3D pilot's-eye view. After a spectacular take off and a quick 360-degree spin, you're straight into the battle.

WAAGH! INCOMING!

There's no pussyfooting around here, unlike most realistic flight simulators. As soon as you get up there your radar fills up with little blips homing in on you-and all spell trouble. Before you know it, the screen's full of enemy fighters.

Indeed, there's an astonishing number of sprites onscreen at once, all carefully drawn. And even with all this going on, the action remains phenomenally fast and furious.

So there you are up there, several thousand feet up in the air, being attacked by about eight planes at once, from different angles and varying distances. Mmmm, tricky situation this, even for Tom Cruise, but your Thunderfox has the technology to deal with such an assault.

For starters, you should let fly (ho ho) with those machine guns almost all the time, in the vague hope of blasting the enemy down. It's a fairly clumsy weapon and isn't easy to train on fighters.

BARFTER-URNER!

But you've got a Heads-Up Display to aid you (a what?). It's an amazing system that locks your sights onto an enemy and allows you to launch a heatseeking missile to blow the vagabond to bits (ha!). However, it's advisable to save these useful missiles for later stages.

Your jet's equipped with afterburners to give bursts of ultra-speed to pursue enemies who flee in the face of your magnificent machine (ooh, chase me chase me - Ed). Jolly good fun, but using turbo power wastes more fuel than the Gulf War!

And when the fuel gauge hits zero you can guess what happens. Yup, it's a case a 'neeeeeow-SPLAT!' - one squidged pilot. The only way to avoid such a calamity is to blast the level's enemies before fuel runs out, and don't bother chasing the one that got away.

TOUGH COOKIE

It's not easy getting the hang of this. You need to play it for quite some time before it begins to feel like you're not still on the demo! The controls are responsive but sometimes confusing. And the stifling speed (plus the number of enemies homing in like a swarm of bees) add still further to the bewilderment.

As programmer Rob Hylands of Images told us, the game's been designed to be 'fast and frantic' like the stomach-churning original. The explosions, missiles coming right at you and death sequence are all impressive (how morbid I am). The accompanying engine roars and machine gun fire are appropriate - loud and earbashing!

I don't think that all you Red Barons, Tom Cruises and so on will be disappointed with this. It's an ambitious game for the Spec, which usually spells disaster, but it's certainly got some balls (you know what I mean, foulminded youth!).

Pity the game doesn't come with a G-force simulator like the coinop. But then it might be a bit more expensive, and you couldn't play straight after din-dins.

ALAN [76%]

(Corky found he was getting Crash withdrawal symptoms - nervous twitch, eyeballs popping out, minor stuff like that - so he came back for a guest experience…)

'I feel the need, the need for speed.' What the hell was Tom Cruise on when he shouted this in Top Gun (and could I have some please)? My idea of 'speed' is around 200mph (in Nick's car going down a steep hill, with the engine switched off), not three times the speed of sound when G-forces make the average human weigh about three tons. We've waited a long time for G-LOC but is it worth it? Well, fans of the coin-op (like me) are going to be disappointed. Graphically, Speccy G-LOC's good, there's no doubt about that. Although monochrome, the enemy planes and backgrounds are nicely drawn and shaded. The main bugbear is the yawny gameplay; Snooze City (Arizona) was a place I frequently visited when writing this comment. The action is literally 'blast the cack out of all an sundry'. Unfortunately , the 360-degree 'pass the sickbag, please Vicar' hydraulic seat of the arcade original isn't present. I'm a great fan of the Afterburner genre and G-LOC's worth a look if you're of the same mind.
MARK [72%]

US Gold
£10.99 cass/£15.99 disk
Reviewer: James Leach

I phoned up Yellow Pages yesterday, and they told me that G-LOC stands for G-force, Loss Of Consciousness. Fine. But what does all this nonsense actually mean? Well settle down at the back and I'll happily tell you.

Modern fighter planes whizz around at such speeds that every time they go round even the smallest of corners, the blood rushes away from the pilot's head and to his feet. It might sound a lot of fun, but actually it doesn't do the pilot any good. Without blood, his brain goes a bit wonky and his eyes cease to work. He is then what we doctors call unconscious.

Flying a plane whilst you're unconscious is something only the foolhardy try, so in the the air force, the pilots are taught to scream at the top of their voices when they start to black out. Screaming forces blood back into their heads and they don't pass out. It also frightens anyone in the vicinity to death, Clever. eh?

Now you can fly it at home, kids. G-LOC has hit the Speccy, and hit it real hard. Taken from the rather amazing arcade game, it puts you in an F14 Tomcat (actually, in the blurb you get given at the beginning of the game, they don't call this plane an F14 Tomcat, but I know me aircraft, and I can tell you that it most certainly is an F14 Tomcat and let that be an end to the subject.) Anyway, this, er, plane you're flying is actually from an aircraft carrier somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle (or the Pacific or somewhere). The idea is simple. You take off, fly around and destroy everything else in the sky, whilst trying to avoid the loss of consciousness bit.

THERE'S BOGIES ALL OVER ME!

Stop sniggering, 'cos bogies are what we fighter types call the enemy. As you chug along in your F14, your radar scope fills with nasty little dots. These are bogies, so you've got to swing from left to right, blasting away with all weapons. More exciting than a trip to the Bourneville Factory!

You've got two sorts of weapons. Hold the fire button down for constant machine-guns, or press it quickly to release homing missiles. These are the best way of taking out enemies - but you only have a limited number and you need a red-lock on your scope before you're assured of a direct hit.

The battle is arranged into 36 waves. In the first wave you must destroy eight aircraft, then you must get ten, them 12 until you get to a ground attack phase which has oil-rigs and stuff to trash.

Although the game is in full 3D, with scrolling ground features and pretty accurate movement, it's not a flight sim as such. There's no taking off and landing, and you can't turn around, climb or dive. You can do a lot of moving around though, which means you can aim your plane at the other fighters buzzing across your display in all directions.

FLIGHT OF THE LOONIES

G-LOC is impressively fast, I must just say that. You get treated to a most pleasant view of your plane flying around, then you get dumped into the flying seat. Before you get a chance to take a deep breath, you're plunged right into the thick of the action. Planes come up from behind, they come from the front, the sides and er, every direction you can think of, with the possible exception of inside. You'll be overwhelmed. It reminded me a bit of that scene from Star Wars where you see about 60 fighters on screen all at once, blasting in all directions. (Well it did remind me of that!)

Luckily the screen update rate is fast enough to cope with this and make it pretty smooth as well. You can have about ten enemies on screen at any one time, which calls for salvoes of missiles and your little fingers holding down the machine-guns as well. Phew, you'll say as you just about manage to get your quota of planes before your plane explodes and you see it from a nifty outside view as it tumbles into the sea. Sadly for you and your next of kin, it's impossible to eject from your knackered plane as it hurtles towards the cold, hard ground. Your only hope is to try and land your stricken plane on a bed factory. It's a slim chance, but you might make it because the part of the Pacc Ocean you're flying over has got loads of floating bed-factories sailing around.

Sound is a bit rudimentary. Clicking and hissing sounds for the machine-guns and the odd explosion are about all you can really expect. It doesn't matter - the graphics more than make up for it.

So, with all this speed, the game is pretty difficult. As you play, you'll learn a technique. There are certain ways of dealing with planes which come in formations head on (it's usually hitting the M key for mega afterburner thrust), and there are manoeuvres you can do to get planes which attack from each side. I'm not going to tell you those though. Let's just say that you have to turn harder than the other planes in order to keep your bullets landing fairly and squarely on them. Clever, eh? Hutch discovered early on, that one of the best ways of consistently beating the enemy planes was to waggle the joystick violently left and right while hammering away at the fire button. Personally, I used a bit more finese and simply launched a bevy of missiles at each convoy. Horses for cannon fodder I guess.

G-LOC is a game you've got to play a lot before you get good enough to really start enjoying it and getting the high scores. It's addictive enough to keep you trying, though and if you're looking for a 3D blast 'em up, then look no further. Anyway, let's face it, all good things take absolutely wodges of practice. For instance Danii Minogue wasn't born with the voice of a goddess, dear me know, she practised for years to sound like her big sister Kylie. However if your idea of sheer joy is to fly fast, fab jets then your quest is at an end and it looks as if you're found a personal Holy Grail which will enrich and rejuvenate your sad, shallow games-playing life. Look, what I'm trying to say is that G-LOC is the game you should buy. I'm off for another go now. What ho chaps!

SUPER GAME GUIDE

Look, over there, through that swirling cloud of strange mist... No, it can't be, but it is! SU's guide to the game-greats of yester-year. Yes indeedy there have been some good 'uns on the market in the last few years so now's the time to start polishing up on your collection if you've missed out on any of these fabbo titles. Mark Patterson, who's been in the business since before he was born and who has written not just for SU but also for Amiga, ST, PC and Console mages gives us an extra critical run down of the best...

G-LOC
Label: US Gold
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £11.99 Tape, £16.99 Disk
Reviewer: Mark Patterson

Loss Of Consciousness by G-Force, well this game certainly sounds enticing, 'go so fast you pass out!' This is a combat simulation set in a R360 aircraft, which is something like an F16 fighter plane. The aircraft is armed with a high power cannon and with auto - lock missiles, and the missions you will be assigned to will involve gratuitous use of both.

The graphics are mono which means that it's not the most exciting game in the world to look at but this is a compromise which allows it to be faster and smoother playing. There are three levels of difficulty, easy, medium and hard, and by hard they mean hard so plenty of practice is needed! If you are not put off by the colourless graphics and low-fi sound then this is a very enjoyable flight sim.

Label: US Gold
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £11.99 Tape, £16.99 Disk
Release Date: March April
Reviewer: Big Al Dykes

Due to recent intergalactic events the SU Crew will not be able to bring you the advertised review of G- Loc... crackle, buzz... hurrah we're back! After months in outer space we've finally beaten those darn aliens and not a moment too soon!

Ah yes, it's good to be back in the driving seat again (well, pilot's seat since this is G-Loc), and not a moment too soon if the aliens had got their grubby tentacles on this combat sim, then outcome of the fight for SU could have been uncertain.

G-LOC is a combat simulation as opposed to a flight simulation which is disappointing as the name of the game led me to believe that flying this plane would be more difficult than chasing a ferret in a coalmine. It isn't. What is difficult is actually staying in the air during dogfights whilst in ground attack missions the enemy support ships fire everything but their kitchen sinks at you, (claws in you cats!)

Flying a carrier-borne aircraft called the R360, a type of hybrid made from the best bits of an F14, an F15 and the water pump from a Zanussi Turbo Washer, you must complete a series of air to air to ground combat missions (and collecting your dry washing in the process).

Increasing amounts of aircraft must be blasted out of the sky before tackling escort ships in a fjord (Yes, shoot that Fjord Escort with your designer cannon and Habitat homing missiles.)

The main screen shows the plane's cockpit controls, which are uncluttered and easy to make out and include a damage indicator, radar screen and fuel and afterburner gauges. There is also a fully equipped head up display unit with a locking target indicator, full gas central heating and double glazing. The perfect home for any fully trained air combat psycho.

Apart from the target indicator and a flashing missile "locked on" message the most valuable moving display is the radar screen. This warns you of the number of enemies approaching and from what direction they are coming. If they're on your tail it's very advisable to take evasive action other wise you'll get your botty shot off!

There are three difficulty levels, easy, medium or hard, I started at medium and found it steady going but beware of the hard option. It really builds up a sweat and takes quite a bit of practice to enjoy.

The graphics are all in mono with the enemy aircraft and missiles being well drawn and, thanks to the omission of colour, the game is consequently very fast and animation is smooth.

Unfortunately it is a bit boring and repetitive at first, but once you get the hang of it you'll end up blasting away for ages as long as you don't get too annoyed by the very basic sound which is slightly less infuriating than a wood termite trying to find its way home after a rave. Just a rather small variety of clicks and buzzes let you know that something exciting is happening.

G-LOC is by no means an exceptional game, it has plenty of action but unfortunately it all looks the same. Nevertheless it has impressive speed and control is easy and precise. Arcade style action which comes very close to the mark but unfortunately just misses it by a whisker.

GARTH:
G-LOC is a fabulous arcade machine game - mainly because of the custom built joysticks and mega processors that are available. Unfortunately, the wild game play doesn't translate onto the Spectrum quite so well.