Cybernoid 2.

I remember getting Cybernoid 2, looking at the lovely art on the box and the captivating screenshots on the back. Little did I know that I was about to become another addition to the masses of red-faced, angry teenagers holed up in their rooms, bashing their joysticks in rage at this wretched impossibility of a game.

A game, by default, is something that should be fun, challenging and enjoyable, and Cybernoid 2 was none of those things. Which is a shame, because the music was really good and the graphics were superb. It still looks and sounds good today, but sadly, that’s where it ends. I’m only left to conclude that the lads at Hewson wanted to make a game that was literally impossible – an unsavoury combination of a slow, sluggish spaceship that is obliterated in a single hit (or near miss) and enemies that are actually indestructible.

Back in 1990, the 12-year-old me wrote a letter of frustration into CU Amiga, who published it on their letters page. To my delight, the next month, somebody had replied, giving me the cheat code… which didn’t actually make things much easier. You just got to watch your puny ship explode, infinitely.

Once you’ve endured a dozen different sections, you eventually make it to another level – again the graphics are nice, but there’s no improvement in the playability. And just as you think you’re about to complete the game, if you haven’t collected enough diamonds along the way, you’re sent to carry on and endure more unplayable horror.

Yet, Cybernoid 2 is fondly remembered, but I suspect more for its graphics and music than gameplay, which is just as atrocious now as it was back then. This game probably cost Amiga users a lot in replacement hardware, as joysticks were hurled in fury across the room and frustrated fists were pounded on the poor keyboard.