Oh not this game again! The supposed classic driving game for the 16bit. As I've probably rambled on in the ST review, the only decent version of this game was on the Spectrum, where the programmers actually made it run at a decent rate. The Amiga version is just as snore worthely slow as the ST one. All the extra power the programmers had with a 16bit processor seems to have helped with nothing. It's got a tad more colour than the ST version, but it hasn't made any difference to the bland graphics. Driving the car still feels like riding a push bike through treacle. In fact the only difference between the this and the ST version is the superior sample on the Amiga of your secretary telling you who to chase. Ocean games are so exciting. Well maybe not.

Zogging Hell Rating: 6/10

Crackdown

Not really an arcade classic conversion this, but quite playable non the less. The overhead view is distintly reminiscent of that 8bit classic Commando, and Ikari Warriors. Graphically indistinguishable from it's ST counterpart, Crackdown's major asset is it's music. It kind of reminds me of the later Wolfenstein's theme tune, it's a haunting ditty, and very nice. Gameplay-wise Crackdown's got a few problems. Firstly there's the tiny screen size. This game makes driving down the M6 in foggy, snowy conditions at 120mph look like a high visibility situation. You die a lot, simply because you have no time to react to incoming bullets. Although the radar at the top of the screen helps a bit, it's no good when a baddy randomly generates in a machine next to you. So why's the screen so small. Well Crackdown is essentially a two player game. Player 1 gets a third of the screen, player 2 another third and the radar etc get the rest. While in two player mode the game is more appealing, there isn't all that much to recommend it in single player. Competent, but hardly inspiring.

Zogging Hell Rating: 7/10

R-Type

Blimey this is a bit of a role reversal one. This Amiga's version of R-Type is the game you'd have expected the ST to end up with, while the ST version is the one the Amiga would normally have. What am I wibbling on about now, I hear you ask. Well lets put it this way. ST version: Parallax scrolling (two or three levels of) and huge sprites. Amiga version: No parallax, smaller more subdued sprites. Now no parallax scrolling on the Amiga is a disgrace, especially when it's no hardware scrolling sparring partner is showing it off to the guns. Minus points there then. Smaller sprites? Well this seems to have kept the Amiga's frame rate a bit higher than the ST's. The mothership on Level 3 moves considerably more slowly and smoothly than the ST's jerky monster. The Amiga's slightly more subtle choice of colours works better on some levels and not so well on others. To cap all this, the Amiga version is verging on the side of impossibly hard. There are seemingly half the pick ups of the ST version, and although the sprites are smaller, there seems to be even less space to move around in. As far as horizontal scrollers on the Amiga go R-Type was slightly eclipsed by Menace anyway, though really it's a matter of choice which one you go for..

Zogging Hell Rating: 8/10

Silkworm
At first Silkworm on the Amiga seems even better than the ST masterpiece. The extra colours on the first few levels add to the sense of realism. Couple that with the rather special sound effects, and you might even think about packing your ST away when it comes to this one. However as you progress the ST version's qualities come more into play while the Amiga fades a little (though not much). Firstly the Amiga version limits the helicopters minimum height to one which is higher than the ST's. This makes the one player game a lot harder, as shooting a lot of the ground based enemies really needs the jeep player to be present as well. Secondly on some of the levels the ST graphics are actually better looking than the Amiga's, perhaps the more limited colour pallette influencing a more careful chose of colours. So it's a close call to say which versions better. The scrolling (remarkably) is the same on both the ST and the Amiga and there's very little to chose in terms of the quality of baddies. This is one of the best horizontal scrollers on the 16bit, so if you haven't got it, get it.

Zogging Hell Rating: 9/10