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Many moons ago, in a desperate attempt to seek out new energy supplies, the Earth despatched ten colony ships to a distant corner of the Universe on a reconnaissance mission.

On the less-than-pleasant planet of Sodini, the evil Emperor, Hades, got wind of these plans and decided to ambush the fleet, capture the people on board and sell off the colony vessels for scrap.

Due to a computer malfunction, colony vessel seven arrived at its destination two years ahead of schedule. Deciding to continue with their mission regardless, the colonists headed into the nearby Orion Nebula and found, much to their surprise, that it had been renamed 'Hades Nebula', and the entire Hadian fleet was lying there in preparation for the impending attack.

It is now the present day; a last ditch effort to save the rest of the colonists is being launched by a single, one man fighter against the entire fleet. There is room aboard for only one brave person, so taking the controls you fly off into the unknown.

The confrontation takes place over the large vertically scrolling installations and battle cruisers of the Hadian fleet, with your craft under constant attack from their small star-fighters.

As you progress through the Hadian hordes, your ship's armament is increased by blasting specific sections of the background which contain vital equipment. When released, the sections of equipment drift down the screen and attach themselves to your craft on contact, increasing its speed, fire power or defences.

The eventual aim of your mission is to penetrate all fifteen levels of the Hadian territory and ultimately confront and destroy the main command vessel containing The Emperor himself.

This has got to be one of the most annoying games I've ever played: it's difficult to the point of being unplayable.

The backdrops are very pretty and the ships look smart, but the only way I got to see anything past the second level was by using an unlimited lives poke.

Right from the start you come under the most vicious of attacks, with up to about ten alien ships appearing at one time, all needing to be avoided and all lobbing bombs at you.

Gaining extra armament or speed is easy enough, but actually keeping it for more than a few seconds isn't. The final insult was that, after battling through for 20 minutes, and completing the whole game, it finally says 'Game Over'. No congratulatory message or anything... Great.

Once again, the lack of playability makes me wonder if playtesting went on at all...

There isn't much to say about this lack-lustre horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up. Dodging, blasting, picking up extra weapons... it's all very predictable and boring. In some fames, this action works well, but here the space craft's armament is useless and it moves around at a snail's pace - even with the extra speed add-on.

The action hasn't been particularly well thought out, and doesn't look good when compared with other similarly priced shoot-'em-ups. I could not and will not recommend it.

This is the first game I've played where the extra weapons are vitually useless. The extra speed is fine, but everything else is so clumsy and unwieldy that it gets blown off within seconds.

Another very annoying point is the speed of firing - it's far, far too slow. The alien ships attack by the dozen, and the feeble firing rate just isn't enough to defend the ship properly. It's just about possible to battle through the levels if you're prepared to stick at it, but I found the ship's limitations made the game too frustrating to be worth persevering with.

The graphics and sound are pretty good, but in the end it's the gameplay that matters - and this hasn't much.

Presentation 76%
Neatly laid out, but suffering from a severe lack of options.

Graphics 79%
Nicely drawn backdrops complemented by an impressive array of alien vessels.

Sound 51%
Fairly standard WE Music soundtrack, and the effects are somewhat ill-suited.

Hookability 35%
Though straightforward, the going is frustratingly hard from the start.

Lastability 48%
Fifteen increasingly difficult levels to conquer, but an awful lot of patience is needed to do so.

Overall 55%
All the ingredients are here for a first-class game, but Hades Nebula is sadly half-baked.