Left in the dust-cloud of Super Hang-On we look for our next game in the Your Sinclair Top 100 and it’s delivered to us from FTL (Faster Than Light) at No.#26 in the form of the extremely colourful Light Force.
Light Force is a vertical shooter or as the kids call them today a shmup, which I’ll be honest sounds ridiculous! Arriving on the shelves in 1986 from Greg Follis, Roy Carter who also were behind such classics as Dun Darach and Hydrofool. Your play a Terran pilot of the Light Force and the Regulus system is being attacked by unnamed aliens. It’s down to you alone to wipe these invading scum from this system, for the honour of the Galactic Fighter Command and for the innocent souls in the Regulus System.
In truth as with all shooters, I could skip the story and the inlay card could read, “You need to shoot those sods in front of you!”, for I only discovered there was a story after I’d blasted the heck out of the game a fair few times.
Light Force is a fantastic game; it’s rare to find a ZX Spectrum game that uses so much colour and at the same time has so much speed behind it too. Something seriously lacking from this game seems to be colour clash, which again is surprising as our Spectrums were famous for this. Yes there is a minor amount of it but it’s barely noticeable. There is a minor couple of negatives like the ship tears on movement, along with this the screen can become extremely busy with the onslaught of colour, everything can become suddenly confusing – but as said these are minor.
To miss out on playing Light Force is a crime against classic gaming, so when you get a minute or two to yourself you need to load it up.
Originally published August 2, 2016. Updated October 25, 2022.
