The packaging of this game looked tatty, but perhaps there was a wonderful program just waiting to get out. Then I noticed it was a 3D trench game. Unoriginal, I thought, but it still might be good.

I waited anxiously for this miracle of technological achievement to load. Finally I was ready to go winging my way in Luke Skywalker's wake after the evil Darth Vader.

But then I started playing, if the dictionary definition of the word stretches to this program. A flashing border appeared boxing the screen entirely, and flickering like a bad home movie. My ship dropped into the foreground and despite my best efforts moved at about half a mile an hour.

The alien craft appeared as a dot in the distance and lurched its way forward in positively hyperspatial, or was it Basic, leaps. Pressing the fire button I expected a burst of laser fire to leap from my cannons, but all I got was a small line on the screen and a noise like a mosquito being disembowelled.

I did finally manage to hit a spaceship and was rewarded with a similar sound of insect death. Darth Vader must have turned in his grave (oh! didn't you know he died in the third film?) Eventually, a slit in the screen appeared which was informed was a force wall.

Naturally I did my best to get through it - but failed gallantly so that the secrets of the other side were kept from me. That was the best news I'd had all day - I didn't want a minute more!

This program belongs back in the grotty cottage industry days of the ZX81, and I wouldn't buy Deathstar even if I was the best friend of whoever had the nerve to put it on the market.