Tough as boots, technically great conversion of the run n' stab classic. The colours are obviously a mixed bag, sometimes making it hard to see... well, anything, but the actual gameplay is tight. Hey look, ma! The Spectrum can scroll. The sound design is nice too, and it's hard to forget that iconic warble at the beginning of each level. Special mention goes to the artwork by the legendary Bob Wakelin, which even though it cribs wholesale from Mike Zeck's Punisher comics still sets the tone perfectly.

Status: 101,500 points. Game looping

I was surprised by how much there was to like about this arcade game, one of the earliest examples of the "run and gun" genre. It's quite fast, and plays like a rudimentary NES Ninja Gaiden style action game; the enemies can be completely overwhelming as in Spartan X, but the attacks are much more responsive. Your main attack is a knife slash, which forces you to be very close to an enemy before you can kill them. All enemy types except for bosses go down in one hit. You can pick up long range weapon power-ups, which spawn when you kill a certain enemy type. I saw a few different weapon types—a flamethrower, an RPG, and a grenade, which each has three or four rounds in them. These weapons take out groups of enemies from range, and you must use them wisely in the latter two stages since the forces are so overwhelming. The flamethrower is a medium range weapon, the RPG fires a missile that floats to the end of the screen taking out every enemy it hits, and the grenade flies in an arc and does splash damage, sending all the enemies flying in a unique animation. As usual I held onto these power ups for longer than I should have--the limited ammunition is plenty for when you will need to take out big groups.

There is a little amount of enemy variety. There are guys that rush you, guys that rush you and and will fire a weapon at you (which you can go prone to duck under), guys that rush you and do a karate kick at you, paratrooper guys that drop bombs at you (then rush you when they land), and then there are mortar guys that fire bombs in an arc at you. The enemies have a few different looks (uniform, uniform + trenchcoat), but most are color swaps. The bosses are pretty easy. My favorite was the three enemies on little helicopters, which you needed to duck under and time your attack so that it hits when they're at the lowest place in their movement arc.

Altogether I had an alright time with this one. I like the look of it, even though the backgrounds are pretty bland. At its best moments it felt like Elevator Action Returns--ducking to dodge fire, spinning around to take out enemies as they come for you on either side. However, its rare that these moments feel balanced and fun rather than like an unfair arcade gauntlet. For 1985 this is still a pretty impressive side scrolling action game.