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What's this? Ultimate meets Jeff Minter? Something must be wrong here. The latest Ultimate release isn't an arcade adventure - it's an out and out shoot-'em-up.

In a big departre from their normal style, Ultimate has sprung a surprise on their public with Imhotep.

Several people played this game for several hours just to discover if there was more to it than blasting your way across an Egyptian landscape Defender-style. But, surprisingly, that seems to be it.

The game is packaged in the normal Ultimate style leading you to believe that it's a regular adventure - but it isn't.

The theme - described in Ultimate's normal mysterious style - is this: Zoser, Pharoah of all Egypt, is having a tough time. His lands are drying up and the peasants are revolting. Zoser turns to Imhotep the Wise for help in ending the famine.

Imhotep starts out on a quest to find Thoth, the only person who can end the drought which is causing the famine.

He begins by firing on a mystic bird armed with mystic power-bolts which he must use to blast other flying enemies, riding on what look like broomsticks. But maybe they are mystic birds too.

Other hazards include catapults, which fire stones at you. It appears these stones can hit you anywhere - despite the fact that they appear in the distance and grow larger. Small or big, if you're in front of them when they appear, you lose a life.

As you progress through the game you come up against other hunting hazards - which all serve to make your life as Imhotep that much harder.

You have to amass 10,000 points with just five lives - to move from level two - where the game always seems to start for some reason.

All Ultimate wouold say when we quizzed them about the game was that "It gets harder". Hmmmm.

Ultimate have made a brave step away from their traditional style - but in the wrong direction.

Try again Ultimate!