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Holding my breath, I climbed over the wall and into the city. Good, not an ant in sight. Spotting a lone figure on a pile of rubble and guided by her cries of "My Hero - take me away from all this" I started to lead her to safety. In milliseconds we were surrounded by an army of the nasty biting creatures and were eaten alive!

The deserted streets of Antescher are patrolled by hoards of man-eating giant ants who, guided by the scent of humans, come charging to the kill. It is your job to get into the city, rescue the lone survivor and lead her out of danger.

Leaping and running from building to building is the safest way to search for the heroine as the ants can't reach you when you're perched safely above them.

Clustering around you in groups, you can blast them with a supply of grenades you carry - this will kill them but more soon come to take their place.

A scanner which flashes red or green tells you in which direction to search - a useful addition to the game as only a section of the city is shown on screen at any one time. The screen scrolls in whichever direction you move eventually revealing the furthest reaches of the city.

An additional feature to the game is the power to view your hero from four angles. Occasionally, he'll disappear from the screen and to keep track of him, run through all the different view angles which will being him back on screen.

Another interesting effect is the 3D graphics. If you run behind a building you'll disappear from sight as will the pursuing ants. Cries of "Bitten" will appear on screen once the ants close in and if you don't want to be eaten alive you'll have to make a run for it.

In each new level you have to search further afraid for the heroine and of course there is a much greater chance of getting caught as you try to find your way out of the maze of buildings.

The ants are horrifyingly lifelike as are the movements of your hero. The keyboard controls on the Spectrum are very well placed to enable the easy movement of your hero. Ant Attack is written in machine code and features high-res graphics which are among the best I've seen on the Spectrum, with hidden line removal.

Ant Attack is available from Hampshire-based Quicksilva for the 48K Spectrum at £6.95.