Producer: Domark
Retail Price: £9.99
Author: George Iwanow (of Vektor Grafix)

The Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, has returned and only Luke Skywalker and his troup of brave rebels can stop him and his evil forces. The Empire Strikes Back is the sequel to Domark's Star Wars which gained 84% in Issue 48.

There are four levels in the game which broadly follow the plot of the film. The first level takes place on the surface of the planet Hoth, where the Empire has released hundreds of probots to search for the rebel hideout. The player takes the role of Luke Skywalker and must stop the probots from transmitting pictures of the rebels' power generator to Darth Vader. The player's aim is to shoot as many probots as possible and also to destroy their transmissions. The probots are not unarmed however and shoot fireballs at the player's snowspeeder, partially destroying its shields on contact.

If Luke manages to survive this, he proceeds to the next level where he takes his snowspeeder across the planet's surface to do battle with the Empire's AT-AT (All-Terrain Armoured Transport) and AT-ST (All Terrain Scout Transport) walkers. The AT-ST walkers are small but fast, while the AT-ATs are very large and slow and can be 'tripped up' by firing tow cables at their legs.

For the third level the player takes the role of Han Solo in his Millennium Falcon against a swarm of TIE fighters. The enemy move quickly around the screen firing shots at the spaceship. Only if this is survived can the player progress to face the peril of the asteroid field which contains multitudes of deadly spinning boulders. These cannot be shot and must be avoided to reach the safety of the huge asteroid, at which the point the rebels' mission starts all over again.

During the game, bonus points can be earned by destroying a specific number of enemy targets. Letters may also be awarded with the bonus points and if the player manages to spell out JEDI then for a limited time he becomes invincible against all enemies.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: superb representations of the arcade characters, all moving at break-neck speed
Sound: hip-hop Dave Whitaker Star Wars soundtrack (enhanced on the 128K machines), and in-game special effects

The Empire Strikes Back is, of course, very much like its predecessor Star Wars, with fast vector graphics. The game is of the 'blast everything in sight' type and is full of mindless violence. The vector graphics move very smoothly and are surprisingly colourful. The way the walkers move is particularly good as they stride along, head turning. The gameplay is fast and furious with plenty of well-drawn, fast-moving enemies about. Of course, the game is not very original since there are plenty of wire-frame shoot 'em ups about, but it's playable all the same. The various levels each provide a different challenge and add variety to the game. If you liked Star Wars then you should enjoy this.
PHIL [90%]

Graphically The Empire Strikes Back is excellent - just like the arcade machine. All the aliens move smoothly and are well animated; there's even a generous amount of colour in there too. You may think that it's a waste of time to buy this if you already own games such as 3-D Starstrike, Starglider or Star Wars, but this does hold some new enemies and it is pretty fast. Besides the 3-D graphics in the game there's also a picture of Luke Skywalker on the title screen, and when you start you have to wait while Darth Vader's ship Executor passes by. The Empire Strikes Back is great fun if you're a fan of this style of 3-D shoot 'em up, but with the lack of levels I don't think it will have huge lasting appeal.
NICK [90%]

Domark have, without a doubt, done the best job they could have. The Spectrum version has all the speed and playability of the all-too-rare arcade machine and is amazingly addictive. If you thought Star Wars was fun - and the graphics on that were pretty neat - then take a look at the latest in Domark's trilogy; the walkers on the second stage are out of this world! Their movement is so realistic you'd think you were watching the film (well, almost). The speed is tremendous - especially on the first stage where you can really swoop around and dodge things just like on its arcade equivalent. And then there's that great Star Wars soundtrack. Domark don't produce many games, but they're always memorable. Now, when's Return of the Jedi coming out?
PAUL [90%]

The Hit Squad
£2.99 re-release

Take command of Luke Skywalker's snowspeeder vehicle and Han Solo's Millenium Falcon in the game of many fans' favourite movie.

There are four levels of play. First engage in battle on the surface of the Rebel hideout: in a zippy snowspeeder shoot all the probots and stop them from sending messages to your deadly enemy, Darth Vader. Next, you take on imperial walkers, the AT-ST's and AT-AT's. The first are small and don't take much to destroy, but the second provide a much better challenge. Other levels include a space battle against deadly ships and a journey through an asteroid field. On each level you have to hit a set number of targets. Get them all and you'll be rewarded with a letter: you have to make up the word JEDI.

Empire Strikes Back is one of the best 'Star Wars' games. The vector graphics give an excellent feeling of being out in deep space. The Darth Vader graphics used between levels aren't up to much though. A great game for all fans of 'Star Wars' and blasting games, if a bit easy.

Domark
£9.95 cass, £19.99 disk
Reviewer: Ciaran Brennan

The Empire Strikes Back was by far my favourite of the three Star Wars films. It had everything... heroism in the snow, romance, mutilations, cyrogenics - and even a Jedi master who sounded exactly like Fozzie Bear! Atari's subsequent coin-op obviously couldn't include all of this, but it did manage to incorporate plenty of blasting and flying action across four action-packed levels.

But could all of this be fitted into the Spectrum's relatively small memory? Domark obviously thought so, and brought in the aptly-named Vektor Grafix programming team to prove them right - and quite a job they've done too! The finished article is fast and compulsive and looks and sounds quite good too.

In Level One the player takes off in Luke Skywalker's snowspeeder, blasting through the empire's lines and destroying its Probots before they can transmit information about the rebels whereabouts back to Darth Vader. Points are awarded for destroying the Probots, their transmissions and the fireballs which they shoot in your general direction. A doddle.

The destruction continues along the same lines in Level Two, except this time the enemy is a little tougher, consisting of two different types of Walker, the AT-AT and the AT-ST. The AT-ST is small and fast and destroyed by the snowspeeder's usual missiles. The AT-AT is bigger and slower, but it's also more heavily protected. Only two things will destroy one of these mammoths: the first is a direct shot to the head, while the second is wrapping a tow cable around its legs - and just try doing that when the going gets tough! Tow cables are fired by pressing T, and although the instructions say that there's only a limited amount available I never seemed to run out no matter how many times I tried this tactic.

Between Levels Two and Three you undergo a dramatic change, and all of a sudden you're Han Solo at the helm of the Millenium Falcon. This time the enemy comes at you in Tie Fighters and once again the object is to destroy all in your path while avoiding the missiles.

Level Four is easily the hardest (can I say that?) Remember the scene in the movie where Han takes the Falcon into an asteroid belt to try to shake off the pursuing Tie Fighters? Well guess who's turn it is now. There are so many rocks flying around that it's almost impossible to get through this stage intact. It's also at this point that the slightly odd joystick action starts to cause problems (the on-screen cursor moves upwards when the joystick is pushed down and vice versa).

When starting off, the player is protected by five shields. One of these is lost each time a missile or asteroid gets through and unfortunately they're irreplaceable. Targets are set at the beginning of each level and meeting these wins a lettered icon. When these icons are collected in order to spell J-E-D-I the player becomes temporarily invincible.

The front end is plain but functional. There's a choice between three levels of difficulty (easy, medium and - believe it or not - hard!) and an optional training manual which gives a quick rundown on the empire's hardware. The pre-game blurb also contains the scenario, hints and tips and a full list of points scored for each kill.

In the words of the immortal Yoda 'Adventure, excitement - a Jedi craves not these things' but he or she is certainly going to get them from this blaster. However, if I have one reservation about The Empire Strikes Back it's about the game's lastability. The problem is that the gameplay is just a touch too easy and therefore most experienced gamesplayers will lose interest relatively quickly (or maybe I've just learned to use the force - but I doubt it). It's good, but a little more work and it may have been a classic.

Who needs a torch for the dark when you're wearing pink and yellow day-glo flares? 'Ever Ready' RICH PELLEY shines some light down the...

BARGAIN BASEMENT

The Hit Squad
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

I'm a bit p'd off at the mo, readers, cos I've just discovered that my Mum's thrown out all my Star Wars toys. The whole blimmin' lot. Even my Millennium Falcon. And my AT-AT. And (All right, calm down. Ed)... Sniff. Come to think of it, where's my Lego gone? Mum!?!

Er, yes. The game. Well, It's pretty similar to its prequel, Star Wars - in other words, a fly-into-the-screen wire-frame spooky vector graphics jobby, this time shooting probots (large robot doo-das), then AT-ATs and AT-STs (huge walking things that have to be hit in the gun port - oo-er - to get blown up), then TIE Fighters ('normal' spaceships), and finally attempting to pilot your way through an asteroid storm.

The graphics are pretty smooth and fast, but the main problem lies with the difficulty - there simply isn't any. I don't like to boast or anything but I quite happily completed the thing on my second go ever (in easy mode, of course), so goodness knows how much of a pushover you guys'll find it. Still, it's fun 'til the novelty wears off.

Label: Domark
Author: Vektor Graphics
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

Yes, yes, yes. I know that vector graphics are really becoming a little bit tiresome after all these years. And what only a few people seem to have realised (Starglider's authors and some others) is that the only way to make people sit up and take notice of a game like this is if it is fast.

Even Domark's first stab at the trilogy's conversion, Star Wars was OK in most respects, but it just wasn't quick enough.

The Empire Strikes Back, however, is a much more satisfactory affair after all. Sound has been completely sacrificed in an attempt to eke out more speed from the poor old Z80. And they've really done a pretty fab job.

Your mission is one of pure destruction, shooting out radar towers, Tie fighters, dodging asteroids and shooting big walkers, little scouts and generally having a whale of a time.

You control your fighter with simple up, down, left, right and fire commands. A lot of thought has been put into the controls. You're not left with a sluggish cross-hair, stuck in the middle of the screen. Instead, we've got a rather nice cursor that moves across the screen, appropriate to the direction in which your craft banks. This results in you having a faster and more accurate way of shooting the bad buys.

There are three skill levels, all of which entail the same mission - a progressively more fraught affair which moves from ground-based combat with the telegraph-poles and walkers through a space battle with the Tie fighters and on to a fantastic asteroid-dodging thing.

The levels, it has to be said, aren't particularly varied, but they're so nicely done it doesn't really matter. A minor point that I would raise, though is that you haven't really got much of a sense of danger, although I think that this is probably inherent in 3-D games. You feel as if you're going to crash into something whether you try to dodge them or not. I think it's something to do with the fact that your shields get drained when you hit something rather than losing a life - there's no sense of it really mattering if you get hit until it's too late. Half of the time you don't really notice that you are incurring damage. The fact that there's no sound doesn't improve matters, either.

Empire, whilst remarkably simple and maybe even a little bit tired as a formula, is simply the best of its ilk. It's fast, easy to play and doesn't require a great deal of thought. In short, it's just a great deal of fun.

Label: Hit Squad
Price: £2.99
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

If there's a problem with this game, it's just that The Empire Strikes Back is altogether too similar to its prequel, Star Wars. Like Star Wars, TESB is based on George Lucas' block-busting sci-fi saga, and like Star Wars this is a direct conversion from an Atari coin-op. Also like Star Wars, TESB is a vector graphic game, using wire-frame animation which adapts remarkably well to the Z80-based Spectrum - better, in fact, than it did to other, so called superior computers.

After selecting a difficulty level and watching Darth Vader's starship Executor gliding across the screen, it's straight into the action as you aim the lasers of your snow-speeder to zap wire-frame Probots, AT-AT walkers, AT-ST scout walkers, fireballs and transmission blips. The animation and forward scrolling are remarkably good, though the action does slow down noticeably when several objects are on the screen.

There are four levels of play; in the first you must fire cables at the legs of the AT-ATs, in the third you steer the Millenium Falcon through an asteroid field where there are various bonus scores and tokens to be earned.

A fine bit of programming, featuring a rousing rendition of the Star Wars theme tune, but at full price TESB didn't add enough to Star Wars to make it worth seeking out. On budget, though, it's nearly worth a millenium!

MACHINES: Spectrum/CBM 64/Amstrad/BBC/Atari ST/Amiga
SUPPLIER: Domark
PRICE: £9.95 Spec/Ams/C64/BBC cass, £12.95 C64/BBC disk, £14.95 Spec +3/Ams disk, £19.95 Atari ST/Amiga
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas' brilliant sequel to Star Wars, was released to a delighted public in 1980: its Oscar-winning special effects helping it to become one of the top-grossing films in cinema history.

The story continues directly from where Star Wars left off. After their successful assault on the giant Death Star battlestation, the Rebel Alliance has gone into hiding on the ice planet Hoth. However, they're forced to scatter when the evil Empire discovers their location and sends forth a large attack fleet. Following a series of adventures, the characters reassemble on the cloud world of Bespin, where disaster strikes! To tell you more would ruin the ending if there's anyone out there who hasn't seen the film.

The film features some incredible action sequences ideally suited to a video game. So. In similar fashion to Star Wars, Lucasfilm's Games Group joined forces with Atari to produce a vector graphic arcade game-of-the-film.

It appeared in late 1983 in the guise of a conversion kit for Star Wars arcade coin-ops. Because of this it never appeared in any great numbers - unless an arcade had an on-sight electronics engineer handy, the operator had to send the machine back to the manufacturers for upgrading - but that hasn't stopped Domark from buying the rights and converting it to home computer formats.

It's a brilliant arcade game, with four action sequences and what seems like half the film's dialogue digitised into memory. The Spectrum version lacks the speech, but it is an otherwise faithful copy of the original, and boasts nearly all the gameplay features.

At first the player chooses either an easy, medium or hard game, which starts the action on the first, third or fifth wave respectively. If either of the latter two are selected, a special advanced player bonus is awarded when the first four attack waves are completed.

Once a level is selected, the game begins proper with the player at the controls of a Snowspeeder skimming low over the planet Hoth in search of the Empire's Probots. These scout droids have landed on the planet in search of the Rebel base, and are destroyed with one blast from the Snowspeeder's laser.

Care has to be taken not to run into their defensive laser bursts, which deplete one of the 'speeders five shields on contact.

The second level puts the player against the Empire's surface invasion force. Giant four-legged AT-AT and smaller bipedal AT-ST are heading towards the Rebel base and must be stopped at all costs. Both types of machine can be destroyed by shooting their tiny cockpit windows, and AT-AT can also be brought down by firing one of the Snowspeeder's limited supply of tow cables at their legs.

Daring players can also go for a special trick flying bonus by flying through the legs of an AT-AT, although the move is a tricky one and runs the risk of losing a shield through collision with the metal behemoth.

When the invasion fleet is repelled, the Snowspeeder lands at the rebel base and the scene shifts to outer space, where the player flies the Millenium Falcon against rebel TIE-fighters. This level is very similar to the first in Star Wars, only this time the Executer, Darth Vader's huge starcruiser looms menacingly in the background instead of the Death Star battlestation. TIE-fighters zoom in from a angles, twisting and turning and firing rounds of shield-reducing laser bursts. The pilot defends himself against the attack with the Millenium's laser cannon, but because it's rather weak TIEs have to be hit directly on their engines before they explode - a difficult task under pressure!.

Finally, the player guides the Falcon through an asteroid field to safety. The craft has no means of defending itself from the myriad of spinning rocks, so it's up to the pilot to skilfully fly the spacecraft through the densely-packed field without hitting an asteroid. This is definitely the hardest of all the levels and requires some very nifty joystick wielding to avoid the rocks as they whizz by.

When that level is completed, a bonus is awarded and the player returns to the first level again, only this time the enemy forces are far stronger.

Presentation is excellent throughout, and there's an on-screen Rebel instruction manual which can be accessed before play to display all enemy craft.

Programmers have also included the JEDI bonus, on each we have a bonus and a letter - either J, E, D or I - is awarded for shooting down a given number of targets.

I must confess to being a great fan of the arcade game (the only two I ever found were in Blackpool and the Las Vegas arcade in London) and have been looking forward to the conversion since Domark announced it more than a year ago. The Spectrum version isn't at all disappointing, and looks and plays very similarly to the arcade original. The second level is absolutely superb, and depth is incredible. The only thing that lets it down is its occasionally slow screen update, but other than that the game is excellent and well worth looking up.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £9.95, Diskette: £14.95

LUKE'S VADER FIGURE

The Empire Strikes Back is the second game in the Star Wars trilogy to be written by George Iwanow (Vektor Graphix) and released by Domark. Split into four parts, it charts the rebels' flight for survival from the inhospitable ice planet, Hoth. After the destruction of the Imperial Death Star, Lord Vader is alive, well and bent on revenge.

The first part of the game has you in the role of Luke Skywalker skimming across the frozen wastes of Hoth in your snow speeder. Your task is to destroy the many probots sent out by the Empire to find the rebel base and transmit its location.

As well as the probots, their message pods must also be stopped. The robotic spys are not going to hover around whilst you shoot at them - they fire back. You start the game with five shields, which are depleted every time a fireball hits the snow speeder's fragile hull. Success awards entry to the next level and larger foes in the shape of AT-ATs (All-Terrain Armoured Transport). and their smaller but faster companions the AT-ST Walkers (All-Terrain Scout Transport)

Again Luke is seated in his craft, this time his mission is to defeat the AT-ATs by firing tow cables at their legs (effectively tripping them up) or repeatedly shooting their heads. The AT-STs are fast - shoot the fireballs they spew out before blasting them.

WHERE IT'S AT AT

The third section gives Luke Skywalker a break and involves the swashbuckling hero, Han Solo, onboard the Millenium Falcon. TIE fighters and their fireballs have to be shot or avoided as you escape from Empire. If this screen is successfully negotiated, the fourth and final game is entered. Han and friends have escaped from the clutches of the Empire, only to run into a deadly asteroid field. Only the pilot's skill can guide them through the hail of space-rocks and on to the safety of a large asteroid.

During the game, point bonuses can be scored by shooting a specified number of enemy craft or letters of the alphabet. If the letters J-E-D-I are hit in sequence, you are rewarded with limited invincibility. A useful weapon when up against the might of the Empire.