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This game from Firebird, a division of British Telecom, is a galaxians style game with a scramble type sideways scroll routine thrown in for good measure.

Your task is to destroy the moths, pods and spinners as they home in on your space craft dropping bombs and missiles. Above you, a tank of acid slowly drips its contents down onto you and provides a further hazard to your task of staying alive and shooting down the attackers.

Whilst you battle away, a gate at the side of the screen slowly drifts apart and when fully open, your space ship flies upwards and through it. From now on, you have to guide your craft through a sideways scrolling maze to reach the next screen for another round of alien bashing.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Well, in fact, it's downright boring! There are nine screens to shoot your way through in Acid Drops and it's a good job they're numbered - they all look identical!! It's the same shoot-'em-up routine followed by a quick dash through the maze and then more alien thrashing.

No, I haven't overlooked the fact that the game only costs £2.50, but even though it is cheap, there is no getting away from the fact it is rather full and repetitive which will mean it will not hold interest for long.

My advice if you haven't got a game of this type already in your collection is to shell out the extra money for something like Aardvark's Zalaga or Acornsoft's Galaxians. True, they're three times the price - but I'll guarantee they will provide more fun and lasting interest than Acid Drops will.

Peter Rochford