Zynaps

STORY / GAMEPLAY
This horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up features 16 levels with 450 screens of great action in total. By destroying enemy squadrons you can collect numerous power up tokens that can be used to obtain better weapons, including ground attack lasers, speed up pods and multi-firing. Extra lives are available as well (and you'll certainly need them, especially as you have to go a long way back when losing a life). Zynaps is a really tough game that needs a lot of skills to play. Its story is not an original one: It's just your spaceship against a number of alien threats but it's nicely put together with clear, finely detailed, graphics and smooth animation.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Amstrad CPC version features good visuals with nicely animated sprites, great detail at the foreground but not too much detail at the background (it's mostly black, as in all versions). The scrolling moves nicely (but not as smooth as its C64 counterpart) and makes the gameplay playable enough although the small screen area. A drawback on this version is the collision detection which is quite problematic as, when you get too close, you suddenly crash in many foreground objects. The sound is not bad at all, offering a nice intro tune and lots of in-game sound effects (but no in-game music).