Game:

Flying Shark (1987)

Category:

Review

Duration: 12:33

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Huge playlist archive with Kempston Mouse games: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxOanVBhqd3tM1Ov2sGHI177WdlY0wali
INTRODUCTION (From the manual):
The fight is coming to an end and it doesn't look good for our side. High command have recalled you, the great combat ace, to fly a lone mission against overwhelming odds, to win this desperate battle and ultimately, save mankind.

We're all depending on you, so best of luck.

REVIEW:
Classic scenario in this shoot em up – You, all by yourself, against the whole enemy army! This is not a very impressive conversion. Only half the screen is used, monochrome graphics, and only 48k sound in a game from 1987, despite Lightforce had been released as a full screen full color game in 1986, showing how to make a vertical shooter on the Spectrum, and maybe also Xen (also full color) that also came out in 1987. Except for the Amstrad CPC version that was a Spectrum port, all the other versions was full screen. Most of the other versions also had in game music, so why not make use of the AY chip and also have in game music in this version?

The game starts up pretty decent, and the enemy bullets has been made quite big, so you have a chance for seeing them in the monochrome graphics, but as the game proceeds and things toughens up, this will be a problem, because when you have to fly over the ships that are heavily armed with cannons that fires a lot of cannonballs, there is not very much space for maneuvers on the small screen in this version, and the chances for being hit by a cannonball you did not see is very big.

The game played is a special Kempston Mouse version made by Velesoft and it playes very well, you can move by the speed of lightning, and fire bullets as quick as you can click on the mouse button, so if you like this game you should check this version out!

The game was published by Firebird Software Ltd in 1987.

Rating:
Original version: 75%
Unofficial Kempston Mouse version: 80%

If you do not have a Kempston Mouse for your Spectrum you can play the game in an emulator that supports Kempston Mouse and play it with your PC mouse.

Original version: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games/f/FlyingShark.tap.zip
Unofficial Kempston Mouse version: https://velesoft.speccy.cz/kmouse/kmvelesoft/flyingshark-km.zip