Commodore Amiga

Raider

The fact is that Raider is that old 64 budget classic Thrust with a bit more colour and a few more levels. After plunging into the game, it's made clear that you have to shoot out all the fortifications and pick up a cog-like pod on each of the four star systems and then fly through a powerplant to deposit them. This boils down to a great deal of fiddly frustration as you try to negotiate flak and rock outcrops whilst battling with gravitational pull from the planet. Thrust Raider is controlled from the keyboard, something of an anachronism in this day and age for a game methinks, especially when the mouse could have done the job equally well. The sound effects do not help, whilst the graphics look, as someone put it 'as if they were knocked up on D Paint in ten minutes'. It's not that Raider has no appeal, the original gameplay can still hold your attention for a while, and it's fiendishly difficult too.