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Heeelllllp, I'm stuck inside a helicopter armed with only a peashooter and outside are thousands of aliens waiting to blow me to little pieces. I'll just have to get them before they get me. This is my my Destiny Mission.

Well as you have already guessed the character you control in this game by Williams Technology is flying a helicopter and your aim is to survive eight levels of alien nasties.

The game is a horizontal scrolling shoot-em-up and a good one at that. The scrolling is smoother and slicker than Torvill and Dean on ice.

It's similar to Silkworm; detailed images and excellent animation, but where Silkworm fell down, Destiny Mission finds room to truly impress. The background parallax honestly has to be seen to be believed.

The graphics are largely clear and detailed, but the background complexity sometimes makes it hard to pick out the enemy bullets. That said, the sprites are well animated, and the alternation of the colours for each level make for some variety.

Occasionally a power-up icon appears which gives you a better weapon such as; a laser which destroys everything in sight or a spray gun which fires in two different directions (forwards and down).

At the end of each level you are faced with a massive end of level nasty which is very hard to beat especially on the later levels.

The third level posed particular problems for me. Negotiating my way through a tricky maze of spinning mines, I seemed to get bumped off for simply being in the vicinity of the deadly objects. I fear it's a combination of the complex background camouflaging the mines and some wobbly collision detection.

The sound is pretty brill and it has some of the best spot FX especially on the walking end of level nasty.

Destiny Mission is thoroughly addictive and it's got the necessary grab factor to keep you coming back for more. Also, you get just that little bit further each time because you remember where you died and learn how to dodge death. So you won't get grumpy and kick the cat, or throw your Speccy out of the window.

Label: Williams Technology Price: £7.95 Reviewer: Gary Redrup

A great shoot-out. Suffers in some areas, but fab to look at.