Still waiting for a decent shoot-'em-up to appear on the Coupe? Don't blame you. We've had Sphera (giggle) and, erm, that's about it. But wait! Here comes Parallax - a twelve-level horizontally-scrolling MODE 4 (ie 16 colour) blaster with multiple attack waves, end-of-level guardians, power-ups and just about everything else the ancient Speccy game Sidewize had. Oops... yup, Parallax is, in fact, a Sidewize-alike (except with a dinky spaceship instead of the suited space blokey). It suffers from exactly the same problems as that venerable game - it's ridiculously difficult, being more a test of memory than anything else (you have to know the safe spots on-screen for each of the attack waves); you only get a power-up when you destroy an entire wave; and you lose all your power-ups when you die. The game also throws in some new hassles of its own. Okay, a multiload is nothing new, but this one's so slow you get an embarrassed loading counter. And when you finally battle through to a guardian and defeat it, there's no big rewarding explosion, just a bit of screen flash. And the parallax scrolling of the title is a mite disconcerting - whenever you change direction, it does too. Makes a fellow quite queasy. (Ulp.)
    
Reflex tester
Right, let's move onto the good points. I loved Sidewize to death (I still think it's one of the Speccy's best ever shoot-'em-ups) and I had a fairly good time playing Parallax. It's a tough test of the old reflexes, and there's a clever option at the beginning whereby you choose the power-ups you're going to collect in the game. The graphics are small but neat, bursting with colour and very smooth, and the music is repetitively passable: a fine backdrop to an instantly playable but un-addictive game. The trouble is, with all its bells and whistles, Parallax has neither the style nor the variety of Sidewize - the waves get very samey and there are far too many of 'em before you reach a guardian. Before ever so long, you're reaching for dear Mr Reset Button and giving him a firm press. In the short term, it's fun. In the long term, you'll still be waiting for a decent shoot-'em-up to appear on the Coupe.