Cyclone

Roger: Whoopee! A game that starts with a helicopter take-off sequence and flight that I can actually manage without theoretical hospitalisation - that came later! Crashing programs on my own high-mileage equipment or, even worse, Peter Shaw's much-sabotaged and hybred in-office recyclable Speccy was far more frustrating than launching Cyclone's rescue chopper in its urgent hunt for pain-relieving drugs.

This moderately three-dimensional saga requires pilotage of the aforesaid whirlybird in and around a seascape full of islands - don't worry, there is a map - to collect a vital five crates of medical supplies before the nasty cyclone upsets accident statistics, particularly those relating to, er, helicopter pilots. Don't be bored by the meteorological overtones, though, because we're not looking at weather forecast yawn quotients - this is what I call action!

Unoriginal it may be, but as one disaster area playing in another, I can only claim to have had a good time . . . 3/5 HIT

Ross: This is rather too similar to TLL, offering very little that's new. The playing area is more dispersed and there's some extra shading to show the cliffs. There are also some planes flying about, but so what! 0/5 MISS

Dave: Good use of the graphics techniques developed for TLL, but there doesn't seem to be enough going on to give it a really lasting appeal. 2/5 MISS

Spectrum 48K
Vortex Software
Rescue Game
£6.95

Helicopter games are all the rage at the moment what with Combat Lynx and Tomahawk - even Fort Apocalypse. But Cyclone from the people who brought you Tornado Low Level is a breath of fresh air. It has the excellent graphics of TLL, with a much more praiseworthy motivation for the action.

You control a helicopter which has to recover medical supplies from islands in the path of an advancing cyclone. The screen display gives you a god's-eye view of a helicopter crouching on the pad. Press I to take off, O to P to rotate. The right-hand side of the screen shows your altitude, fuel, speed and direction - by pressing M you can call up a map which shows you the islands, the cyclone and a real-time plot of where you are.

Naturally, the air is full of planes fleeing the oncoming cyclone so watch out you don't collide with them. Your helicopter also becomes difficult to control as the windspeed strengthens. As you wrestle with the controls, the urgency of your mission, is emphasised by the pathetic figures below you, waving for help. Unlike Choplifter, the pathetic figures don't seem to leap into your egg-bearer when you put down but the goal of this game is to find five crates of medical supplies.

You can switch from a North view to a South view when searching for crates. You hover directly over a crate to winch it aboard, and refuel at nearby landing pads to keep flying.

You have to land very gently indeed and this can be tricky when battling headwinds.