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The large amount of software that seems to pour relentlessly onto the shelves of computer retailers might lead you to form the opinion that games companies are running off a new game every day.

In the case of Death Star Interceptor, this couldn't be further from the truth. The game's producers, System 3 Software, have spent over a year and a half perfecting the program, making sure that they have taken advantage of everything the Commodore 64 has to offer to produce a top class shoot-'em-up.

Death Star Interceptor is a multi-screen shooting game - there are twelve levels in all - and has clearly been influenced by several arcade machines, including Golf and Buck Rogers, although the programmer says he was working on the game long before the arcade machines appeared. The game hasn't suffered because of it and is sufficiently different to be saved the embarrassment of being labelled a version of an arcade game.

The first part of the game is a battle in outer space. Swarms of aliens descend from the top of the screen to attack your ship, which can move forwards and backwards as well as left and right just like in the arcade machine Golf.

Once you have defeated the first wave of attackers, you can enter into the trenches on the Deathstar's surface in search of the ship's only vulnerable point - the nuclear reactor's exhaust port.

Hundreds of obstacles are in your way as you race down the trench.

Death Star Interceptor is a competently written shoot-'em-up. By no means a classic game but certainly one that's worth spending a few of your hard-earned pounds on.