SWIV

Title           SWIV
Game Type       Shoot-em-up
Players         1 or 2
HD Installable	Yes (With Patch)
Compatibility   A500 (All With Patch)
Submission      Mike West

Review
 As helicopter shoot'em ups go, this has to be one of the best. Looking
down from a birds eye view, the first thing to strike you is the detail of
the terrain that you are flying or driving over. Graphically, this is
really nice to look at. You fly up the screen with the background
scrolling downwards. You basically have to stop the waves of helicopters,
tanks, rockets and numerous other objects from getting past.....even
trains with carriages try to get across the screen, and they will all blow
up!

 At certain points in the game, the boss craft tries to form in front of
you. Kill it or be killed! If you destroy it, power-ups appear which you
can shoot to change to one of three differing types. (Banshee players will
have seen the same technique).The maximum five shots at once, sprayed in a
sweeping arc is very satisfying. Sometimes you release a force-bubble, use
it or shoot it to great effect.

 The game becomes very intense with loads of action happening all at once,
so you need to be pretty quick off the mark. When the game ends, your shot
accuracy is shown, a high score if you're lucky but my own favourite is
the percentage of the game completed although I've only ever managed 54%!
(An invulnerability cheat does exist but isn't that a bit pointless?)

 As you progress, differing backgrounds scroll past, all nice to look at.
At points you just start to feel totally overwhelmed by seemingly so many
craft coming at you all at the same time, let them past you though and
there's no going back for them but watch out for any creeping back around.

 If you don't want the helicopter, you can also drive a jeep which I
always find quite difficult to control once the action hots up although
playing this with a mate is a great laugh. Another nice touch is when you
come to water, you hop into a little waiting boat to get across. When you
steer to the next landmass, you then convert back to the jeep.

 This is a great game, one I liked as soon as the first time I played it
many moons ago; a real top ten classic in my view. When I first got my
A1200, I was pretty horrified to find this as being one of the games that
stubbornly would not play however much I tried to degrade. A massive
thankyou to Bert (WHDLoad) and Mr.Larmer for the patch to make it install
on the A1200. Eventually, I actually bought my A500 back and this game was
the first to go on it!!!!

 Between this and it's brother Silkworm, as much as I like Silkworm, this
is my favourite. If you haven't got this, it's available from Alive as
part of a compilation, a superb game and well worth having.

Alphabetical list.