Q9 is the first, ---- and extremely welcome, audio game produced by Philip Bennefall's new company Blastbay studios. When the litle alien q9's spaceship crash lands on earth, ---- he knows there is going to be considderable trouble retrieving it.

It's your task to guide Q9 through 4 side scrolling, action filled worlds, ---- not to mention a nasty boss in quest for his ship, facing such enemies as vicious bears, disgruntled grillers and randomly lucky or unlucky fortune fields which change your health on a whim.

Armed with a club, a sling and some special shields, ---- not to mention what extra amunition for these weapons, bonus points or additional health and lives he can pick up on the way, Q9 has a seriously nasty journey ahead of him from the jungle world to the death world, ---- full of extreme combat, high tention action and significant amounts of humour.

Q9 is an extremely symple game to play at first sight, ---- but one with huge amounts of potential for challenge, ----- especially sinse all the enemies and items appeare entirely at random throughout each level. head from left to right with the arrow keys, ---- using the control key to run as needed, and the up arrow along with taps of left or right to jump. As the game is 2 dimentional, enemies and items will be heard in the left or right speaker in front of or behind Q9, ---- at which point it's up to you to select the right weapon and attack or run like the clappers to grab those falling bonuses, ---- remembering not to fall into pits or step on unlucky fortune fields along the way. Make your way all the way to the right, --- and you reach the exit and the next level full of tougher enemies, nastier traps, ---- and cut scenes with their own brand of random humour.

Make it through the four worlds, and you face the insane boss who you must ultimately defeat in order to get Q9 home.

Q9 features amazingly high quality and deeply atmospheric sound, and a very carefully crafted game engine for it's combat and action, ---- which, along with the randomly appearing enemies and items, bonus stages, choice of difficulty and several hidden unlockables make it an incredibly addictive game to play, ---- however symple it might sound on the surface.You don't however just need to go on our word

Q9 is a testiment to the fact that the classic formular, ---- go through a number of levels wracking up score before fighting the last boss, ---- can make a truly fantastic game, when the mechanics, audio, cutscenes and all other elements are put together so well. If your an action fan, ---- or have always wanted to play classic games like Mario brothers or sonic the hedgehog, ---- you could do much worse than give Q9 a try.

NOTE: This package also contains playthroughs of all the level that will help you whenever you find yourself in trubble.