Dragonscape is a multi-scroll shoot-'em-up featuring, naturally enough, a dragon, your good self, sitting on the dragon's back, and a whole troop of spooky-looking things after your blood.

The "story so far" guff is a cut above your average dragon drivel, or is it? Judge for yourself. While reading your favourite magazine on the bus (No need to ask which one!) there is a loud bang and you find yourself in the magical land of Tuvania. For a long time, and until recently, Tuvania was a really nice place. All were kept in order by forty magical artefacts. But the artefacts have been messed about with by the evil King of Kaos (somewhere in Greece), so you have been summoned to put them all back where they belong.

The player gets an aerial view of the proceedings through a smallish square window in the middle of the screen. To the right, an elongated dragon becomes skeletal from the tail upwards as your energy depletes. A little box at the bottom shows the object currently in your possession and as it's empty you'd better go and look for one.

Trouble is, before you can get Garval to take a step in the right direction, or any direction for that matter, you are encircled by a vicious group of stars, yes stars. These are just the first in a long list of weirdo monster things that beset you on your quest for the artefacts. Fortunately, Garval is a fire-breathing model and a quick burst on the button turns them into so much charcoal.

I could try and describe a few of these monster things, but suffice it to say there are loads of 'em and very good they are too. Sometimes they just appear at random, like the snakes, stars and birdies, sometimes passing over one of the artifacts sets them in pursuit. Some are pretty ineffectual, others, like the cherub-devils, are virtually instant death on contact.

This is where the big big moan comes in, 'cos you can only breathe fire in the direction Garval's gob happens to be facing, and you can only move in the direction you're facing; turning to fire tends to send you flying straight into the peril. It's a bit disconcerting at first, but you soon get used to it. The thing to do is run away, then turn and let 'em have it on your way back in.

On the plus side there's a lot to outweigh the joystick drawback. The graphics are good and imaginative, better than anything I've seen from Software Horizons before. The backdrop has some nice detail - Little pagodas, bridges, villages and the like and the scrolling is noticeably smooth. Shame about the small size of the scroll window though. Lastly, Dragonscape has a fair bit to it. There are eight artefacts to collect and place in their proper place on each of the five levels. What's more, each level comprises forty screens.

So, all in all, it should keep you occupied for a lot longer than it takes to make a cup of coffee.