Producer: R&R Software
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code

Helicopter games seem to have been popular recently. In this new game you are commander of a chopper gunship, and your task is to destroy invading aliens. These come in the form of SPINAD, best described as flapping Y shaped things, SPORE and FUSA. The Spinad have a zig-zag formation, moving slowly across the screen from right to left. Your chopper is stationed on the left and only moves up and down. The Fusa burrow into the earth and then fire out Spores. The other hazard is the weather - it's raining that old arcade favourite, meteors which travel diagonally down the screen. Being hit by anything, of course, means a loss of life.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 6/7 = down/up 0 = fire, 9 = smart bomb
Joystick: Kempston, Mikrogen, AGF, Protek, cursor clip on
Keyboard play: responsive
Colour: average
Graphics: average, nice and big though
Sound: very good
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 3

The effect of your travelling over a landscape is done by very slowly scrolling the ground beneath the helicopter, but it doesn't really create the sense of flying. Your rocket fire is reasonably potent and there are two smart bombs when all else fails, but in the end there just isn't very much to this game apart from shooting or dodging the aliens on their predictable path. They get through to you not because you may lack the skill, but because like any good Casino, the odds are stacked slightly in favour of the aliens.

The graphics and sound are both good and the game is rather challenging as you can only move up and down. But other than shooting aliens, there doesn't seem to be a lot to it. The game is above average; it's an 'okay' game to play but didn't have much in the way of addictive qualities.

The first thing that struck me on playing Chopper X-1 was a sense of disappointment. The cover of the inlay promises a lot, but the game doesn't deliver. All you do is go up and down, dodge meteors and aliens and try to shoot them. Whilst the graphics are reasonably neat and smooth, they aren't all that exciting either. I think I've come to expect more from a Spectrum game, even a 16K one than this offers.

MACHINE: Spectrum 16/48K
JOYSTICK: Optional
SUPPLIER: R&R Software
PRICE: £5.50

Fasten your safety belts for yet another Spectrum shoot-'em-up.

This time you're on board a helicopter pitted against waves of 'Spinad, Spore and Fusa' which look respectively like waggling scissors, red boxes, and blue octopuses.

You can move your machine up or down as it moves slowly across a boring green landscape. But you'll need one finger constantly on the fire button.

The Spinad, which are the most numerous, bounce diagonally toward you in large numbers. Meanwhile the occasional Fusa, which floats down screen, must be destroyed before reaching the ground or it will mutate into Spores which attack you from behind.

As a last resort you can use one of your two smart bombs to obliterate everything on screen. But you have only two.

The sound is surprisingly good for the Spectrum. and all in all this is a reasonable game for 16K.