For some time it has been clear that the Vic 20 is slowly sinking into the sunset. In spite of the thousands of Vic owners, software quality seems to be sinking too. This program, I am afraid, does nothing to allay my fears.

The scenario is depressingly familiar and is essentially of the Defender species. You control a spaceship equipped with the latest miracle weapon and attempt to defend humanoids from an unbelievable swarm of aliens with an even more unbelievable life cycle. Nothing new or original.

Technically the program is above average. The aspect ratio of the screen is tweaked to give a wider and shorter screen. Hi-res gives reasonable results. Use of sound is poor. Sixteen levels of difficulty are available but in reality higher levels were simply faster and I couldn't detect an increase in aggression.

If this had appeared in the first year in the Vic's life I would have considered it to be a cut above the rest. Considering the current state of the programming art, however, it struggles to be mediocre. In view of the high quality software from Romik for the Commodore 64 this is even more disappointing.

A.W.