One of the launch titles for SNK’s legendary “arcade at home” console, Cyber-Lip is a Run & Gun game that pits one or two players against an army of rather generic-looking cyborgs across 7 levels, each culminating in a battle against a giant boss. The levels are colourful but fairly lacking in variation, but the bosses are quite impressive and do show off the systems ability to have massive sprites churning out projectiles by the dozen.

After defeating each guardian you get to choose to go up or down in an elevator that leads to one of two ‘connecting levels’ giving the illusion that you have some kind of choice of where to head next, though in reality both ultimately lead to the same place. There are a variety of power-ups to be collected during proceedings and when you lose a life you get to return on a sort of flying sled that allows you to move all around the screen and blast as much as you can without fear of damage. At the end of the game you must face all the bosses from the preceding levels again before finally facing the titular Cyber-Lip, a giant super-computer that has been responsible for all the hardship you have had to endure up to that point.

While its not a bad game, Cyber-Lip has one significant and glaring fault – the inability for your player to be able to shoot diagonally! This wouldn’t be so bad but the fact that many of your enemies can shoot diagonally means there are points in the game where you are left completely exposed to enemy fire with no means of defending yourself. The lack of variety in gameplay and unlimited credits available in the AES version also make it a rather unchallenging and monotonous game – it can be completed it in little more than half an hour and once you’ve got through the game once, it is very unlikely you’d be bothered to try it again.