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### G-Force Preview [PC]

#### www.merseyremakes.co.uk

#### Previewed By J. Monkman

G-Force is a work in progress title created solely by Oddbob of the highly prolific Mersey Remakes team, and is basically an enhanced remake of the Spectrum port of the Atari's arcade classic 'Tempest'. After spending literally hours playing Thorsten Kuphaldt's excellent Typhoon 2001 I must admit that I was feeling that I'd recently overdone the whole Tempest thing, but Oddbob's 2D version is so unlike the arcade original in many respects that it plays like a totally new game.

Due for release any time now (in fact, knowing my luck it'll probably be finished before this issue of RGCD), G-Force is shaping up to be an absolutely cracking game. It's worth noting, however, that Oddbob has recently given his remake a graphical re-work (which is why the screen shots here conflict with the actual graphics of the preview version included on disc), giving the game a far more abstract look in comparison to its previously pixellated retro-chaos. Although it's not a direction I'd have chosen for the game, I'm sure that with Oddbob at the helm the new look will have absolutely no detrimental effect on the game-play - which is fundamentally what G-Force is all about.

All the elements from the original Tempest are here (aside from the missing third dimension) and the game predictably sees you battling against a relentless onslaught of flippers, tankers and pulsars in pretty much the same way as the arcade version. However, Oddbob has cranked up the psychedelic-meter all the way to eleven, with so much going on in his re-interpretation that it is often near impossible to actually see what you are shooting at. Whereas in any other game this would be a bad thing, it all adds to the fun in G-Force, which is quite simply the most OTT shoot 'em up I've ever played.

As well as the frantic combat making your eyes hurt, the game spits out ridiculous lines of surreal Minter-esque text on-screen with every explosion - and whilst these have absolutely no relevance to the game, it's clearly a tongue-in-cheek homage to the Atari Jaguar version (but replacing Jeff Minter's oh-so-90's 'dude' and 'wicked' with lines such as 'um bongo', 'jazz club' and 'win a speedboat').

Complete with responsive joypad support, distorted robot speech-samples and a thumping techno soundtrack to annoy the neighbours, G-Force is a game that I'm really looking forward to and it's particularly refreshing to see a bit of daft-humour and graphical-stupidness injected into an otherwise sober genre.

(Note that since writing this review a third preview of the game has been released. This is also included alongside the previous two previews on disc).