It's been quite a while now since Thunderforce III well and truly knocked everybody's socks off with its redrawing of the boundaries of what was and wasn't possible on the Mega Drive, but in all the time since its release nothing has really come along to better it. Until now, that is. Eager shoot-'em-up lovers the world over have been completely beside themselves with excitement as Thunderforce IV has drawn near, which is a good thing as at least it means they've all got someone to talk to. Now the waiting is over (as long as you've got a Japanese SCART Mega Drive, the only one which will run the game at the moment, that is), the question that's been on the Pet Shop Boys' lips has to be asked - was it worth it?

Well, before we answer that, let's see what you're actually getting here. Thunderforce IV brings you eleven (count 'em!) levels of high-speed, horizontally-scrolling, hard as nails shoot-'em-up action. In most of them there's a cheeky little hint of verticality to the scroll too, as the stages are roughly two screens high, which means that you can weave around a bit and simply avoid many of the baddies by moving to a bit of the screen where they, rather dimly, can't apparently see you. Perhaps they should invest a few quid in a couple of sets of wing mirrors instead of some of the ridiculously huge weaponry that they have to lug around the sky.

Talking of weaponry, you've got some pretty crap stuff at the start (so what's new?), but picking up icons from destroyed nasties gives you etc etc. You can have up to five different kinds of gun at any one time, selectable at the touch of a button, and when you die you only lose the one that was actually in use at the time. You can also select the speed your ship moves at - a press of the 'A' button cycles through 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of full tilt, while holding it down allows you to move up by 1% at a time, just in case you feel that, say, 53% is your absolute optimum speed. Continuing the theme of selectability, you can also choose to tackle the first four levels in any order you like, but beyond these little tweaks we're talking about shoot-'em-up business as usual. Time, methinks, for some nitty gritty...

Thunderforce IV is one of the best three Mega Drive shoot-'em-ups ever. To be exact, it's the third one. The fact that it stands head and shoulders above most of the competition is, sadly, only due to the utter crapness of most of the competition. But let's not take anything away from it - for a start, we're most assuredly looking at the Mega Drive's most beautiful graphics yet. Huge, bold, dramatic landscapes are the order of the day, with the desert backdrop of the third level being particularly stunning. Ground-based enemies scuttle below the surface, popping up only to fire at you and then diving back down and burrowing off somewhere else like something out of Dune.

While this is going on a sandstorm is whipping across the entire screen, obscuring enemy attacks and creating a real atmosphere of frenzied confusion. Later on you'll fly across the surface of a beautiful sea whith God knows how many layers of parallax, or peel off into the sky to marvel at some beautiful cloud cover which changes colour as the level progresses.

The gorgeousness of the backdrops, though, only serves to make the enemies themselves all the more disappointing. Not a single one has any character about it, everything is just shapeless blobs of colour which look like they could have been taken from any shoot-'em-up of the last three years. It's really hard to get worked up about an alien meanie when it looks (like every other alien meanie in the game) like a really badly coloured-in cream cake, no matter how many big guns are bristling from it. The same criticism can be levelled at the actual attacks of the aliens - most of them simply appear out of nowhere without warning making progress through the game more a matter of learning and remembering where to sit than something which depends on any application of skill.

So, the little aliens are crap. But what about the big ones? Well, they're no different, really, in that they're also all completely featureless and lifeless, but more importantly they don't flash when you hit them, which means you can be flying around one until you grow a beard, pumping all manner of hot laser death at it without doing the slightest bit of damage. Since the ships are such big empty blobs of nothingness anyway, it's not usually logically obvious which bit you SHOULD be shooting at, which turns the whole palaver into a real test of endurance.

And then there's the music. Good God, the music's horrible. Aimless, twittery, Japanese meanderings of the style they appear to think symbolizes some kind of 'rock', which attempts to convey excitement simply by being really fast. It's utterly dismal, it really is.

But hey! Let's not be all nasty and negative about this. If the purpose of a game is to impress your friends and provide a couple of weeks of slavish dedication (I was going to use the word 'fun', but it isn't, not in any sense of the word 'fun' that I care to recognise) before completion (which then leaves you conveniently free to buy the next one), then Thunderforce IV serves that purpose exceptionally well. It's just that, really, beneath the surface, it's a crap game. Sure, it's better than lots of other crap games, but so what? Be honest with yourself.

GRAPHICS 10

SOUND 4

GAMEPLAY 5

ADDICTION 8

Technically amazing, but the only amazing thing about the game underneath all the flash is how bog-standard it is. Aero Blasters and Hellfire stomp all over it, with big boots on.

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