It's stylish and cool, with gorgeous visuals and music reminiscent of Z-Out, but it's also very short and very easy: unless you want to handicap yourself and play without upgrades or the most overpowered weapons, getting through it will be an absolute breeze, a problem slightly alleviated by the hardcore difficulty level which removes shields and makes you die in one hit, demanding perfection in between checkpoints. Even like that the game remains quite forgiving and far, far from the peaks of difficulty of an R-Type, also thanks to the fact collisions with the scenery are not lethal.

The game would have benefitted from mapping the secondary weapons to a button separate from the stock laser gun, and tying them to a recharging ammo bar so they couldn't be spammed constantly, but I suppose the game's single button Amiga roots didn't account for that.

The result is a slightly disappointing shmup that doesn't put up enough of a fight to be fully satisfying to play. The only difficulty spike, and likely more than half of the couple hours you'll be likely to spend on this game, is the final optional boss, which dips its toe into merciless and borderline unreasonable bullet hell territory, though even it is easily bested by selecting the correct weapon for the job.

Worth a playthough, especially since it's good for pick up and play, thanks to a generous save system.

1993 Space Machine (or 1993 Shenandoah on the switch) is a real nostalgic throwback of a game which is pretty fitting as it is a salvaged 1993 Amiga game, fitted up with new controls, widescreen support and a heap of other more modern modcons like 4-player co-op and open saving.

On a surface level its got a lot going for it, the spritework is gorgeous, the music giving a real Psychosis Amiga-vibe and the gameplay itself is fast and as a player, you are given a LOT of options in regards to the ship itself, to firepower and shielding.

All of this can make for a really fun time and when the game kicks into gear, it can be a real blast. Unfortunately its age does show in places be it through some of the more slower levels or through levels where enemy and hazard placement feels unfair thanks to the game not always being clear whats dangerous or not.

In addition the difficulty level is a big frenetic and all over the place. You can be blasting through levels without breaking a sweat at one piece, going through game over hell in another and then back to 'basic shooting' after. It makes for a very messy game.

Its still fun but I wish the difficulty and visibility would have been made a little clearer.