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Many positive stories evolved from our lockdown situation from earlier on in the year; this particular reviewer decided to lose some gamers' bellyfat. Learning to code for the Spectrum, however, would have required me to endure a lifetime of lockdowns to achieve such a lofty goal. Hell Yeah! is the product of such determination of making useful productivity of the 'garden leave' period of 2020. Surely, in such a short timescale, one can't go from nought to 60 in the world of making games in Z80?

Hell Yeah! is a run-and-gun shooter with platform elements where you take control of a futuristic marine who is on a rescue mission to retrieve his twin brother, who has vanished into a mysterious void. This portal transports our hero to a malevolent world full of otherworldly soldiers, automatons, and oddly enough, werewolves! Your health-bar will take a pounding with their never-ending attacks.

There are also obstacle puzzles to solve as a straightforward path isn't always achieveable, and you have to stop and thinkabout how to navigate your way through. This normally involves leaping over tree branches and suchlike, but one misstep, and it's a perilous tumble into spikes or lava pits.

To aid you against the barrage of denizens, there is a whole host of upgrades to collect - different ammunition for the gun, power enhancements, and rapid-fire, to name but a few.

These are welcome additions in this relentless game, and more so as each level has two boss battles to contend with. These include fire-breathing gargoyles and menacing bouncing skulls - your wit and dexterity will be pushed to their limits. As you progress, the levels become more demanding, and survival is on a knife-edge. This is no walk in the park.

This is competition material and is a game that stands out in the crowd. It is highly polished, well-crafted and is, quite simply, a technical marvel. For a game that came from the author's ambition to learn to code in Z80 during the lockdown, this is a remarkable achievement.

The colourful graphics, with their minimum colour clash, is on par with some of the professional titles that came out on the latter-day Spectrum. Although the game is frustratingly hard, progress is made with each replay (after all the cursing). Patience is the key, and with practice, you learn the correct paths to take that minimises the damage taken.

Thank goodness for checkpoints throughout the game, as there is nothing worse that battling through a tough section and dying, only to return to the beginning.

The few negatives I have are minor, but if they were considered, I think you'd have an even more polished game.

Firstly, is the lack of crouch-shooting - I genuinely feel the game would benefit from it, especially as there's uneven terrain throughout the game. Secondly, the moving platforms require the player to walk with them - that's just annoying. Lastly, a cool 128K AY tune would enhance the game further.

All this being said, this is a must-have game for fans of the genre.

Gordon, as you can tell, really liked this game, and yes it is good and it's commendable that the author taught himself to program the Spectrum during lockdown, and create his first game.

The game looks good - big chunky graphics with some nice animation, but the game gets difficult very quickly and is a little too unforgiving in some of the platform mechanics.

It somehow reminded me of Jack And The Beanstalk at times, great looking, atmospheric but a little impossible to play.

Control Keys: Q, A, O, P. Redefinable.
Joystick: Sinclair, Cursor.
Graphics: Big, colourful graphics.
Sound: Nice AY tune.
General Rating: A great first game for the author - addictive but frustratingly difficult.