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After crashing and burning in 2D shoot-em-ups for more years than I care to remember, I've often wished for lightning-fast reflexes. But there's only one shmup that ever got me thinking about the insane effort that it takes to reach the speed of light. That game was SWIV. In the category of homegrown 16-bit shooters, it has no equal. But in truth, it did not spring, unbidden and sui generis, from the rich creative soup of 1991 games development. SWIV, as a copper might put it, had previous.
A reboot used to be something that was just between you and your personal computer. These days, it means Domestos-level slate-cleaning, sloughing off the past to re-imagine an intellectual property in a way that hopefully brings the money back in. SWIV was a reboot before that word had attained its current Hollywood-tinged usage. In the games mag language of the time, it was more of a pseudo-sequel - or, if you wanted to get fancy, 'spiritual successor' - to Tecmo's late-1980s arcade staple Silkworm, an addictive side-scrolling shoot-em-up in which a helicopter and/or jeep took on waves of militaristic enemies.
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