Gryzor (1987)

Released in 1987 by Ocean Software, Gryzor is an arcade shoot-em-up for the ZX Spectrum 48K and 128K. The game was developed by Paul Owens and Mark R. Jones, with David Whittaker composing the music. Bob Wakelin provided the inlay and poster art.

The game is designed for a single player and utilizes a multi-loader in 48K mode. It features AY sound and offers flexible control options, including Kempston joystick, Interface 2, cursor keys, and redefinable keys. The software is a direct port of the original arcade coin-op licensed from Konami.

The cassette version was priced at £7.95, while the disk version cost £14.95. Besides the ZX Spectrum, Gryzor was ported to the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and NES.

With an average magazine score of 74%, the game received significant recognition, including a Your Sinclair Megagame award from Your Sinclair magazine.

In Russia, the game became a major hit, often associated with the Contra series on Dendy consoles. It saw over a dozen TR-DOS releases from various groups, while magazines like Revival and ZX-News frequently featured POKE codes for infinite lives. Cracked cassette versions by teams such as Firefly Software and W.A.M. were also widely circulated.