Producer: Piranha
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: Five Ways Software

The World is in mortal danger from an evil genius known only as The Enemy. He has hacked into the world's defence computers and is now threatening to unleash the world's nuclear weapons and destroy everything and everybody unless his demands are met.

The Enemy has kidnapped top computer boffins, and holds them hostage in his four-level headquarters complex. Each of the scientists knows one digit from the secret code which opens the entrance to the fortress's main computer room. If someone was courageous enough to penetrate the complex and destroy the computer, then the The Enemy's plans would be thwarted...

The Powers that Be decide to fight back, and a force of top commando fighters is assembled, code named COBRA. Eight commandos are in the team and your first task is to select a quartet to undertake the mission. As the Strike Force enters the fortress the alert is sounded and The Enemy's deadly computer program starts running: the countdown to oblivion has begun!...

The aim is to explore each level of the complex, working as a team, and locate the computer scientists held prisoner. Pressing the appropriate number changes the team member under the player's control. Each commando is equipped with a DLB, a digital lock breaker, which can help crack the combination that gives access to the main computer. The more of the code you have in your possession the quicker the DLB can break the combination. At least six digits are needed to give a realistic time scale, and whenever a commando finds a scientist, another digit is collected.

The scenery scrolls in 3D as your agile commandos leap, roll and walk along the corridors. Windows can be leapt through and some doors can be kicked down, while others are operated by switches. like the inter-level lifts. Switches are marked with a D (Doors) and L (lifts) and are often some distance from the door or lift they activate - teamwork is called for.

Guards and droids patrol the corridors and rooms, and need to be avoided or taken out with a quick burst of machine gun fire or the lob of a grenade. Some rooms contain fiendish auto defence systems, such as mobile lasers and electro-blocks, and puzzle-solving skills are needed to get through safely.

Details of the digits already collected and the status of each member of the team are given onscreen together with the number of the commando currently controlled and the time left before oblivion. Extra time can be won by disabling remote computer terminals, and first aid kits can be use to build up the strength of wounded fighters.

Good luck prospective agents, you'll need it!

COMMENTS

Control keys: up/left E, R, T; down/right D, F, G; up/right Y, U, I; down/left H, J, K: jump W, O, S, L; dive Q, P, A, ENTER; shoot gun V, B; throw grenade CAPS SHIFT, SPACE; crouch C. N: stand X. M; kick Z, SYM SHIFT
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: needs practice, but responsive
Use of colour: neat
Graphics: good animations, tidy 3D effect
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling play area

It's not often that I play a single game all afternoon, but I just couldn't pull the plug on Strike Force Cobra. I found the gameplay very complicated at first, but after a while it all became very clear. Controlling your commandos is a little on the tricky side to start off with but it soon becomes fairly easy. The graphics are detailed although they are not as clear as they could be. The characters are nicely animated and full of detail. The sound is a bit of a disappointment as there are no tunes and only a couple of spot effects. I enjoyed playing this game as it is very original and compelling.

Strike Force Cobra is an extremely complex game that takes a lot of time to get into. It's very well presented with lots of pretty graphics, and a screen that contains quite a lot of colour - without any colour clashes. The 3D effects are very good and give a feeling of distance and perspective. There are lots of touches that bring the intended atmosphere to life - kicking doors and jumping through windows adds to the flavour of the expedition. I was a bit disappointed to see that the game suffered from locking up on you when there was a bit of activity on the screen, or when it was trying to make a few feeble sound effects - this made the game very awkward to play. I think that Strike Force Cobra has a very promising game in it somewhere - but whether you'll get to find it is another matter!

The very first time I played Strike Force Cobra, I didn't rate it all that much, but perseverance has really opened my eyes to a good strategy arcade game. The PIRANHA label is obviously gong to be one to be reckoned with. First, they launch a quality fun game like Trapdoor, and then a good strategy shoot-blast-bash 'em up like this. Strike Force Cobra, I think, isn't a game that you see in a shop and say 'gorra get a copy of this like soon', but if you buy it, I think it's a pretty likely bet that you'll play it for a good while, and enjoy it.

Piranha
£7.95

When you boot this game up, look v. closely at Senior Sergeant Irina Viskova. Look familiar? She should, because its in fact a Sam Fox (wahay) style digitised pic of our very own cuddly T'zer. (Less of the cuddly! T'zer). Blimey! Stone me, guy. The girl's fame grows by the minute. Anyway, T'zer gets enough press without her intruding into games reviews, so that's all I'm saying.

I'd really like to say this game is a load of cobras, but (just my luck) it's too good. Strike Force Cobra, besides being the 459th game called Strike Force summink or other, is a 3D combat game. which p-p-pours scorn on Commando and other such rubbish. You are in control of a team of international soldiers, whose solemn task (again?) is to save the World from an evil genius known only as The Enemy. Why always evil genius? Why aren't we ever threatened by evil idiots? We are in real life, so why not in games?

The enemy, or Enny to his chums, has captured all the world's top computer scientists, with a view to hacking into the superpower's defence computers. The Strike Force is despatched to break into the evil lair (a semi-detached in Wapping?), find the stricken scientists, learn the codes for the computer and smash it up before Enny Baby can perpetrate his little roast. There are four Strike Force members and in order to complete their task they must work together. You can switch control between them, opening doors and removing obstacles that your buddies can't reach. The name of the game, in spite of their political differences (sentimental sniff) is co-operation.

This is a big game. There's a save game option for those of us who don't have four days at a stretch to play it, and a good thing too. I've been told how to play it to the end, and I still can't get very far on level one. All the same it's one of the most challenging games of the year, and manages in spite of its complexity to be great fun to play. There's a lot of detail in the game controls, like the ability to fan your machine gun (to spray bullets, not cool it off, dummy!), and to jump, turn and land in one smooth movement.

If you want a game that you can get your teeth into, (moan!) and you're tired of coming up with a mouthful of nothing, get Strike Force Cobra. You won't be disappointed.

Label: Piranha
Author: Five Ways
Price: £9.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Well, it's certainly clever. And complicated. And big.

Strike Force Cobra is the sort of game nobody even dreamed about in the days before Knight Lore proved animated 3D graphics were possible.

I suppose in terms of plot Strike Force is a little like Shadowfire and in terms of look it's a lot like Fairlight. Having worked my way through the first level (armed with twelve cups of coffee and extensive reviewers crib notes (that said things like 'now move the joystick up') I can guess that the game could take months to solve.

It's plot no: 6088/7B. Take one evil criminal genius. Take it as read he wants to blow up the world, and you stop him by getting into a computer. Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is to select four team members (from a choice of eight), enter the enemy fortress and find your way through to the computer. Getting there involves much opening of locked doors (unusual, that) and much finding of computer room codes - by freeing hostages.

The first of a great many steps is to choose your team - actually I doubt that it matters which four you pick from the eight in terms of playing the game - but for reasons of taste you may not wish to select some of the more gruesome options. (They are digitised computer journalists and therefore not a pretty sight.)

You can switch between the four members of your team at any time and the real skill of the game comes in working out how to get the team members to work together effectively.

First orientate each member of the team relative to the others and arrange for them to meet up. There are various rooms which contain door control mechanisms which open shutters in quite separate sections of the fortress - perhaps the ones blocking the path of some other member of your team.

There are of course lots of things: round things, square things, hexagonal things. Very many of them attack you. Some attack you accidentally, others go straight for the jugular.

Your commandos are capable of a variety of movements, all of which will come in handy at one time or another. Diving can get you over obstacles and through windows (and makes you feel macho). Jumping achieves similar results. And crouching is sometimes vital to avoid gunfire.

Your team members get tired, too. I had an entertaining few minutes making one of my unit crawl everywhere on his knees and whenever he got tired - which was every few steps - he wiped his feverish brow. I haven't laughed so much since I tried to starve Activision's Little Computer Person.

Now all this would be wonderful and the game would get a Classic rating were it not for the fact that the game doesn't really look that good. It is 3D, but the animation is very jerky and the perspective is sometimes very confusing. Some of the characters are just not very well drawn. This detracts from the tension in a major way.

Strike Force Cobra is clever, complicated and big, I don't think it looks very good and I was infuriated by the slowness of response. Treat it as an enormous puzzle rather than an arcade game and you may be less disappointed.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48/128K
SUPPLIER: Piranha
PRICE: £9.95

There are heroes and there are heroes. But Major Jan van Heuson and Lieutenant Esther Stern are in a league by themselves. Intelligent, fearless and tough, they are the backbone of Strike Force Cobra.

All right, it's time to declare an interest. The digitised picture of Major van Heuson at the beginning of the game is me. And Esther Stern is none other than C+VG's editorial assistant Lesly Walker.

The other pictures of the Strike Force Cobra team belong to various hacks and hackettes of the computer press. But we don't really want to talk about them, do we?

Strike Force Cobra is from Piranha, recently responsible for some fairly decent games, Colour of Magic and the graphically wonderful Trapdoor. Unfortunately, it's not as good.

The plot is hardly new and exciting. The world is under threat of nuclear blackmail by an evil genius known simply as The Enemy. He has developed a computer hacking system which has enabled him to take control of all the world's defence systems.

To build the system The Enemy has kidnapped top computer experts and imprisoned them at his fortress. Each has a code which must be collected before access can be gained to the main computer room.

Rather than give into this fiendish plan, Supreme Allied Command has put together a crack unit to smash The Enemy's plan.

That's where Major van Heuson and Esther Stern come in. You must select the Strike Force Cobra team from eight candidates. Each has special skills. Van Heuson, for instance, is an expert with explosives and Esther is a specialist in close quarters combat.

The four members of SFC, armed with sub-machine guns and grenades, find themselves in the The Enemy's fortress. Killer robots, guards, automatic weapons systems and booby traps litter the place.

You can switch from controlling one member of team to another as you attempt to crack codes, explore the fortress and defeat the enemy.

The animated figures are very mobile and agile. They can jump, dive, crouch, stand up, kick etc. It's good fun to get them to dive through windows, machine gun blazing.

The fortress is a 3D maze, quite fun to explore, but graphically quite crude.

On my copy of the game I found I could not revert to the menu to change my team of toughies without re-loading the game. Not a major gripe, but it did become a little annoying.

TAKE YOUR COMMANDO QUARTET ON A GRITTY EXCURSION TO SAVE THE PLANET FROM NUCLEAR DISASTER.

Piranha Software
£9.95

If this were a film instead of a computer game, it'd be one of those cheapo British adventure films like The Wild Geese (or Penguins, or something like that), in which a group of British character actors and a few minor international stars get together to form an elite fighting squad and carry out a desperate mission, against insuperable odds in some oddly named third world nation.

In this case the fighting force is known as Strike Force Cobra, and the mission involves penetrating the fortress headquarters of a man known only as The Enemy. Obviously gifted with a flair for the melodramatic, The Enemy is threatening the world with nuclear blackmail and only the Cobra team can stop him. By locating the captured scientists who have the codes to the central computer room, the team can then get to the computer and destroy both it and The Enemy's plans.

Like a cheapo adventure film, the game begins with a sequence where the team members are recruited. You have a choice of eight possible characters, out of which you have to assemble a team of four. I chose Kawalski, McWatt, Dawson and Stern, who in the film would be played by Ernest Borgnine (gruff marine with a heart of gold), Richard Burton (the leader - cool, unflappable, with some tragic secret in his past), Richard Harris (total alcoholic, but the best explosives man around), and some European sex kitten or other (French resistance - beautiful but hard as nails).

The four team members split up and enter the fortress at different points, gradually regrouping as they round up the captives and fight their way down through the fortress's four levels. You control one character at a time and have to coordinate their movements. There are a number of lifts and doorways which are controlled from points elsewhere in the complex, so you'll have to do a bit of mapping and work out how best to move the team so that they can help each other get past these obstacles.

The rooms and corridors of the fortress are heavily defended by electronic traps, automatic rifles, armed soldiers and various other devices of the sort which pad out the middle half hour of adventure films. There's a lot of leaping through windows, kicking down doors hurling grenades and spraying everything in sight with machine gun fire. All this is well presented graphically and the animation is very good - a bit like a 3D version of Impossible Mission - although it does tend to slow down dramatically if there's a lot of movement on screen.

The instructions could be a little clearer on some points, such as how to activate the lift and door switches, but if you stick with it you should soon see what you're trying to do. The game is a combination of arcade action (in the combat side of things), and strategy (in avoiding the traps and working your way through the fortress), and although these two parts of the game are well balanced, and the game is well presented, the pace of the game lets it down a bit. Even though you are working against a time limit there's not that much sense of urgency about the game play (what we need is a few closeups of Richard Burton glancing at his watch and saying "Kawalski's late, damn him!").

Even so, Strike Force Cobra is still worth having a look at. It does have its moments, even if it doesn't quite achieve its full potential, and along with Trap Door is helping the new Piranha label to get off to a good start.