Soldier of Light logo

ACE, C64 £8.99 cassette, £14.99 disk; Amiga £24.99

The point of having organisations set up to run things can be more efficient. The problem is, when there's a head organisation, rebellious forces have something to aim an attack towards.

Galactic High Command has run things in the Galaxy for a good number of years, but now they're facing a problem in the shape of an organisation known as 'The Federation'. This band of heavily armed outlaws has spread across the Soa system, consisting of the planets Cleemalt, Lagto and Cleedos, leaving fortresses laden with troops.

You play the part of Xain d'Sleena (which, backwards, says Aneels 'd Niax - interesting, eh?) - a crack stormtrooper, more adept with the use of firearms and the Exo-skeleton armour than any other warrior in his fleet. You must fly out to the invaded planets and destroy the Federation's forces; but on all of the planets you will find a number of pods containing additional weaponry to fit into your Exo-skeleton, which have been left due to a malfunction by the computer at Central Control.

Once all the planets have been cleared, you must return and check them again, just in case an invasion force has managed to reach the planet.


Gordon Houghton When Maff raved about how great this arcade game was, I expected a bit more than a simple horizontally scrolling run-shoot-collect game. He assures me that the home versions aren't much cop on their own, either. Neither version is that brilliant - the 64 version suffers from an appalling control method and annoying quirks, whereas the Amiga version has lost a load of presentation and levels - when a game's multiload anyway you'd expect them to be included. Soldier of Light isn't too bad, but it should have been a lot better.
Kati Hamza When you consider what makes games like Soldier of Light popular in the arcades, it usually boils down to a few basic elements - the graphics, the sound and the mindless action. Naturally the 64 can't hope to achieve the quality of audio and video that the coin-op offered, but when a horrendous control system plagues you then things begin to look a bit grim. Now the Amiga has the power to produce sound and graphics of the arcade original, but for some reason the programmers have got the game to be 'similar' and left it at that. As a game it's not too bad (the control actually works!), but like the 64 version it's not up to much in the conversion stakes.
Maff Evans Well this has been 'in the making' for long enough hasn't it? Soldier of Light is one of my favourite arcade games (although I played it in its Xain d' Sleena incarnation), so I naturally looked forward to the home version. The early 64 demos I saw gave the impression that it was going to be really good, but now that both 64 and Amiga versions have arrived in their entirety, the 64 version has deteriorated into a sloppy game with a horrible control method and little resemblance to the arcade original, and the Amiga version has grabbed the wrong end of the stick, with lost presentation and missing levels all over the shop. Fans of the original BEWARE! This may not be the game you expected when you saw the name Soldier of Light.
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