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Isn't it amazing. Here we are in 3162 years time leaving Earth to find another home, and where are we going? The planet Krauze that's where. Great. Krauze is not so dull as it sounds enough being loaded with mysterious artefacts telling us all about an evil race of Deviants that lived on Krauze in the dim past.

Guess what? The Deviants want their planet back and have returned with a giant battle station...

You are a Starwarrior, and quite a well defined one at that. You run between the flipping screens and prime all the bombs, no mean feat, I promise you. The bombs are positioned in arch-like things which, if not primed, won't let you through. In all locations are a couple of these little green aliens, which, when they touch you, sap your energy. Scattered round the place are all manner of little bibs and bobs to help you. There are spare bullets on the floor, a la Dan Dare, and also these little cubicles which, replenish your energy.

The graphics are wicked, background, fore grounds, everything. All of the graphics are good. The backgrounds are made up of pipes and metallic looking platforms, which really add to the mood of the game. The graphics for the sprites are beautifully detailed. The main sprite has a face, for example, and the aliens look very familiar. I wouldn't be surprised if Ripley turned up somewhere...

Up to this point, the game has been really simple, but now it's time the hard part in the game showed it's face. The priming of the bombs is very hard, I tell you. You are shown a row of 6 valves, which are either open (glowing and oscillating) or closed (dull and oscillating.) Using the keys 1 to 6 you have to get all the valves open, a la V. You know, key 1 changes valves 1 and 4 etc. What makes it really hard is that you have a very short time limit to do your stuff, and the chances of getting the night combination of keys seems like one in a thousand.

Still, I like a challenge.

Label: Players Author: Colin Swinbourne Price: £1.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Tony Dillon

Deviants is a game that would be more than acceptable in the over £7 area, and is a real bargain in on budget.