Shadowfax

The Good
Any fan of The Lord of the Rings should know that the Shadowfax is a horse seen throughout the universe. Mike Singleton was one of its fans and it inspired him to create a ZX Spectrum game, two years before he created his Lords of Midnight games. Singleton took the scene where Gandalf is riding the titular Shadowfax, while fighting off the Nazgul, and incorporated this into his game.

The result is a good time-waster in which you have to fight off the Nazgul, the black horses that gallop toward Gandalf with thunderbolts. This is accompanied with excellent animation of the horses galloping. When you kill one of the Nazguls, they appear in a series of rainbow colors to let you know that you killed it, and then they disappear. There is only one sound effects used in the game, and that is the excellent galloping sound.

The game never ends; you just kill as many Nazguls as you can before you come into contact with them and be killed. There are two set of figures at the top of the screen. The one on the left is your high score, and besides the title, your current score is displayed. This is like one of those “score attack” games where anyone can feel the urge to continually beat their highest score.

The Bad
For such a basic game, the background is green rather than the one used in the Commodore 64 version, which had you fighting the Nazguls in a forest. Also, you need to correctly know when you kill the Nazguls with your thunderbolts; shooting at the wrong time causes the thunderbolts to go through them and have no effect on them.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Shadowfax is a good game where the aim is to kill as many Nazguls as you can before you get hit. It is ideal for playing during one of your work breaks. The background is bland and shooting thunderbolts requires precise timing, but don't let this stop you from trying to beat your highest score every time.