Driving you quackers

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A fairly simple shoot-'em-down game by Melvyn Wright, who has enlivened the loading process with some rather jolly music - while the title screen explains the few playing instructions, and the rest of the program CHAINs itself, you are entertained by a bouncy little Viennese waltz.

Then you're off (via a few bars of The Ugly Duckling) into the first screen, sliding Farmer Tubby left and right and blasting off with his shotgun at some ducks with yellow feathers and red wellies mooching across the top of the screen. They're not difficult to hit, but watch out when you pot one - it's liable to land on you and kill you.

Screen two offers more of the same, with different background colours, only this time the ducks contrive to lay eggs while walking (the first of several ornithological oddities). Shoot the eggs if you can, for bonus points, but if you miss, don't tread on one - it's fatal.

If it's left alone, it will incubate within seconds and out will hatch a full-grown duck who starts flying up and down. Well, it's not so much flying as bouncing on a slow-motion trampoline, and is harder to hit and very likely to land on you and flatten you.

That's about all there is to it. Further screen simply introduce more ducks with an urge to breed even faster.

The graphics are fairly primitive and the zaps, pows and splats (why no quacks?) are less than classic. But if you're easily pleased by games which don't involve anything more than left, right and fire, Duck! should keep you entertained.

Jeff Pike