Exolon

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You take control of a soldier thaty travels across several flip-screen levels filled with various generic aliens and mounted guns, homing-missile systems, landmines and other hazards. You can defend yourself with both a gun and a limited number of rocket-propelled grenades (activated by holding the fire button). Part way through each level there is a pod in which you can upgrade to an armored exoskeleton with improved weapons and energy levels. Apart from flying enemies that attack you, you need to destroy defensive systems like cannons and radars that prevent you from getting further. Just use your grenades and you’ll soon make them blow up in tiny pieces and scattered all over the place. Exolon also needs some strategy, as you must decide (the sooner the better) which way you should go, in order to avoid enemy fire (i.e. you can use teleport gates to change platforms). Overall it's a really nice shooter with loads of action and good presentation.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The ZX Spectrum version is very decent for the standards of its era (mid-late 80s) and offers nice colors and pretty huge sprites. The screen is swarmed by various objects and sprites, so the frame rate tends to suffer at times! The game's sound is equally good, with a great main menu tune and the action is followed by a few catchy sound effects like explosions etc. Especially the intro music tune (available only on the 128k version) cannot be easily forgotten.