To boldly go...

Drop Ship has but one objective - to complete all fifteen stages with the aid of only five ships and a hint of fire power. Once loaded, a rather nice title screen literally falls from the top of the screen to announce that you're able to alternate from keys, mouse to joystick. Password-orientated level jumps - now the norm - are included here.

On entering the first level gravity pulls you down immediately but a quick boost of your rockets will settle things. But be warned, moving too quickly leads to your splattered remains adorning the walls.

Below the main arena is a panel where all the most important information is shown - your score, lives, time remaining and so on. Most important are your fuel line and credits.

Whisking around the vertically and horizontally scrolling world you very soon encounter large guns which begins firing as you approach.

Shooting fuel canisters will help replenish your fast-moving fuel line and firing at some objects causes a credit to be flung from corner to corner. Catch them to enable you to shop between levels.

At the end of certain rounds, providing your score is good enough, an ugly-looking ogre appears grumbling something about buying goods that he has for sale. Here you can trade in your credits for various accessories for your ship, such as faster firing and extra fuel.

Sprites are well-animated and background and surrounding areas are similarly well done. Although it has many plus points, it's almost identical to Rotor except that the screen doesn't scroll continuously.

Brett Colley