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OK, no messin' abaat - it's time to kick ass. Those alien scumbags are up to their old tricks again and now there's just one thing for it: they've got to be blown away! Basically they're giving everyone all sorts of jip by being generally unrad, so it's high time they were sent screaming back to wherever the hell they came from. So belt up inside your best blasting ship and prepare for the ultimate showdown with some of the meanest muthas this side of the CVG Playgroup at closing time...

Gradius was one of the first games to feature pick-up weapons and the now obligatory multiples. It's a straightforward horizontal scroller, but the use of credit pods to buy weapons gives it a novel twist.

The craft you fly is a sleek spacecraft, initially kitted out with a sad machine-gun. This pathetic weapon can be upgraded with the addition of lasers, double-fire, air-to-ground missiles and a shield.

The multiples are a useful addition to the ship: these glowing pods follow your craft and fire anything you happen to be armed with, effectively meaning you can quadruple your firepower! The object of the game is simple: fly along, avoid bullets and destroy baddies - just the way we like 'em!

At the bottom of the play screen, you'll see a line of icons. Collecting a glowing pod will highlight the first - the speed-up. Pressing the second button on the joypad selects this option and speeds up your craft. If you collect another pod without choosing speed-up, the next icon is highlighted.

This is how you choose your weapons. It sounds easy, but in the heat of battle it can be head to keep an eye on the icons. This whole idea gives the game a subtle element of strategy, the question you ask at the start of each level is: Double or Laser? Don't get it wrong!

Every level ends in roughly the same way - a dangerous challenge to overcome, followed by a large and gruesome guardian. On the first stage you have to destroy or avoid lava chunks as they expldoe from twin colvanoes, while the second sees you dodging hundreds of homing mines.

The third is a rerun of the first, but with the added horror of space fiends loosing off missiles! It might be wise at these points to think about which weapon is best suited for each challenge.

The guardian is the same each time, a big spaceship which moves up and down, firing large plasma beams at you. It seems quite simple, but that darned critter can be a bit swift at times!

Kill! Maim! Destroy! At last, Gradius (Nemesis) is released on the PC Engine... and it's the best home conversion yet! The simple nature of the game hides a hideously addictive blaster, with some of the smartest graphics you'll ever see on the PC Engine.

The best thing about Gradius was the choice of weapons and they're all here (unlike the sad NES version with only two multiples). There's also the added treat of an extra level, not seen in the original coin-op.

Graphics are among the best ever on the Engine, faithfully reproducing the arcade original - the only real difference is the slight vertical scroll as you reach the top of bottom of the screen in exactly the same way as R-Type did on the PC Engine.

Music is superb, with faithful renditions of all the arcade themes. This game is spot-on: it has everything just right, the speed, the playability, the difficulty. If you have a PC Engine, you need this more than oxygen...

Gradius ranks as one of the all-time great arcade blasters, and this must rate as one of the best conversions ever! Absolutely everything from the coin-op is there - right down to those spiffy weapon icons that you can't read in the heat of battle!

Once again, the PC Engine sits quietly on the table and pumps out arcade-quality graphics and sound: and it's only an 8-bit machine! Initially fairly easy, the game toughens up from level two onwards - and from that moment you're well and truly hooked.

Playing Gradius on the PC Engine is a bit like stepping back in time: you'll think you've ended up back at Uncle Scruff's Seafront Emporium and go searching for the coin slot. In fact that's my only gripe about the game, Gradius is a tad dated and arcade fans will know it backwards already.

Nevertheless, this is top class blasting action, so grab it and agree!

Included in the Gradius box is an advert for other topper new Konami PC Engine games. These are Salamander and Parodius - both are sequels to Gradius. Salamander is the famous one: it's a direct follow up to Gradius and is very similar to the first game. Parodius, however, is a bit unusual. It is a sequel but it's basically a parody of Gradius.