ZZAP! BACK

Each issue, a game is picked that was commercially released after the last stand-alone issue of ZZAP! was published in November 1992 — this issue it is ICE GUYS, released by Knights of Bytes/Protovision, 1997.

A review of a game that did not quite make it into ZZAP! back in the day.

There's no business like snow business, albeit in this case the Ice Guys are attempting to prevent an alien invasion. On each screen you must defeat all the roaming hostiles by grabbing snow from the ground and transforming it into snowballs. Hitting an enemy with a snowball turns them into a snow pile, which can then be pushed to eliminate them, or used to hit other enemies in a combo attack. Removing enemies this way rewards you with stars, diamonds, and other points-laden treats. Collecting ten stars takes you to a bonus game where you rescue as many snowmen as possible, whereas the stars can be spent in shops that

periodically pop-up to obtain temporary overpowered weapons. Obviously if any of the aliens touch you then it's instant death and losing all your lives means game over, but there is a copious supply of continues available to prolong the fight, in both single and two-player mode.