LED Storm

Another superb arcade conversion from Software Creations (authors of Bubble Bobble). All aspects of the original machine are excellently reproduced - down to the parallax scrolling on the roadway - which makes it very playable. A real throw-back to the days of Spyhunter, but a great game nonetheless. Great soundtrack, too.

Extremely smart graphics, as you might expect, and great aurals, but disappointing gameplay, again because of the poor sideways scrolling. However it does profit from a faster performance than its 16-bit counterpart, and thus feels slightly more comfortable.

Smart graphics with fast and surprisingly smooth (non-parallax) scrolling. It suffers from the same drastic sideways movement as the Spectrum, although to a lesser degree. The soundtrack fares remarkably well, with the ST's soundchip working overtime.

On the whole not overly recommended unless you want a fairly tame car race game to while away a few quiet minutes one evening. Perhaps a good contender for a budget title, but a little too expensive for my taste at £19.99.

The monochrome Spectrum version suffers from the disability to scroll diagonally, although it does manage parallax. This problem is overcome by shifting the course sideways in large chunks, so keeping to the roadway is tricky at the best of times - especially considering the small screen size - which becomes annoying after a while. This artificially-imposed difficulty level plus other faults, such as becoming 'attached' to the kerbs, makes this the only version to steer clear of.