My jaw nearly hit the floor when I first saw Venom Wing on the Amiga. It’s a late release from legendary software house Thalamus, coming out in 1990, and it’s a real stinker…

Venom Wing was clearly the work of demo scene coders, because the game looks like more a demo – with its fancy, moving (almost illegible) text and multi-coloured gradients – than an actual side-scrolling shooter. Which is what I think it’s meant to be.

The opening level is bizarre. You appear, and nothing is moving. A wall in front of you starts firing bullets, and shooting out huge daggers… Then the screen starts scrolling upwards… “What the fuck is going on?” was my first thought. Is this a boss battle? It kinda feels like one… Or is it a vertically-scrolling level, oriented horizontally?! Whatever it is: it’s weird.

This weirdness continues on for the rest of the stage, with various spaceships and snake-like appendages thrown at you for the duration. And it is pure ‘bullet hell’, with shrapnel and bullets thick in the air. There’s not even a boss battle at the end…

The second level is at least horizontally-scrolling, so feels more familiar. Again: it’s a bit weird, with a few places that feel empty for too long, and also a bizarre instance of my spaceship turning into an eagle! I shit you not. Check out the screenshots. No idea what caused it, but it was fun for the three seconds that it lasted… The second level does have a boss battle. Of sorts. It’s more ‘Monty Python‘ than ‘hard-edged space shooter‘, though.

Ultimately, Venom Wing is a frustrating and pointless endeavour, with death coming far too often. And the strange choice of background colours and orientation of the first level is very off-putting. I doubt many will bother to play this now, unless with a trainer.

More: Venom Wing on Moby Games