MAD
£2.99
Here's another of Mastertronic's 'Official Namco Arcade Licences', and it's a winner! The first time I saw it, I thought it was a multi-coloured game of chess! But it's not that simple! The idea is to defend your local solar base against the massed hordes of vicious, demented and extremely dangerous space bees. (Space bees?) Evil space marauders who wouldn't think twice before feeding their grandma to a cheese grater. Naturally there's only one person around who can save everybody, so no sneaking off to watch Moonlighting, you've got a job to do.
And what a job! You have to manoeuvre your ship around a giant grid and bump off any nasties you meet. No, not kill, but actually bump them off the screen! There are several types of nasty, and you'll need plenty of power pills (available from all good chemists and handily deposited around the screens) to defeat them.
To increase the output of your ship, there are power parts (oo-er) which you can attach to your ship with pieces of double-sided sticky tape (for speed purposes only), but you have to move on to the next screen to be able to use them. These enable you to jump holes or increase your firepower to blow the stuffing out of those darn nasty characters.
Other bonuses are 'beacons' and 'Navicons'. Navicons are to be avoided - they spit out more bees and generally make your life hell. Beacons, on the other hand, can be moved off the screen for loads of points. Well worth the risk!
It's a simple and satisfying game. The 128 music's pretty cool too. Mastertronic made a good decision to snap up this little beauty (converted by Binary Design). If dodgem cars are for you, so will this be!
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