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The Angry Birds games were a phenomenal success on modern machines and now they're coming to a Spectrum near you. Well, sort of. Because, although Angry Birds: Opposition features the same lovable sprites as the original, it is actually completely different.

You are in control of a big gun which is situated at the base of the screen. Just below it is a tugrope between the "birds" on the left, and the "pigs" on the right. And dead centre of the tugrope is a cart.

As each level begins, a solitary bird begins to fly across the screen. A quick blast from your weapon and he disappears into a rather nicely animated "poof" of feathers... and that cart quite satisfyingly moves one place toward the "pigs". Miss, however, and the cart will return to the centre. And miss several times and it won't be long until it's pressed up close to the "birds" and they will claim victory, ending your turn.

The aim is, naturally enough, to blast enough birds that the cart presses up against the "pigs" on the right. Doing so lets you proceed to the next screen.

Created by World Of Spectrum member kas29, Angry Birds: Opposition starts off with a deceptive lack of action. The birds move at a fair pace and your stationary gun base deals with them without much problem. However, on screen three, the backdrops start changing and your gun starts gliding uncontrollably back and forth. This ratchets up the difficulty, leaving you less time to react to the birds which appear. Just when you're getting the hang of this, the birds begin to change their flight paths.

There is an impressive amount of variety to this game. Screen backdrops, gun handling and bird behaviour slightly alters every time you manage to shoot enough birds to clear a level. On level six, for example, the screen features a house, and the birds fly behind rather than in front of it, meaning you need even more skill to pick them off when they emerge from its shadow.

In fact, despite its very simple premise and the fact it's all operated with a single fire button, the game is fairly impressive. The only real fault with it is that it doesn't have the smooth scrolling you might expect. The birds move at a fairly regular speed, and I didn't have any difficulty knowing when to hit the fire control to stand a good chance of striking them. But their movement is jerky rather than fluid, which is somewhat distracting. There's also a peculiar vertical scroll upwards when you do win a level.

With a great loading screen and some nice introductory music, it's all put together with quite a lot of finesse and it's so addictive that I did wind up playing it for a good hour or two.