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The scrolling shoot-'em-up takes on a new twist with Steve Lee and Martin Wheeler's latest offering. Instead of a super-duper, gizmo-space-fighter with double-turbos and a sun-roof you get a ball. Yup, you read it right - a ball. And why not?! But it shows what watching too much snooker on TV can do to you.

This ball is armed and dangerous and has an almost impossible mission to attempt. It has to venture forth to the planet Erebus - a planet used as a dumping ground for Earth's dangerous waste products.

There's a refinery on this future Sellafield which has been taken over by tea ladies! No, sorry, make that aliens - can't have any originality creeping in, can we...?

Anyway these alien tea-ladies have decided that they'd like to produce nerve gas to poison the population of earth. See what happens when you leave noxious waste lying around? Heey, heavy social comment. Better not say any more otherwise we'll be getting more left-wing propaganda letters.

Anyway, you take the ball-blaster and roll around the surface of Erebus, zapping alien attack craft and gaining access to the dimension duct. This will take you further into the core of Erebus, where the aliens are cooking up their deadly home brew.

The waste refinery is split into many different circular sections. To gain entry to the dimension duct you have to orbit each section and shoot enough aliens to turn off the lasers blocking the way to your goal.

You have to wave your way through the obstacle course while at the same time blasting away at the many and varied alien ships that come after you from both directions.

They fire at you - beware of the particularly nasty homing discs which whirl around disconcertingly while seeking your destruction.

Watch the light display at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Once all the little "bulbs" have turned green you've successfully orbited a section - and if the "duct open" message appears in the info window in the centre of the screen then you can have a crack at the dimension duct.

The scrolling is silky smooth and you can move to the left or right. The graphics are well drawn and interesting. The sound effects get irritating after a bit - especially the twangy alien explosions, but the opening tune is nifty.

Playability? Well, apart from the initial frustration of trying to learn how to get into the duct entrance, this is a pretty good blaster and at under nine quid isn't bad value.

The game has no real faults and is slickly presented. But you have played games like this before, so check it out before you decide to break into your Auntie's gift token.