Maker - NCS Masaiya   Catalogue No. - T-25073

Type - Horizontal Shooting

When I was a teenager I thought Hellfire was a load of crap. My mind boggled as to why magazines such as Mean Machines (British magazine) gave the game such high praise in 1990. 17 years later I buy the game again and have to say it’s bloody fantastic ! The music seems to run a lot slower than I remember for some reason but that doesn’t effect the game play. Graphically it still looks pretty good with it’s big sprites and loads on screen. Slowdown is only present at the busiest of times and even then it’s minimal. One of the main playability points of Hellfire in the weapon system. Your ship is equipped with a 4 way switchable system enabling you to fire ahead, behind, above & below and in a 4 way diagonal pattern. The slight downside is that you have to shuffle though each weapon type until you find the one you want. However I find that while this can be a pain in the arse at times it also adds to the style of the playability making things a lot more “on the edge” if you will.

There’s no denying that Hellfire is a hard game. It’s one of those games that seem a doodle until you loose all of your power ups. This is one of the games down points but Hellfire being well…. Hellfire, you’ll want to try and gain back your power ups in order to see what marvels await you in the next level.

A classic shooter guaranteed to keep the real shooting fan happy but maybe a little too tough for the novice player.