Quite an original game, there are only one a few games out there that use two screens on top of each other at the same time! (Gundam Space Centurion)We all know the concept of Zaxxon, in this game you again fly your plane to shoot everything in your path, although the enemy is not called Zaxxon now, but you are. You can fly your plane to the left or the right, the effect of lowering your plane to the ground (which places your plane in the lowered screen) works great, simply because your plane is really physically lower to your eye than when it's in the upper screen, this effect can't even be mimicked today by a Playstation 2 on your TV screen! Having said all this, the game is a bit too difficult, from the first few seconds of playing you get the distinct impression that the speed of the oncoming enemies is more suited for some of the later levels...
Upper screen
In the
first 'space stage' you simply fight oncoming fighter planes, while admiring
a meteor storm to the right, which is pure scenery. Your plane stays in the
same position to the lower left and the screen scrolls from the top right to
the lower left, but that was to be expected since it's Zaxxon...
Lower screen
In
the next stage you will have to drop bombs (which are dropped with a different
button) on the installations below you while walls flash by you to the left
and the right. You can only drop a bomb when you are in the lower screen. A
small shadow, which was obviously not visible in the 'space stage', is even
shown now, just like we know from all the Zaxxon versions!
Later on, both stages, and screens, are mixed, although your plane can always move between the two screens. The clever design of using two screens at the same time sometimes creates effects that leaves you wondering how they've managed to fit all the sprite crystals in only two screens...having said that, the simultaneous use of two screens makes it too difficult to see if an enemy or a missile is actually going to hit you, maybe that explains why there were only few games which used this concept. For some reason the upper screen has distinctive lighter crystals than the lower (this is not just because of the quality of the picture) maybe that was done to make it a little bit clearer which sprite is on which screen.
Overall it's really a pity that this game is much too difficult, which could easily have been better balanced if the speed of the game would have been lower, but still an original and great game in my book!