Zaxxon

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You mission is to fly your spaceship through heavily defended fortresses in space, and hit as many ground or airborne targets as possible without being shot down or running out of fuel. At the end of each fortress, there is an outer space segment in which you just flying through hordes of alien ships trying to shoot them down before getting successfully to the next fortress. Throughout each fortress you can replenish you fuel, but there are a lot of walls that have openings that the ship must be at the right altitude to pass through. So, watch your altimeter constantly, and ascent or descent accordingly to avoid trouble. Your ship cannot move forward or backward, but flies at constant speed moving left to right or up-down (altitude only).
The game is pretty fun to play, controls are responsive, though you need to get used to this axonometric projection of the game in order to master its controls.
The action is fun, mindless and absorbing, and the huge range of enemies and bonus pods keeps it that way for hours.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Technically the game is great, and the graphics detail the color usage, and its smooth scrolling are certainly pretty impressive, despite the 8bit hardware limitations. Sprites are rather basic in detail, but the rest of the scene detail is pretty good.
The sound is also good, having the original (arcade) introductory theme while there are several sound effects of the standard boom type explosive noises.