Silkworm

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Somewhere in the future, the world is threatened by MHC2, an artificial brain that takes over the military forces and weapons around the globe, to force humanity to worship him as a god. As a member of the Silkworm Team (a team of elite fighters that stands against the enemy forces) you take command of a G-Cobra attack helicopter or a B-Panther interceptor jeep to combat and destroy them. The fight will not be a walk in the park since MHC2 is well defended.
Silkworm is a very addictive game and -thankfully- its difficulty level rises gradually, so you'll have some time to master the controls, especially those of the Jeep. Silkworm is surely better and more fun to play in 2-players mode (one controlling the Cobra and the other the Jeep) but even if you play alone, it doesn't disappoint at all. You are called to fly (or drive) your way through multiple enemy lines that vary from flying helicopters and aircrafts to even ground forces like missile pods, armored vehicles, cannons etc. By destroying a number of them you are granted with power-ups like the "Twin" that can make your gunfire twice as powerful or even a timed shield that will briefly protect you from enemy fire. Note: You can destroy rockets and missiles before they hit you but you can't destroy the bullets. At the end of each level there's a big boss waiting, as in most classic side-scrolling or vertical shoot 'em up games.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Atari ST conversion is a good effort compared to the coin-op as it sports nice visuals, quite fast animation and -surprisingly- no serious frame rate drops. The only cons we spotted is the "jerkiness" on the sprites' movement and the much darker color palette (up to 16 colors on screen) compared to the Amiga but, in general, the game looks and plays good, without frustrating. The Atari ST conversion includes a few chip sound effects that do the job well, a strong introductory chip-tune but no music during gameplay.

GAMEPLAY VIDEO
On our Silkworm tribute video below, the Atari ST version is at 18:36.