Side Arms: Hyper Dyne logo

GO!, £19.99 disk

Aargh! Bozon is coming. He's bad, he's mean, he's mad - and he's planning to take over the world. Help! Eek! Oh no!
Luckily, the Earth has two iron-pumping heroes who are so hard they'd jet-pack to the centre of Bozon's domain and destroy it any day of the week.

Firing at the energy pods the enemy leaves behind turns them into different types of weapon (mega-bazooka launcher, tail-gun, 3-way shot, etc).

Oh yeah - a few bonus icons (extra points, shield, improved firepower) are dotted around the environment as well. Cool, huh?


Kati Hamza What really annoys me about the Side Arms coin-op and the conversion is that every time you just want to move backwards you actually end up turning around - with a bullet in your back. Great! It's even worse in the Amiga conversion because the actual playing area is so cluttered there isn't even enough room for a two-player option. What on earth is the point of converting a major two-player coin-op into a one-player home game? Ravin'mad. Side Arms isn't an appalling shoot 'em up in itself - on the whole it plays like your average space blast. If that's what you want from a conversion, fine. It just wasn't enough for me.
Gordon Houghton OK, so it's a disappointment that this hasn't got a two-player option, but as a one-player game it's not that bad. Probe haven't exactly exploited the Amiga's potential to the full - the sound's pretty basic, the graphics aren't all that interesting and it would have been nice to have full-screen scrolling - but for some reason the gameplay is quite addictive. As long as you're not too bothered by tough gameplay and don't mind about the conversion being absolutely faithful to the coin-op (which it's not), you could have an enjoyable few hours on your hands. Bit expensive just for a few hours, though.
Zzap's Rockford: Side arms! Get it?!?