Ho ho ho. I remember when Game Over I came out, it was named Game Oo-er, on account of it's nawty cover picture and poster ad. Hee hee hee. Well, Game Over II is it's slobberful and eyeboggling sequel and boy does it look good!

Originally to be entitled Phantis, Oo-er II is a splenditious shoot 'em up in the great Dinamic tradition, featuring 10 levels of sharp shooting action, with two different loads, and many, many, different ways to splat and get splatted. You begin in Phase One by scrolling across a starfield, being pounced on by enemy ships and heading towards the surface of the planet. When you get there it's into Phase Two, where you skim the surface of the planet and avoid the gobs of volcanic splodge which belch out of the ground and threaten to fry your ship to a bag of just-cooked crisps.

Next it's underground for the Scramble/R-Type section of the game. You whip through a cavern inhabited by gribbly aliens and mechanical monsters, where you have the added problem of a roof which dips down to scratch the paint on the top of your ship and ruffle your haircut. There's a lot of big slimy caterpillars which wind through the tunnels, and you have to kill the head before you can pick off the bits of it's body. Then it's on to Phase Four, where you land on the planet itself, jump onto one of things to pulp with your photonic blade.

After completing Phase Four, you're presented with a code number which takes you into load number two, and a whole new set of hazards. The six levels on the new load take you down a level at a time into the bowels of the planet, first on the surface, then the alien base, the underground forest (huh?), the inner lake, over the magma level in a little helicopter, and finally to the prison level where you must solve the final puzzle to finish the game.

Sequels don't usually turn me on much, it has to be said, but this is a nice fast and furious blasterama, extremely slickly programmed, which deserves a look if you like your games on the violent side.

This game is going to sell like hot cakes, for the free poster inside if nothing else, but I don'tt think it's quite as original as it could have been. But hey, if you want a bit of exercise for your trigger finger rather than the thing that keeps your ears apart and a rather nawty glossy free poster... THEN GO FOR IT!


RATING

GRAPHICS: 9
PLAYABILITY: 8
VALUE FOR MONEY: 8
ADDICTIVENESS: 8
TOTAL: 8