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Another great conversion of a classic arcade game on the ZX Spectrum. Flying Shark was released very early 1988 by Firebird Software and developed by the same guys behind the excellent Zynaps.

The Taito coin-op had been a popular choice down the amusement arcades - and was similar to the other classic arcade shoot em up 1942.

Anyway - this shoot em up was a top down view vertical scroller (top to bottom of the screen) and had you as an ace pilot on a lone mission within enemy territory. Dun dun daaahhh!

Piloting your WWII Bi-Plane across the landscape you had ground based gun emplacement and tanks taking pot shots at you - and they were pretty damn accurate too.

Enemy squadrons of planes would swoop across the screen and try to take you out, so you had airborne and ground enemies to avoid and destroy.

Luckily though your plane was armed with a machine gun/cannon that had limitless ammo (A-Team style!) which could be powered up to a 'double barrelled' gun by collecting the floating tokens left behind by downed enemy aircraft.

You also had a supply of bombs which blew everything on screen away which were handy if you found yourself in a tight spot. These bombs were in short supply and had to be used wisely - but more could be collected as you flew along.

At the end of each level you would have to take on a boss enemy (such as giant multi-turreted tanks) which required a bucket load of hits to destroy.

Chocks Away old chap! Flying Shark - ZX Spectrum
You began the game with three lives and more could be earned by scoring lots of points. There were five levels to play through with each one being different from the last.

The levels ranged from jungle type terrain to war over the sea against destroyers and battleships.

The game took a monochromatic style (probably sensible on the Speccy) which gave it smooth scrolling and nicely detailled graphics. It was a good conversion of the arcade game and was nicely playable - tough but not impossible.

One annoying aspect was the fact that the enemy bullets sometimes blended into the background (due to the monochrome graphics) which did make me loose my cool on more than a few occasions. Ahem.

Still - Flying Shark was a good arcade conversion and was only a little short of being a classic in the shoot em up genre.

On Release:
Well Flying Shark was a fairly popular arcade game and this was a good version on the Speccy. A few issues with the graphics aside (which did affect the playability a little) Flying Shark was a competent game that was a good game for shoot em up fans.

The test of time:
As far as Spectrum Games go, Flying Shark is a decent enough shooter. Hard (but not impossible) to defeat with responsive controls, it is playable enough. Can anyone dis-assemble it and make the enemy bullets easier to see? ;-)

Play Flying Shark again - it's still got a bit of bite.

Please see our other Spectrum Games reviews and programmer interviews - all links are in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

We recommened downloading a ZX Spectrum Emulator and downloading Flying Shark for the Spectrum. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

GENRE: Scrolling Arcade Game
RELEASE DATE: Early 1988
RELEASED BY: Firebird
DEVELOPER(S): John Cumming and Dominic Robinson
PRICE: £7.95 - UK

In Firebird's latest Taito coin-op conversion, the player gets the chance to take to the skies in the Flying Shark, a World War II biplane, and fly a solo mission into enemy territory.

The action is played over a vertically scrolling backdrop, with squadrons of enemy fighters flying in to attack from the top of the screen. The ground is littered with gun emplacements, and tanks and ships attempt to blast you out of the sky with a volley of well-aimed shots.

The Flying Shark is equipped with a double-barrelled gun and an unlimited supply of ammunition to blast the enemy. The firepower is increased when the floating symbol dropped occasionally by the last aeroplane in a squadron is collected. To supplement the guns are a limited supply of smart bombs which destroy everything on screen.

There are five levels to conquer, with further levels including confrontations above the high seas against missile-spitting battle ships and patrol boats.

The player starts off with a fleet of three planes, and extra ones are earned at 50,000 and 150,000 points, and for every 150,000 points thereafter.



CRITICISM
'Flying Shark is certainly a fast shoot-'em-up, and boats plenty of action - but I did find the small playing area and the monochromatic graphics a little off-putting. Another annoying point is the fact that the attack patterns never vary from game to game, though to be fair there's far too many to memorise. Still, if you like shoot-'em-ups, give Flying Shark a go'
BEN ... 82%

'Authors Cumming and Robinson must have rattled this one off at a fair pace! It seems like only yesterday that these two were coming out with 'original' games at Hewson. They may have lost their originality at Firebird, but they've still come out with a superbly playable and terribly addictive game. The action is fast and the graphics attractive, and the only thing lacking is a decent tune. The Graftgold /Firebird combination seems to have worked.'
PAUL ... 85%

'I've never seen the arcade game, but if this conversion is anything to go by, the coin-op must be something special. Firebird have put together a marvellous game, which looks and plays very much like 1942, with the objective being to advance as far forward as possible and shoot every object that moves. One minor annoyance is that plane is the same colour as the surroundings, but nevertheless that niggle doesn't stop Flying Shark being one of the best arcade conversions I've ever played.'
DAVE ... 87%

COMMENTS
Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: extremely detailed monochrome objects with smoothly-scrolling background.
Sound: effective gunshot and explosion noises
Options: definable keys
General Rating: Another great shoot-'em-up from the Robinson/Cumming partnership.

Presentation 81%
Graphics 80%
Playability 85%
Addictiveness 89%
Overall 85%

By jove I enjoyed that. In fact I enjoyed it so much my joystick's all hot and sticky. I'll have to let it cool down before I dare go back and do it again. Do what? Why, play Flying Shark of course - what did you think I was talking about?
I'll gather my wits while I write this review. One... two... three. Right, that's my wits gathered in, now on with the comments. Flying Shark is Firebird's coin-op conversion of Taito's arcade favourite, which I haven't seen 'cos I stay here writing reviews while everyone else goes down the arcades to check out what's happening. Trouble is, they never come back, and with games like this around I can see why.
It's a vertical scrolling shoot-'em-up in the style of earlier raves of mine like Slap Fight and Moon Strike where the action's non-stop. You're a lone fighter pilot and you have to blast your way through five levels of enemy forces, with a quick breather when you touch down on the runways in-between levels. That's if you make it that far, of course. The first level is mainly over jungle, with tanks and gun emplacements on the ground, and planes buzzing round in the air like manic mozzies. Your firepower's pretty hot, however, and I do like these games where you can belt your way to a decent score right from the off rather than being wiped out in the first ten seconds. Or maybe it's just the way I jiggle my joystick.
At the end of the first level there's a massive tank which took me about a dozen games and a lot of joystick-jiggling to get past. I was then confronted with action over the oceans where the planes and gun-boats and battle ships soon converted my Flying Shark into the sea-bound variety.
On your side, you've got three lives, with each life having three smart bombs. These wipe out all the enemy on the screen when used, as smart bombs should. There are bonus bombs to be earned in the shape of letter B's that you might sometimes find under a wiped-out tank or elsewhere, and you can also increase your fire-power by flying into one of the circling S's that appear occasionally. The first of these gives you a double-barrel blast, then a triple-blast, and so on... though I've never picked up more than two before being deaded. If you manage to wipe out all the enemy on the screen while your '1-Up' symbol flashes, you can also gain bonus points, and you've got to make it to 50,000 before you get your first extra plane.
The graphics are great, very smooth, and it's almost worth crashing into an enemy plane just to see the way you both twirl down to the ground. Well, it's worth doing once. Programming's by Dominic Robinson, and the music by Steve Turner is so teriffically-fabby-groovy-cool it seems a shame to start the game sometimes. You can use joysticks in profusion or the redefinable keyboard in one or two-player mode. A neat little touch is the way the high-score table remembers your initials so you don't have to retype them each and every time. And that's the end of the news. This is Mike Gerrard, Your Sinclair, with a sticky joystick.

Graphics: 9
Playability: 9
Value for Money: 9
Addictiveness: 9
OVERALL: 9

Mike Gerrard