Hi-Tec Software
£2.99

Up and at 'em Atom Ant! You're the only one who can save the city from being blown into tiny pieces by Mad Dog Jackson. He's the big boss of the meanest gang ever and has planted bombs all over the city's most treasured buildings and demanded one 1 million pounds to disarm them. Can the city be saved from total destruction? You're the only one who can answer that question armed with nothing but your trusty atomiser.

Atom Ant, like other games in Hi-tec's Hanna-Barbera series, has superbly drawn and animated sprites and highly detailed scenery. The graphics on the buildings and enemies are nothing short of brilliant and Atom Ant zips around them with ease. I just wish there had been a little more colour. The objective is to collect all the bombs and chuck 'em in the atomiser, the higher the level of play the more bombs have to be defused. Icons, when picked up, are helpful: an alarm clock gives you a minute of extra time, a helmet protects your head and loaves of bread are nice to munch on.

Atom Ant is another excellent conversion of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. All fans of the character will love it and will be addicted from the word go.

Hi-Tec
£3.99 cassette
0742 587 555
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

Hurrah! It's Hanna-Barbera licence time again, and another opportunity to display my encyclopaedic knowledge of their cartoon. (Hurrah. Ed) One of the lesser H-B characters, AA was an, erm, ant who had super powers and fought baddies like larcenous robots and incredibly strong fleas. He was a bit of a non-starter really - the joke of the tough insect ran thin terribly quickly, and with his atomic muscles Atom usually finished off a foe without any hassle, limiting the cartoons somewhat. And the gags were rather bad as well. So much for Atom's credentials then. Onto the game.

By golly, it's quite an original thang too. The plot's not much cop (mad bomber terrorises city, only Atom can save the day) and the game's basically a collect-'em-up (you take the bombs to the top of a building to be defused) but the vertical scrolling turns the whole thing on its head a la Captain Dynamo (and Atom Ant came out first, fact fans).

Atom's got intertia as well, so chucking him around the place at top speed doesn't really work. You have to hop from ledge to ledge, waiting for the baddies to pass, then zoom up to the next section. (Actually, it is possible to crash about at high speed successfully, but you need the reflexes of a nervous gazelle on happy sweets.) Glitch-free and smartly detailed graphics can't really disguise the essential sameness of the gameplay but for a while at least, it's extremely good fun.

Label: Hi-Tec
Price: £2.99
Reviewer: Gary Liddon

Atom Ant, he's great I've got all his records, is making a bit of comeback on the Spectrum with a completely new image. Atom, famous for his Indian Brave and Dandy Highwayman stage costumes, has opted for the two inches tall cartoon insect look.

The aim of the game is to defuse seven explosive festooned buildings that Mad Dog Jackson has decided would look far more attractive as piles of corpse littered rubble. Just pick up the bombs, one at a time and dump them into the handy atomiser sitting atop of your current building, making sure to get it all done within the time limit otherwise you'll get a great big bang (fnarr fnarr).

Trying to rain on your parade are Mad Dog Jackson's gang of wild henchmen who are about as bright a two watt bulb. Even the boys from C&VG seem quick on the trigger compared to general numb-skullery these lads exhibit. They go left and then right. That's it really. Actually it does heat up a bit on the later levels with 16 ton weights and safes raining down the screen with ant splatting speed.

The graphics are quite nice though they don't come into their own until the later levels when Atom Ant has to do his stuff in some very pretty castle backdrops. Everything ticks along at a nice old pace, although the hard gameplay is largely to do with the difficulty of controlling your ant as opposed to any clever design.

So it's not the best game in the world but it la nicely done. I'm tempted to excuse it due to the oh-well-it's-only-three-knicker syndrome but there's quite a good load of quality budget clobber knocking around these days and you really should shop wisely. Atom really should have stuck to the music biz.