Reviews

The classic Sega arcade game Space Harrier finds life on the Spectrum. It's fast and it's colourful but the patterns makes it somewhat hard on the eyes which makes the gameplay very awkward. It's a great effort nonetheless.

1986 Elite Systems (UK)
by Keith Burkhill and Jon Harrison

This is one of those games that wowed me as a kid. I even thought it was better than the original arcade game.
It's full of action, with plenty to please everyone. It's true the look of the game may annoy some. Some color schemes are a bit strange and the fast screen action can disorientate some. But it is a great action game. Very faithful to the arcade version and very well written.

4,5 points

This version is popular among many but I personally found this hard to enjoy. The fast scrolling and dreadful colour scheme is very offputting and creates confusion within the gameplay. Never liked it for those reasons.

Space Harrier is one of my favourite Arcade games of all-time. Finding it on the Spectrum was a welcome sight, that was until I started playing it.

Okay it plays smoothly and I accept it being a 48K only game which means no music and no rendition of Space Harrier theme, but the colours in level 1 combined with its scrolling don't mix very well though level 2's colours are a lot better and I will personally need to download a walkthrough from the RZX Archive, if one exists, to see the colours on the remaining levels.

I did like how the game itself played, it was as good as the arcade game at times although you can die rather cheeply at times and the colours don't help with sight on shooting and avoiding enemies.

I was slightly disappointed Space Harrier wasn't more but saying that if I did manage to buy the budget version I would have been satisfied with it. I just wish it got itself a 128K upgrade like other games did though.

by Keith Burkhill, Jon Harrison
Part of the killer batch of coin op conversions that Elite hurled on the market between 1985 and 1986, Space Harrier must have been particulary difficult to convert, considering it even existed as a full motion cockpit, which you could only emulate by swinging and swaying on your chair. But not only for that: what you have here is a view-from-behind shoot'em up, with lots of sprites and chequered floors to be stuffed in a colour clashing home computer. The result? You don't see a ducking thing! All the sprites are of course transparent, and it's a chaos, especially when you fly or run on the above mentioned chequered floors. It's a wonderful presbyopia experience! Anyway, it's fast and furious and quite entertaining, especially when the enemies shoot you with giant zucchini slices.
Visibility aside, I think it's a pretty ace conversion, especially looking at the smoothness and speed of the sprites, their perspective movement and the "movement of the screen" when you fly higher or lower yourself.
3,75/5