Dan Dare 2

Copyright : Virgin Games | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

The evil Mekon has returned and this time he wants to take revenge on Dan for foiling his plans in the the first place. Intent on killing all human kind with his new breed of aliens and technology.

Once again the posh hero from England is sent to sort him out, grab your suit and space bike and foil those plans once again, our lives depend on it.

Graphics

The original game was enough to blow your socks off but not enough to knock you off your seat, well Dan Dare 2 will certainly have knocked you flying when it was originaly released as this has to be one of the best looking shooters ever to hit the CPC.

Once again the developers keep the colours used on the background to a minimum to give the extra impact of being in space and the fact that space crafts are very dull places indeed but they certainly went all out with detail.

Most of the colour has been used on our lead characters and those that attack us, the animation is second to none and even though its hard to believe, it doesn?t suffer from the usual slow down bugs featured in other games. VERY well done indeed.

Sound

Once again the developers have missed the point and not given us CPC users and music to listen to at the start or during the game itself. However the sound effects are pretty nice indeed and fit perfectly with the game genre. Again, nothing to write about but still, very good.

Gameplay

Dan Dare 2 is not only better in terms of looks but in gameplay too. In the sequel you can either play as Dan OR the evil Mekon and therefore either save mankind of kill the lot of us - which is something we have all thought about doing at some point.

Unlike the original this isn?t a platformer, you will be boarding a space bike and have to navigate around the corridors of Mekons space craft while shooting the bad guys as you go. Obviously this isn?t an easy thing to do as you are constantly trying to maintain control over the spacebike, however it?s also not as difficult as some other thrust type shooters and once you get used to it you forget what all the fuss was about.

The game looks good, it plays good and it certainly is a blast. Grab Dan Dare 2 now!