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OPERATION
SWORDFISH
British
Software, £9.95 cass, £11.95 disk, joystick with
keys
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O
Disappointing two-screen shmup |
The
advertising for this game may lead you to believe that
it's the greatest 3D naval battle since Beach Head.
Well, it isn't.
Operation
Swordfish puts you in command of a submarine with
the task of destroying the allied invasion fleet before
it attacks the Mediterranean coast. Your sub is slightly
crippled: it can't dive, only submerge slightly, so
you have to fight off the enemy on the surface.
There
are two types of enemy: planes and boats. Boats fire
at you and drop depth charges. Planes drop torpedoes
and also fire at you. If any of these hit you they will
add to your damage factor; too much and your sub will
sink for good.
A
plane zooms over and drops a depth charge
while ships start to move across the screen.
You
have two options to fend them off: a machine gun on
the top of the sub and torpedoes under water, each controlled
by a different screen -- you have to quickly switch
from one screen to the other so you can dispose the
allies before they sink you. The machine gun gets rid
of the advancing planes and the torpedoes destroy the
ships which move back and forth across the screen.
When
you're in torpedo mode you have a cursor under you control.
Move the cursor over a slow-moving ship and fire: boom,
glug glug. Shooting down planes is a bit more fun. Your
gun can move left and right. Pulling back on the joystick
raises the gun and pushing forward lowers it. Firing
a steady stream of bullets towards a plane usually brings
it down.
That's
it . . . it's all you have to do. Shoot the ships which
trundle back and forth across the screen and blast the
planes. Boring, huh? OK, so the game's far from easy
with your sub usually being sunk very quickly, but it
is so dull with only the two screens both containing
basically the same action.
JR
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