Sidewinder – by Arcadia – is a well-respected, and quite exciting, vertically-scrolling shooter on the Amiga, first released in 1988 by Mastertronic.

What makes it exciting are the excellent graphics – in particular the explosions, which are beautifully animated – and the rapid fire Bullet Hell action, which is extremely challenging.

Sidewinder may be a little too difficult for some tastes. Every time you die you are sent backwards a little, which can be frustrating, but at least you don’t have to start from scratch. There are five difficulty levels, though, which do cater for everyone.

To makes things easier for you there are four power-ups available from time to time: rapid fire (increases your firing rate), Power Shots (increases your bullet strength), Ghost (temporary invulnerability), and Hover (temporarily stop moving forward).

Sidewinder still looks impressive now. The gameplay has dated a little though – it’s not quite as involving or as compelling as other shooters in its peer group.

More: Sidewinder on Wikipedia