After announcing this game early past year as the best of 2009 for retro systems, I played it a lot after writting a review, because this game didn't deserve to be dispatched quickly.

The beginnings of Helmet date back to early 2008 when na_th_an presented it in the development forums or CEZ GS. I was immediately excited with lots of colors showed by the Speccy (or the emulator where I executed it) and the fact that finally an action game will be created by the retro scene, becoming one of my favorite projects.

The goal is to traverse a series of four levels in an isolated spot after the war, and rescue forty hostages (ten in each level), shooting right and left while avoiding the automatic defense systems (you can get life shooting to the turrets).

The graphics are great and colorful, reminding the classic 'Dan Dare'. The protagonist has a rectangular black mask around but it doesn't distort the beauty of the pictures, and scenarios are also full of details, but only vary from level to level, and perhaps can be a bit repetitive.
ULA64 technology is incorporated, which allows you to display a different color palette than the original of the Spectrum (I'm not very familiar with the system, but I guess it doesn't work with all emulators).

The music is great too. It sounds different pieces in each level without getting tired at any time, assuming a great accompaniment to the development of our mission.

The gameplay is also good. You can loose energy so fast, but is true that destroying the turrets give us a new counter full of energy. The main difficulty is to rescue some of the hostages, due to the place where they have been placed, but the mobile enemies or turrets should not represent more difficult if we measure our energy needs well.

In resume, I don't know if it was the best of 2009 (La Corona Encantada also has something to say), but it is a real great game, with an excellent technical development, which has filled up all my expectations.