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Games on the Electron range from the ridiculous to the really good, largely on the basis of the programmer's skill at using well-written machine code to get the very best out of the machine. Galaforce is a game that, on initial release, really turned heads. It was very similar to the snazzy arcade cabinet shooter Galaga (Galaga? Galaforce? Just a coincidence?). In fact, if you were addicted to pumping coins into that cabinet in 1986, it likely became the game you simply must have.

It's a deliciously smooth and handsome game to look at - even if you subscribe to the whole "seen one shoot-'em-up, seen 'em all" school of thought. Your craft glides left to right (and up and down to a smaller extent) with no flicker. In addition, the large, colourful sprites, and scrolling dots/stars backdrop, are done so well that it must have felt almost like having your own very-expensive Galaga machine rather than "just another Electron game" back in the day.

However, time moves on and is often a little unkind to Space Invaders-style games. That's usually because, no matter how luscious they look, the gameplay just repeats the same idea over an over again, not really offering much more than a speed increase and a plus one on the levels count. Galaforce is different though, and it's in this difference that it really comes into its own.

In Galaforce, the aliens do not sit in a grid-like pattern. Instead, they dart about.

Sometimes, they flutter from left to right as they descend. Sometimes they weave about in a W-pattern. Sometimes they arc above your craft, almost as if it sits centre of a spiral. And so on...

Every time you play the game, the attack formations are constant in so much as they are in order - that is, they don't change every time. Yet every new area conquered introduces a subsequent one with different-looking aliens and different attack patterns.

Unlike most games of this type therefore, you're constantly kept on your toes. The mind also seems to have an in-built capacity for matching patterns too; on repeated plays it has a habit of reminding you to watch out, this next level is that one where the aliens dive-bomb to just above your craft then fly into the very left-hand bottom corner, etc, etc.

It's a shame there's no ability to skip the areas you've already cleared, and a downright tragedy that the sound is so limited but, even many years later, Galaforce still has a certain elegance about it.

Of course, it's impossible to be anywhere near as excited about it as we once were, but it's compulsive and, occasionally, even a bit manic. Definitely worth loading up for the odd blast, or two.

If you're looking for a physical copy, you'll be spoiled for choice... There's a original release, a Superior/Blue Ribbon budget re-release, and three compilation releases (Five Star Games II, 10 Computer Hits 4 and Play It Again Sam 2). Most desireable, and the hardest to find, is the original release, which is now commanding a price around the £10-£12 mark. Except to pay less for the others.