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A new Jeff Minter game guarantees the fastest action around and Iridis Alpha is no exception. The elaborate instructions are soon forgotten as you battle to survive over the inhospitable landscapes of several planets.

The gameplay is very reminiscent of Sheep In Space, but the screen is split laterally to give a mirror image world on either side of the split. Thankfully you only play one half of the screen at a time and you flip from one screen to the other at will. This Flip Side feature probably explains why the droid you control is called Gilby.

As in Sheep, you fly across the screen blasting anything that moves before it collides with Gilby and saps some energy. Each time Gilby successfully evaporates an alien, the energy level is increased and this is expressed by a colour change. When Gilby turns white, it must land on the planetary core to dump off the excess before an overload occurs. This is similar to the way the Sheep In Space must land to refuel on grass.

Flying through a ring left behind by a disintegrated alien allows you to switch to the other half of the screen where you must quickly flip your mind into reverse polarity to control your ship in the mirror world. The array of aliens is the same in the alternative screen and both screens must be completed if you are going to reach the final conflict.

Extra lives and points can be gained if you fill the core with energy by surviving the bonus screen. Now, navigating a vertically scrolling screen of ledges while being pursued by eyeballs, firing behaves as in Batalyx. Each time you fire, it follows the Newtonian concept of equal and opposite reactions. Failure won't lose you a life but it dents your ego when you rejoin the game.

From time to time, you fly over a gateway to the other planets. If your kill rate is high enough, an indicator on the screen shows which planet you can reach. In this way you can tackle several planets in succession and careful use of Gilby allows you to pre-select your next destination.

When you feel too limp to continue, you don't have to load a new game because the Pause mode is a game in itself. MIF is a Minter whim which occurred to him while skiing in France (MIF = Made In France). The game is not referred to in the instructions and the rules have to be learned so it provides an interesting diversion.

Within the MIF is yet another level, a demo called DNA, and completion of all 200 levels in the main game leads to yet another display. You can't say you don't get your money's worth with Minter.

Let's go back to Iridis. The planets are called the Sheep Planet (the starting point), Brick Planet On Planet, Tech Planet and the Mushroom Planet. Somewhere in there are the camels and llamas which are a prerequisite of a Llamasoft game, but with twenty levels on each planet it may be a while before you find them.

Success leads to the End of Game bonus screen but it may be a long time before anyone sees this... unless some bright spark discovers the cheat mode. Even Robtak's Game Killer will prove useless to you and the game is protected against cartridge copiers so yah boo sucks to all the pirates out there.

Iridis Alpha is a derivative game but it draws all of its influences from Minter's fertile and devious mind so he can be forgiven. Those who thought that Minter had burnt himself out can think again. Iridis Alpha is another Minter blockbuster.