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Quicksilva have a reputation for good quality, reasonably priced, original games with excellent graphics and sound. Their offerings, therefore, can expect harsh criticism for minor grievances.

It now seems the 'in thing' in Spectrum programming to be able to fit a good gae into 16K, what with Melbourne House/Psion managing to get the three excellent Horace games into 16K. Quicksilva have obviously tried to copy their competitors' achievements but in doing so they have made several crucial errors: it would have been better if they had left it in 48K!

The game loads very quickly (in only 43 seconds!) and having done so the player is then given the option of using the Kempston joystick or the keyboard. Once you have selected your means of doing battle, you are shown the keyboard controls, regardless of the weapon chosen. They are: 'S' to start the game itself; '6' to move your ship left; '7' to move your ship right; '0' to fire and 'H' to hold the game at any point. This is a very useful command as your trigger finger can get very tired during this very fast, non-stop arcade game. Incidentally, the standard set of alphabet characters is not used but a 'Space-Age' set which is rather novel.

The scene is set by an exerpt from The Book Of The Faluvian Empire, on which the game is based. Once the start button is pressed, you are thrown straight into the thick of the action. You are the cyan-coloured ship at the bottom of the screen but instead of the enemy being above you, as is tradition, they are in front of you.

When you see the screen for the first time, you witness the major disappointment for the first time. The game is set on a background of stars but, instead of them scrolling from top to bottom, they appear at random, which spoils the effect considerably. You commence with five ships and the first obstacle is a screen of Cybirds which flap all over the screen at random, dropping Plasma Bolts, and are able to scroll from one side of the screen to the other (i.e. left to right, or vice-versa) although you cannot.

Having destroyed one screen of Cybirds, you find yourself approaching a repeat of the previous screen. This completed, you are thrown into the middle of a meteor storm. These red lumps of rock shuffle around randomly and can cut to your ship at the last moment, destroying it if you're not careful.

Should you manage to survive the storm you are confined by a swirling 'egg-like' object which delivers Plasma-bolts at a great rate of knots: you are well advised to stay clear of this until it 'hatches'. Once this happens, another screen of aliens appears, although they are very different to the Cybirds and resemble the traditional invader much more. Their Plasma-Bolts sway from side-to-side as they approach and, like the Meteors, cut into you at the last minute. Then comes a repeat of the previous and then the Meteors. Should you manage to survive allthis, a screen of insect-like aliens awaits you. Their Plasma-Bolts approach in the same way to those just encountered. Altogether there are five stages and 15 levels of difficulty. However, there are several bad ponts which should be noted:

1. The fact that stars appear at random rather than scroll from top to bottom, as I have already said.

2. Every time you beat a set of aliens you have to survive a Meteor Storm, which gets a bit tedious after a while. Your success in the game largely depends on how you fare in the storms.

3. There is a Hall of Fame but to enter your initials into it, you have to use the left, right and fire buttons. You can use the start button to skip it but the best score is only registered through the Hall of Fame.

The score, best score and ships left are all shown on screen as well as the title and the name of the author John Edwards. The game, like all Quicksilva ones, is fabulously boxed and, priced at £4.95, is very reasonable indeed.

Although the game is basically an updated Space Invader, Quicksilva have tried to introduce some of their own ideas. It might be an idea to modify the above problems and make a 48K version.

Astroblaster is available from Quicksilva Ltd, 13 Palmerston Road, Southampton SO1 1LL and is both entertaining and challenging; I would say it is one of the best arcade games for the 16K Spectrum.