SIDEWINDER Another great all-action shoot-em-up as you fly your craft into the giant Alien Star Killer craft in an orgy of destruction, until you reach the final apocalyptic climax on the Control Level of the craft where everything on the screen is a target to be shot. Digitized sound and graphics, truly addictive gameplay makes this stunning arcade conversion one of the best ever gameware releases. INITIAL BRIEFING The war had reached stalemate, across the vast expanses of space the giant space navies faced one another, both equally destructive, equally massive, the largest armies ever raised. Yet neither side could establish any superiority. The battle lines ebbed and flowed across a narrow band of space as each side attacked and counter attacked in turn. The planets in the war zone turned to blackened wrecks as they were captured and recaptured by each side in turn. Then it came. Flying on a course of its own, unprotected by other craft, flying out of the aliens lines towards Earth. A single huge craft the size of a planet. This was the famed "Star Killer". Along with the craft came the propaganda, reports filtered back of the destruction caused when the star killer collided with a sun, plunging deep into the fiery depths to send it supernove destroying its complete system. Of course all of the fire power of Earth's fleet was concentrated on the Star Killer. However nothing seemed to affect it. Being the size of a small planet it could generate force fields far more powerful than those of the largest conventional battle-cruiser, and the laser cannon and meson torpedoes had as much affect as a gnat bite. Eventually a tiny flaw in the Leviathan's defences was spotted. It was found that single seater fighter craft could penetrate through the Star Killer's docking system and enter the heart of the craft. Once inside it was hoped that they could survive the craft's internal defence systems for long enough to reach the centre of the craft and destroy it before it reached Earth. It would need immense flying skill to penetrate through the craft. The scans taken of the craft with X-rays and other imageing devices showed that it was made up of layers. The pilot would have to make his way through each layer in turn, until at last he reached the control level at the heart of the craft. of course with the pilot trapped in the centre of the Star Killer, there is no certainty that he would survive the explosion. The mission must therefore be classed as suicidal. Only volunteers are required to man the fighters in the final attack wave. Any pilot who steps forward is certain to be remembered as a hero. However there will be no blame placed on any man who remains in line. Remember this, however, the craft must be stopped or there will not be an Earth to return home to after this war. So if you are thinking of your wife and family then think again. Now on the word of command will all volunteers step forward. FINAL BRIEFING Welcome heroes, all of Earth will be watching your attempts. To maximise your chances of success we have collated all the information that we have managed to gather from our scans regarding the levels within the Star Killer. These are set out below. Read them carefully before you start your mission. You enter the craft through the waste water vent. This takes you to the water distribution level. You need to fly through this level to the gates at the far end. The gates are the only way of moving from one level to the other. You need to be careful when passing through the gates as contact with the walls will be fatal. You must continue your progress through the ship, passing across the hydroponics level, the residential level, the flight deck, the command level until you finally reach the control level. Destruction of the control level results in the destruction of the ship. POWER PACKS There are four types of power packs that you can collect while within the ship. These appear as square tiles marked with a letter. They are: R - Rapid Fire, hold down the fire button and you will fire continuously at maximum rate. P - Power Shots, these destroy any target with a single hit. As certain targets can take fifteen shots to kill, this is a very powerful aid. G - Ghost, this turns your ship semi-transparent and makes you invulnerable to enemy shots. H - Hover, this stops your forward progress through the ship, allowing you to hit targets that you would not otherwise be able to destroy. However be careful which of these you take as you can become a target for concentrated enemy fire. Power pills last for around fifteen seconds or two screens. ALIENS There are five different types of alien interceptor craft. These take only one hit to kill. However the large craft appear in greater number and have more devastating fire power. 1 Scout = 200 points 2 Raider = 400 points 3 Lancer = 600 points 4 Raider = 800 points 5 Blitzer = 1000 points SPINNERS - These are large passive air defence craft. They are worth 800 points if killed. GROUND CRAFT Crawlers appear from level 2 the hydroponics farm. A single hit disables these and a second finally blows them up scoring 400 points. Walkers take three hits to kill and are worth 600 points. Hover craft appear from level four and are worth 800 points. There are also various stationary targets on the ground. Buildings take varying amounts of hits to kill depending on the amount of armour they have. These are worth 200 points per hit when finally killed. There are gun emplacements buried in the 'ground'. These can only be shot when they are open and are worth 1000 points. The further into the craft you are the more hits these will require to kill. Mouth can only be hit when fully open, and then they fire rapidly at you, these are also worth 1000 points. On the first level you will be given extra bonus points. This reflects the fact that you are not used to flying in the difficult conditions of the Star Killer craft. You will be rewarded with an extra ship at 50,000 and every 100,000 points thereafter, i.e. 150,000, 250,000 etc. LOADING INSTRUCTIONS Insert Kickstart disk if required. At request for Workbench disk, insert program disk. Program will load and run automatically. CONTROLS Use a joystick in Port 2. Press ESC to pause or unpause. OPTIONS When you boot the game you will see the title screen if no key is pressed the game will go into a demo mode. Any keypress will start play. At the start of play you select the difficulty level. You will be given a list of difficulties to choose from. Select the level at which you want to play by pressing the appropriate key, or using the joystick to move the cursor and pressing fire to select. These are: 1) Beginner 2) Novice 3) Pilot 4) Ace 5) Master You can change difficulty at any time by pressing F1, this pauses the game and returns you to the selection screen. Once you have altered the selection you will return to the point where you paused play. =============================================================================== Sidewinder docs brought to you by The Southern Star.