Wings Of Death

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You play the role of Sagyr the magician and you fly through multiple levels to avenge Xandrilia, a dark witch that transformed you into a creature that can change into a dragon, a griffon and an eagle (when you collect the relevant power-ups). Sagyr just wants to take back his human nature and destroy the witch forever! The game features seven levels of intense action and is one of the best shoot 'em up games for the Amiga and ST 16 bit home computers. On the way, you can find five different weapon systems plus additional bolt-on weaponry (Hunter, Destroyer, Shield, Auto-fire, etc). Note that there are fifteen types of bonuses to collect and each one can be gained as a power-up by killing an enemy! But beware since there are also some bonuses that may harm you i.e. by decreasing your weapons' power! Overall, this is a surely a very tough game since the enemies attack from all directions in a way that you just can't protect your dragon and you finally die! Difficulty level aside, this game is gorgeous and its success led the programmers to develop a sequel under the title “Lethal Xcess” in 1991, where you return to take revenge once more.

GRAPHICS
The Amiga version is a direct port from the ST but with a few quite nice enhancements . The game looks great and it features over 1 megabyte of graphics details and up to 95 simultaneous objects on screen! Each screen uses more than 20 colors using copper effects and the Amiga version runs smoother compared to the ST and STE counterparts.

SOUND
The game's sound is exceptional! I really love the great music score at the intro screen and also the in-game tunes (each level has its own music) composed by the famous Jochen Hippel. These awesome music scores are accompanied by speech synthesis and sampled sound effects. Note that the Amiga's version 4-channels stereo sound is noticeable when listening to the in-game sound effects and music (in contrast to the ST/STE versions that "lose" a music channel when sound effects "hit" the speakers).