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As commander of a helicopter gunship, you must destroy waves of Spinad, Spore and Fusa before they reach earth and rear attack. Your helicopter is firmly fixed left of screen, moving only up (cursor 7) or down (6), firing missiles (0) and smart bombs (9), green ground scrolling beneath you. Attacks come from above by upside-down ice cream cones, from the right by white whirling crosses, with occasional blue octopi dropping, out of range, to earth. Score is shown at the top, with five unexplained graphics marked "Pods", increasing and decreasing. Similar graphics appear, already imbedded, as the ground scrolls on, and explode upwards as they pass you.

Since the game's aim is to destroy aliens before they reach earth, it seems a bit unsporting to let them land off-screen. And, without rear missiles, your two smart bombs are your only hope.

Mindless "zap aliens" games without originality or complexity, difficult only for lack of manoeuvrability and off-screen or out of range items, might have been acceptable once but program design has moved on. When landing, aliens erase character squares in supposedly solid mountains, a problem overcome by most novices.

D.C.