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Having been invaded from the States, we are now seeing software from Europe entering our shores, and on a minority machine like the Oric it's great news.

Fire Flash is based on Defender and has almost as many keys, but certainly isn't as fast. You are trying to protect a number of fuel dumps on a planet surface from marauding aliens who try to steal them.

You can scroll left or right over the ground and you also have up, down, fire and hyperspace controls. These are badly situated though and you'll find it easiest to concentrate on only travelling in one direction to minimise finger cramp.

Your ship doesn't move very fast but all the scrolling is smooth including the flying saucers. There are four waves of saucers, starting with eight opponents and increasing by eight each wave. There are four varieties of alien with the higher-scoring ones appearing on the later levels.

A radar screen at the top of the display shows you the approaching craft and your height, so that you can position yourself to blast them as soon as they enter the screen. The hyperspace key allows you to dematerialise and avoid missiles and collisions but doesn't leap you around the screen.

At the end of each wave, you are awarded 40 points for each remaining fuel dump and 4,000 if you can survive four waves. After four attacks, the game gets even harder and there's always plenty happening on the higher levels.

Appropriate sound effects accompany the game along with a couple of ditties on the title screens, making it a competent package despite the key controls and sluggish movement.

It's a good thing that this Defender derivative doesn't have hostages waiting around for you to pick up - it's embarrassing when people can walk faster than your hyper-cruiser.

Another thing: when I go into hyperspace I expect to end up somewhere in the middle of next week - not stay in the same place!

Don't get me wrong though, it's a long time since I've enjoyed an Oric game half as much as this.

Everyone's going on about this being a great version of Defender, but it didn't strike me that way. To start with, you don't have to do any rescuing and there are no mutants or human beings to add variety to the game.

However, the graphics are very good.

This is as good a Defender clone as you're likely to find on the Oric.

The layout of the keys, though, is infuriating. Not only is it very difficult to manoeuvre quickly, but I found my fingers seizing up due to the contorted position they were in. Still, I enjoyed it.