Producer: US Gold
Retail Price: £8.99
Author: Data East

The only way out of exile and back to your homeland is through dangerous territory where incredibly powerful enemy craft lie in wait.

But armed with the most sophisticated weapons systems, guarded by a protective force field, you set out on your death-defying crusade to conquer the enemy starbase which threatens your journey.

Your ship is equipped with a basic laser gun - but if you strain your eyes and shoot the large floating mass that appears now and again, a small square is visible. Pick it up, and more weapons become available, ranging from pulse waves to K-rings (which give you three times the fire power of the laser).

There are also limited smart bombs installed in your ship.

The last mission is the ultimate mission - your goal is to destroy all the enemy bases and fighters in each level and return to your beloved homeland where your wife and two kids are waiting in anticipation.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: good shading effects and well-defined sprites
Sound: reasonable tune, dull FX

There are a lot of decent monochrome shoot-'em-ups on the Spectrum, so when a below-average one such as Last Mission comes out it looks particularly bad. There seems little point in producing a game in which even a novice player can just go on shooting non-stop for hours - the only way of dying is of boredom. You can only be grateful that this is the Last Mission; at least we'll have no follow-ups.
PAUL [22%]

Last Mission is pleasant enough and may appeal to Shadow Skimmer freaks. There's a reasonable title tune and the usual spot FX, and the graphics are well-defined, with excellent shading. There's also the attraction of different weapons, though you have to collect them first. But there are simply too many games of this genre on the market, and Last Mission doesn't stand out.
NICK [65%]

I wasn't very impressed by Last Mission. The graphics are fine, but the backgrounds led to more than one case of chronic whathitme?itis. The game's main flaw, for me, is the speed. The turning speed and the actual flying speed aren't well matched: the plane responds quickly to rotate commands, but actually flies forward too slowly. Indeed. Last Mission is all a bit simple and slow.
MIKE [58%]

US Gold
£8.99

How many times have you been driven from your home galaxy? I make it seven this week alone, and wouldn't you know it, along comes Last Mission, and I'm flung into exile again. My only chance of getting back to my own front door is single-handedly to take on the might of an all-powerful alien invading force, and obliterate the enemy stronghold. Piece of cake really!

Never to do things by halves, I arm myself with what I think is the 'ultimate' in firepower (well it said that on the packet), a jolly terrific new spacecraft thingy containing the most sophisticated weapons systems yet known to man. As long as they all go bang that's alright by me!

So off I trundle into outer space. Where are those enemy chappies...? Oh, here they come - dozens of little round flying things spitting fire in my direction. Cheek! I give them all a taste of my laser as I spin my ship round. Reminds me of Asteroids with a touch of Xevious, I think, (checking my data banks I see that Probe Software wrote that, too) as I dodge yet another flashing bullet. Thanks goodness the collision detection is not 100% or I'd have been pushing up the daffodils then. I just have time to check out the lie of the land. Ahhhm, pleasant colour scheme and detailed backgrounds. These aliens are artists. Whoops! No more time for sightseeing! I shot a ground object that featured on my radar as containing a new weapon, but it vanished leaving a letter. I scoop it up quickly and - wow - what's this? I now have a nifty four-way cannon. Ace! Several other letters later and my ship is now a fantastic sight. At the touch of a button I can command some well-devastating firepower. All of it only has limited life, but it's good while it lasts! Flying my ship all around the 8-way scrolling landscape I finally come up against a well-hard mothership. Blasting this with a well-aimed laser bolt, white under my protective force- field. I suddenly find myself on the next level of action. A beautiful yellow band black landscape with plenty more aliens to blast. Away we go again!

Last Mission is very addictive - a bit slow, but I must admit very enjoyable, and easy to play right from the start, and the sonics help things along, especially the boppy title tune. If this mission seems familiar, I'm told that it's a 'coin-op classic' and available down your local arcade for 20p. But do yourself a favour and join me on this home entertainment version - you'll find me stuck at the end of level two! I was never a good spaceship pilot anyway!

Label: US Gold
Author: Probe
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

It's absolutely astonishing how many times the free peoples of the galactic empire have to put all their trust in me to save them.

It's pretty mistaken, too, I can tell you. The invading evil hoards had completely wiped out my people half a dozen times before I even figured out what was going on in Last Mission, let alone put up a credible defence.

Last Mission is actually a pretty good conversion of a classic coin-op gory kill blast. It's fairly conventional but made marginally novel by a wrap-around screen and 360° movement. OK so this is about as original as Asteroids but anyway ...

The aim is to conquer an enemy starbase - which looks curiously enough like many other alien starbases, ie kind of like Milton Keynes (industrial and squarish with cycle paths). Both must've had the same architect.

The industrial complex is defended by small aliens who fire small, easy-to-miss bullets at you and gigantic aliens which fire awfully fast laser bolts at you.

To begin with, as with all the best games, you keep getting wiped out in seconds.

The secret to the game is to locate the more sophisticated weapons which start to make your ship more of a match for the alien hoards. Extra weapons are dotted around the area. Bumping into them picks them up, the keyboard selects between them. Should you do really well (or be very very lucky) you could find yourself with multi-directional photon bolts, a defensive force shield and extra lives.

At this point the game actually becomes too easy - you can blitz everything with no danger. There is a drawback however - things run out and pretty soon you're back to one pathetic laser going farp, farp.

Last Mission looks OK, though not astounding and the graphics are quite detailed both in background and sprites. I found it a bit 'cluttered' looking but perhaps that's just me. US Gold has even (gasp) managed to make the ship a distinct colour from the two background ones. Mr Attribute where are you now?

Sound is not bad either - clever stuff in the title page sounds like several (very wobbly) tracks at once - and the blurps and boings in the game are satisfactory.

Last Mission isn't quite 'just another space shoot-em-up' but it comes near. The 360° playing field works well as a change and I guess the game is about as good a way of saving the world as any other.

MACHINES: C64/Spectrum
SUPPLIER: US Gold
PRICE: £9.99 C64 (tape), £14.99 Spectrum (disk)
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

It may be the last mission, and a classic arcade game, but this game still has some addictive power to it.

You've been driven from your home planet and the only way to get back from your exile is to defeat the invading forces that hover and spin across the planet surface. Your ship is equipped with a standard laser attack system but, as the game progresses, you can collect more defences and attack modules from the planet's surface.

First, though, you've got to get a grip on the control of your ship. It moves forward at a constant, fairly slow speed. To change course move the joystick left to right and the nose of the ship turns clockwise or anti-clockwise - just like that other oldie Asteroids. It takes a bit of getting used to because you expect to speed up and slow down when you push or pull the joystick up and down, but the only way you can avoid oncoming enemy craft is to quickly turn the nose of your ship.

That's not so easy when you're caught between three of four fighters.

When you hit some of the enemy craft they explode and let off pieces of debris which drift in a straight line. If any of those pieces hit you you'll lose one of your lives. In the latter stages of the game these debris bombs gang up and often protect mother ships which you need to shoot repeatedly to destroy.

There are compensations for all this death and despondency - no, really. The planet's surface is studded with strange, flower shaped pods. When you shoot them the casing falls apart and a small square, embossed with a letter of the alphabet, beams out at you. Fly through the square and you add to your weapons or defences.

When you take on a new weapon you lose the benefit of the previous one. For instance, you may have picked up a fast firing, continuous stream laser then hit another square and it changes to a blast gun which sends energy bolts out at the four corners of your ship. That may change to a wall of energy blasts which comes out of your ship's nose and get bigger as you pass through other squares, or a force field bubble which allows you to float through obstructions without damage. There's just so much in the game that's not documented in the instructions!

Okay, I've told that it's old, bit it's also one kill after another and enough skill techniques to master to keep you going well into the autumn months.

It's addictive, compulsive and real lasting appeal stuff. If you liked Uridium then this is the next game for you!

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99
Commodore 64 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99

MISSION UNINSPIRING

With so many arcade conversions in the pipeline, US Gold have certainly got a busy time ahead of them. But not half as busy as Probe Software, who appear to have ceased publishing games in their own right to concentrate on converting arcade games for other companies - amongst them Sega's Out Run. An original game, Trantor: The Last Stormtrooper, is also being produced by Probe for US Gold's new software label GO!.

Data East's Last Mission is one of Probes more recent arcade conversions, and is a straightforward multi-directional scrolling shoot 'em up in which you fly around killing aliens in between destroying ground installations. Firepower is initially limited to a simple laser, but can be improved by collecting the letters revealed when a ground installation is destroyed. While some letters simply increase firepower, others allow one of a trio of weapons to be selected, and ultimately, upgraded. Extra weaponry is merely temporary however, and firepower reverts to the laser when the supply is exhausted.

SCANNER

A grid of four by four boxes at the bottom of the screen acts as a scanner, revealing the number of installations that remain in each sector. A Mothership makes itself known when all the installations have been destroyed, and once that has been killed off a large square alien construction mysteriously appears, suspended in midair. Destroying the eight links which appear to hold it in place changes the scenery and the next level is accessed.

Last Mission offers nothing significantly new, and isn't particularly exciting to play - but then, the original arcade game isn't up to much either. It isn't overly taxing to get to grips with. but even so the minimal instructions are unhelpful and only explain movement and option keys. Quite simply, an unremarkable addition to the overflowing range of shoot 'em ups.