Developed and published by Hewson in 1988. In a distant galaxy, a war rages between two rival factions: the Omagons and the Julars. The Omagons have been capturing Jular citizens and transporting them back to heir home planet of Omagon. The Jular race has been too weak to oppose the Omagons and has turned a blind eye to these events. Enter a group of Jular rebels who have found a way to fight back against the Omagon forces by destroying crystals that filter pollutants from the planet's atmosphere; without the crystals the planet will die. The Omagon forces have errected elaborate defences along certain space lanes in order to defend the reamining crystals. You take control of the elite Eliminator spacecraft in a bid to navigate each stage in a bid to destroy the Omagon forces and escape. So, now that we've established the very silly excuse a story, let's discuss the actual game... Conceptually, it's very similar to Trailblazer in that the game requires the player to pilot their ship along a linear course whilst avoiding roadblocks and obstacles. However, shome shooting elements are throw into the mix as the player must collect weapon power-ups (red crystals) and ammunition (yellow crystals). Each time you collect a red crystal, you gain a new weapon (indicated by icons to the left of the screen) and each of these performs a different function, such as firing into the air or having a much wider arc of fire. It's important to destroy the alien ships as they will fire back at you and deplete your ships energy; it will restore over time, but some of the later levels require you to really be quick on the draw and to minimise the amount of damage you take. The bulk of the game involves avoiding roadblocks and water traps left in the road. The glowing roadblocks can be destroyed with gun-fire, but the grey ones cannot and must be avoided. You're often required to hit special ramps, allowing you to fly over the obstacle and avoid it all together. It's the nature of the ramps that is actually the biggest problem with game as several of the courses require you to know which lane is safe to land. You'd have to build up an intimate knowledge of each course through many consecutive replays to learn which lane to be in at the right time; I've never been a fan of this kind of game, but I guess it means that you can't finish the game too easily. Technically speaking, the game is impressive. The 3D scrolling effect is very fluid and looks great, although it's clearly taxing the C64's CPU. There is noticeable slow-down on the levels involving tunnels, which is a shame, but it remain playable and doesn't detract a huge amount from the game. Jeroen Tel (Maniacs of Noise) produced a couple of very nice tunes for the game, although there is only a single one th ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3MBYPcO7u0

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Al82_Retro Get Great Retro Scene News @ http://www.vintageisthenewold.com Developed by Bits Studios and published by Irem in 1992 #retrogaming ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA5loH-jZZo