by John Haley
Swoop is the soon to be released addition to Ambrosia's collection of digitally remastered arcade games. Authored by David Wareing, of Seacliff Australia, Swoop brings the exciting game play that Ambrosia fans lust for to the Macintosh once again. With Ambrosia's extensive product support, Swoop will be backed up by full time technical service, professionally duplicated media, and a simplified registration scheme. This continues Ambrosia's commitment to bringing commercial quality software to you on shareware terms.

The Good

Here is your technical briefing. You are at the helm of a George Pal class space ship, assigned to fend off the alien horde.

Your technicians have learned well from the Shenobi wars. The George Pal fighter is state of the art death dealer. But is it enough...

The George Pal class ship is equipped with the following defensive systems:

Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. With the Cloaking device your George Pal fighter is concealed from the hungry Swoopers.

Your punch is made a little stronger with the following weapons:

Standard Issue Bullet -- Plenty available, but you'll need better.

Dynamic Duo -- Two shots for the price of one. Bargain!

Warmaker -- Triple action -- death comes to town.

And when the going gets tough, the tough pull out a bigger gun:

Gravemaker -- Spits bullets out, includes a free set of steak knives.

Peacemaker -- Provides wide area coverage and carnage.

Tactical Nuke -- Don't leave home without it.

The Bad

The alien formations hovering over your position are made up of a wide variety of galactic thugs. Although some are relatively tame, most are downright despicable. Click on the following mug shots for the low down on who is who.

Green Grunt -- Not real smart by nature, but count 'em.

Blue Grunt -- Cannon fodder. Shoot in flight for double points.

Toady Ecsort -- Imperial suckups. Dangerous in groups.

Imperial Flagship -- Attack leader. Worth big points and new weaponry.

Shadow Swooper -- Not sure what it does, but it looks evil.

The Ugly

Like sharks drawn to blood, the heat of your space battle will soon attract a few predators that are on neither side, and only interested in a good fight or a good meal. Since the Swoop formation is many, and you are but one; you are the one invited to dinner.

Failsafe Class Bombing Drone -- You had better be wearing waterproof pants.

Let this one get by you and you're lunch meat.

Enough about the players, here are some shots of the action, complete with sound effects (click on the picture). Wow, lucky this guy is in shield mode; he took one right on the nose...

Those triple action shots do some heavy damage on the flying beasties; but it does not look like it will be enough. That Failsafe Class Bombing Drone is laying it on as thick as peanut butter.

Swoop is in the final stages of beta testing, and should be uploaded to your favorite online watering hole in April.