Firebird is one of the very few games EACA produced to coincide with the launch of the Colour Genie during the latter part of 1982. A few versions were even released on cartridge.

It is a machine code game that uses the FGR screen. It will run on 16K or 32K machines, old or new ROM, but interestingly old ROM owners have an advantage in that the joystick option will only work with an old ROM machine.

The game itself is quite simple - there are about 6-10 alien ships that whirl around in circles, and you have to shoot them with your base which can move left and right along the bottom. Sounds familiar?

On the good side, the game is quite fast and fun to play with responsive key action. The alien ships move in neat circles and fire plenty at you, making it quite a hard game to knock up a decent score, but by no means impossible.

On the bad side, there is too much faffing about on screen before you can play again which is a bit irritating. The sound and graphics, though adequate, are not terribly stunning.

In conclusion, Firebird is not the best of its type available for the Colour Genie, but for anyone not wishing to pay a lot for this sort of game, you get good value for money for what is a simple but enjoyable game.