Firebird/Core
£9.99 cass, £14.99 disk

Action Fighter is a five level vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up and you're the brave square-jawed hero who volunteers to undertake five dangerous missions in enemy territory for the President. Combat will be both earthbound and airborne, so the boffins have devised a top secret transforming vehicle which is motor cycle, car and jet all in one!

On your bike then! As you zoom along the city streets enemy cars and bikes attack you. Destroy enough of these and you can pick up letters of the alphabet which appear as icons (A - F). Collect four and your bike turns into a car (which you can toggle back into a bike) now under attack from helicopters as well, two more and you go airborne in your jet-car for a flying mission from which there is no return until mission completion. You start the game with a single shot blaster, but once in a while vans with SEGA writ large upon them will draw you into their interiors and award one of four power-ups. These are (in order) double fire power, missiles, reverse firing and limited invulnerability.

Arrows appear at the top of the screen to inform you which direction the road is heading, because at full pelt collisions with the roadside are decidedly fatal. Once airborne missiles are your enemy. Gain extra speed from a floating bonus, and if you meet a SEGA helicopter fly into the back of it for extra weapons. A Gun and bombs should see you through to the end of level nasty: a UBoat on level one. When this has been destroyed you will barely have time for a breather before the President assigns you your next mission.

I've never seen the arcade version of Action Fighter, so I can't compare.The road section here reminds me slightly of the crusty shoot- 'em-up Spy Hunter in as much as add-on weapons are acquired by entering a van. Graphically the game is monochromatic, but the sprites are well defined and zip around the screen very smoothly. If you like a fast blasting game take a look at Action Fighter.

MARK [78%]

Action Fighter is a funny old game... but a good one too! it looks like a combination between two of the most popular game formats, the LED Storm style fast scrolling race and a good ol' traditional shoot 'em up. This doesn't mean that Firebird have simply stolen the ideas though: this is actually a conversion of the Sega arcade machine. All the sprites and borders are detailed enough, but the game could have done with a bit more colour, black and white monochrome being a bit boring. Action Fighter is a good race with a bit blasting thrown in for good measure, a neat combination.
NICK [86%]

Firebird
£9.99 cass/£14.99 disk
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

Remember Spy Hunter? Well, this seems to be the sequel, and judging by its copyright date on the title screen, it first appeared in the arcades quite a while ago. Action Fighter is based very heavily on its predecessor, which straight away tells us that simplicity is the name of the game. It also means that Action Fighter is a bit crap, although that's most likely more to do with the original arcade game than any fault of Firebird's.

The proceedings begin with you on a motorbike zooming along a scrolling road. The traffic is fairly heavy and rather aggressive, so you'll need to make frequent use of your built-in laser. Blow away enough baddies and letters will start floating down the screen. These, if grabbed fast enough, will eventually transform your bike into a car (although how this benefits you I'm not sure). The car eventually sprouts wings and sets off into...

Part Two. This is a radical departure from the original Hunter theme, but looks to me like a bog-standard, run-of-the-mill, seen-one-you've-seen-'em-all scrolling shoot-'em-up. (Eeek! A hyphen invasion!) The screen rolls past extrrreeemely slooowwwty. and your car/plane/thingy flies up, down, left and, yes, right, shooting, erm, everything. When you've done that, it's on to Stage Two - very much like Stage One but with the graphics changed round a bit.

At the end of each stage there's some kind of mission to complete. The missions include blowing up a submarine, some hover tanks and helicopter gunships.

Gripping stuff. As in Hunter, trucks draw up alongside you every so often to bestow you with add on weapons if you drive aboard. Although furious attempts have obviously been made to spruce the game up, it still plays pretty much like the other game. You may consider this to be no bad thing - some reckon Hunter is an extremely addictive game. Not me though. I wouldn't say the graphics are much better than Hunter either. They're in monochrome for a start, and all the sprites are a bit on the small side. Humph.

Iss all right for a bit, I suppose, but Fighter's lasting appeal is definitely limited I can't imagine anyone playing it for much more than, ooh, a very short time. I haven't played the arcade original, so for all I know this could be a very good conversion. There just isn't enough here to allow it to compete admirably in today's overcrowded market.

Label: Rainbird
Author: In House
Price: £9.99
Memory: 48/128/+3
Joystick: No Sinclair Option
Reviewer: Garth Sumpter

Vertically scrolling shoot 'em ups have been around for some time and although there has been some goodies, they're not exactly high scoring in the originality stakes anymore. So, for a game to succeed in this format it must be good and have an original element, or it needs to be a conversion of a popular coin-op. Action Fighter is taken from the Sega arcade machine and has you in the driving seat of the latest transforming vehicle. It's a plane, it's a car, it's a motorbike - and it's your mission to destroy the enemy's attack force, both on the ground and in the air.

Play begins with you on a motorcycle that's equipped with Koni suspension, full fairing and a single machine gun. The manoeuvrability is very good from left to right and acceleration is as brisk as one would expect from a motorbike. It's remarkable similarity to a bike unfortunately extends to its complete lack of protection as you will find to your cost if something hits you from behind and bike and rider become a large patch of strawberry jam.

The roads you must follow in the beginning are populated with enemy cars, motorbikes and the odd ambulance. You must shoot the enemy and for every six that you vape, an icon labeled from A to E will float down the screen and by driving over it, you will light up the appropriate letter at the top of the screen as you pick up each 'part'. Collect four parts (labeled from A to D) and you can them change the bike into a car at the press of the spacebar. The car doesn't accelerate or handle like the bike but it is more resilient to the odd bash. So why not just stay as the car? Ah ha, well there's a helicopter that whirls onto the screen every now and again and it will try to destroy the car. Change back to the motorbike and it will sail past completely ignoring the scruffy little throttle jockey.

Every now and then a lorry marked SEGA will appear on the screen, mysteriously clearing the road of any enemy vehicles. This is a mobile mechanic with a difference. Pull up to the back of it with the car or the bike and it will draw your vehicle inside and attach double fire power, missiles, reverse firing or even a limited invulnerability. If you crash or are killed however it's back to spaz fire so it's a good idea to watch the indicator at the top of the screen that warns you how the road ahead is going to turn. When you see the Y shape it means the ramps are coming so watch out!

Once you've collected up to the F icon you turn automatically into the jet car. Once in the air, you fly at one of two speeds, beginning at crawler pace and speeding up when the flying bonus is collected. You continue on to your mission objective as given at the beginning of the stage, with target being either shot or bombed depending on their altitude. When flying, the mobile mechanic will still make the odd call to equip you with add-ons, but at this point they've traded in the lorry for a large helicopter.

Label: Kixx
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Cyril Herelle

It's Nigel Mansell in the last few miles of the race with only Piquet to beat, but Piquet refuses to give way. There's only one means of getting past, blow his hide into oblivion! Nigel releases his missiles and in a flash of light his foe explodes into a million tiny pieces. Nigel, as usual, is victorious. And why not, he has the eyebrows!

You've been sent on a mission by the President (God bless George Bush, he loves sending people on dodgy missions) to stop an enemy force from attacking. In fact Action Fighter doesn't really specify what you've got to stop these enemies attacking or what president you're actually defending, so you can make up something like, "you're on a mission to stop the evil forces of Ramsey Street from attacking Albert Square and it's great leader, President Dot Cotton." Yes, that should do it.

Shoot cars, bikes and helicopters in a helter skelter harem scarem racing shoot 'em up. Once you kill a certain number of enemies tokens come down from the heavens (it's a miracle I telly you), lettered from A to F. Collecting these tokens enables you to transform from a bike, to a car, to a flying car.

The graphics are monochrome (black and white), clear and simple except when you turn into a flying machine where everything turns blue and white and it gets very hard to see what's going on (I really don't like this section of the game). Sound is good with plenty of gun shots explosions and music to keep everyone happy. Which is precisely what Action Fighter should do for racing fans who want their lives spiced up a little.

ALAN:
A moderately enjoyable game which is spoiled by the flying car section, where bad graphics make it difficult to see bullets coming at you. It could still have some of you coming back for more though... Just like MacDonalds.

Firebird
Spectrum/C64 £9.99, ST £19.99

In the year 2029. thing's aren't as hunky-dory as people might have hoped. Far from the annihilation of the terrorist threat so apparent in the late 20th century, each of the world's fanatical groups have joined together in a bid to wipe out Western democracy and free trading. Oh dear. Sounds like it's time to call for the Action Fighter.

Five missions await completion in Firebird's conversion of Sega's rather obscure arcade game. The player begins by ripping up the road on a sleek, high-powered but vulnerable motorcycle. Every so often a letter of the alphabet wends its way down the screen, beginning with A and ending with F. Once all letters up to D have been collected, the motorbike transforms into an armoured car.

During this little ground-based excursion you're given the chance to drive into the trailers of passing Sega trucks, gaining extra weapons, rockets (to shoot down any passing enemy helicopters) and limited invincibility in the process. Once the letter F is picked up it's time to transform once more as you shoot off the end of a pier and become a jet fighter, aiming to destroy airborne attackers in a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up. At the end of this stage awaits your target, which you must eradicate before the President issues new orders.

The coin-op never really took arcadesters by storm, so why Firebird took on this licence beats me. As a game it's quite impressive in its own way , relying on playability rather than pretty pictures. The Spy Hunter-style gameplay is certainly addictive for a while and the transformation of game styles adds variety. Unfortunately the whole concept is too simple and, ever though play is tough, it doesn't really hold your interest for very long.