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HIGH QUALITY BLASTING FROM HEWSON

Cor, this eliminating business is great fun! It all started six months ago when I saw a job vacancy in the window of the local Inland Revenue office: 'Young xenophobic maniac needed to travel to various planets and eradicate their populations. Certificate of mental instability welcome but not obligatory.' Well, I kicked in the door and shot the smiling receptionist (I always shoot first and ask questions afterwards, not that I get much sense then). After about ten minutes a young chap in a bulletproof vest turned up, 'You're applying for the Eliminator job,' he said.

I was, and ET (Employment Training) still had a place for me. So here I am, rocketing down the highways and zapping all that moves. Whenever I land on a new planet I start off with just a single-tire weapon, but pods can be collected to add-on weapons or replenish ammo.

Of course I always travel at top speed, and the chequered road zooms by incredibly smoothly. Watching the road disappear round bend is most fun. The aliens are pretty slick too, popping up off the road and swirling at me with all guns blazing. To start off with they seem a bit indistinct, but once you get used to them you just can't stop blasting 'em. Have to be accurate too though, there's not much ammo and no energy recharging until the end of the level. I also have to be careful about collisions - since I never wear a safety belt it's instant death if I hit an alien. Then there's all the barriers they put up, some of them block the road completely and you have to use a ramp to flip over and travel along the roof! Others have segments you can shoot out with a steady aim. It's a great life, eliminating things, and that's why I decided to take part in this ad for ET!

MARK ... 84%

THE ESSENTIALS Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: fast 3-D scrolling Sound: loud 128k ingame tune

'Eliminator looks a lot like Trailblazer, or even Plexar, but it's superfast and very slickly presented with a neat 128K ingame tune and some nicely-drawn graphics. My only reservation that, unlike other versions of the game, there's no password system so that once you've completed a few levels you no longer have to keep playing through them. A fun game for a while, it might eventually prove repetitive.'

'Although Mark loves this (probably because it's even faster than Afterburner) I've got my doubts. The graphics are fast and fairly smooth, but the screen often looks a bit cluttered. Still, the concept is OK, and the general feel is that of a well-polished and playable game which somehow falls short of being brilliant.'