Producer: The Power House
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: David Crummack and Craig Galley

Earth is under attack from a fleet of colossal alien ships and you're the only one that knows about it. Your tiny scout ship is the only thing that stands between earth and its imminent destruction.

Enemies fly in over a monochrome, vertically scrolling background of aerially viewed space cruisers, firing bullets. Collision with aliens or their fire results in the immediate loss of one of five lives. Shooting the energy-giving solar panels on the huge cruisers slows down the fleet giving time for Earth's forces to regroup.

Equipment can be improved by flying over a series of flashing squares which hold extra speed, lives and ammunition.

Each level culminates in a confrontation with an alien mothership. Destroys it or simply avoid its shots to allow passage to the next level.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: monochromatic. Originally drawn aliens, very smooth animation
Sound: limited spot effects

For two pounds Powerama is quite a pleasing little shoot 'am up. At first the graphics may not seem up to much, but the alien hordes are originally drawn and swarm around the screen at a controllable pace. Colour, not extensively used in games of this type, is limited - only a few blobs on bonus objects - but are, like the game in general, smoothly scrolled. Some of the ground objects may seem familiar (like the main ship and those little blocks, both from Uridium) but for £1.99 you can't complain. Good to see a starting level option - although even the first level is reasonably frantic. Let's hope that The Power House continue producing software of this higher quality.
PAUL [60%]

As another vertically scrolling, monochrome shoot 'em up to add to the ever-growing list, Powerama definitely holds its own. It's nothing spectacular but, within the limits it sets itself, it's competently presented and very playable. As much as possible has been done to increase the life-time of the game. Aliens descend in different formations on every level so you don't need to go into automatic pilot every time you play and you can begin on any one of the first four stages. If you're after a cheap and standard shoot 'em up, and as long as you're not too bothered about designer graphics, Powerama might just be the one.
KATI [62%]

BARGAIN BASEMENT

And down in the basement this month, it's Nat Pryce - himself available at 20% discount on alternate Thursdays. Any offers?

Power House
£1.99
Reviewer: Nat Pryce

A fleet of huge alien spaceships is heading towards earth and only you, a humble scout ship, can stop them in time. Isn't it fortunate how routine patrols are always around when megalomanic aliens go on the rampage?

Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on how good a pilot you are), you decide to do what any empty headed space hero would do, blow them aliens to smithereens! So you zoom along each alien dreadnought and suddenly... you're in a vertically scrolling monochrome shoot em up! As with all blasters these days, there are some bolt on goodies to stick on your ship and great lumpy mother ships to blow away at the end of each level. The scrolling is smooth and the graphics are neat, if not incredibly imaginative, but unfortunately the game itself is incredibly run-of-the-mill. I'm not saying that it's bad, mind, but just that there are better games, in a similar vein, in this price range.

Label: Power House
Author: D. Drummack and C. Galley
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

What a spiffy little shoot-'em-up! Not a jot of originality, to be sure, but the software equivalent of a really hot, steamy Big Mac - greasy but satisfying.

Powerama (is it meant to be Power-ama or Pow-erama? I dunno) features some neat designs, excellent sprite masking and scrolling, and a good deal of vertically-scrolling havoc. Whilst your spaceship looks a bit like a distorted Smiley Face (I think the features are meant to be portholes and vents) the alien fighters are suitably sinister and threatening, and the features of the enemy battle cruisers over which you fly are nicely designed.

All you have to do is blast the surface features in order to deactivate the fleet's solar energy converters and give your fleet a chance to regroup and attack. Rather than sitting watching Neighbours, the aliens churlishly decide to blast you to atoms, so as you proceed upwards you'll have to fight them off. The attack waves are semi-random, so every game is different. Swirling from the top and side of the screen, all the aliens can be destroyed with one blast from your laser, but some move faster and less predictably than others.

As you progress you'll see small flashing icons which you must fly over. This gives you extra speed (which you'll definitely need if you want to get through the early stages), extra bullets and bonus lives.

At the end of each level there's a mother ship which can probably be destroyed, but as it throws bombs at you at a generous speed, it's better to keep well out of its way. Get yourself killed, and you'll disintegrate convincingly.

On the high score table you can choose to start on any of the first four levels. I can't see anyone regretting investing in Powerama; gameplay's fine, the sound's OK and the graphic design is good. I particularly like the way in which the alien ships are always highly visible, despite the fact that your own ship, the aliens and the background are shown in the same colour. That's the sign of meticulous work.