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How many times have you been driven from your home galaxy? I make it seven this week alone, and wouldn't you know it, along comes Last Mission, and I'm flung into exile again. My only chance of getting back to my own front door is single-handedly to take on the might of an all-powerful alien invading force, and obliterate the enemy stronghold. Piece of cake really!

Never to do things by halves, I arm myself with what I think is the 'ultimate' in firepower (well it said that on the packet), a jolly terrific new spacecraft thingy containing the most sophisticated weapons systems yet known to man. As long as they all go bang that's alright by me!

So off I trundle into outer space. Where are those enemy chappies...? Oh, here they come - dozens of little round flying things spitting fire in my direction. Cheek! I give them all a taste of my laser as I spin my ship round. Reminds me of Asteroids with a touch of Xevious, I think, (checking my data banks I see that Probe Software wrote that, too) as I dodge yet another flashing bullet. Thanks goodness the collision detection is not 100% or I'd have been pushing up the daffodils then. I just have time to check out the lie of the land. Ahhhm, pleasant colour scheme and detailed backgrounds. These aliens are artists. Whoops! No more time for sightseeing! I shot a ground object that featured on my radar as containing a new weapon, but it vanished leaving a letter. I scoop it up quickly and - wow - what's this? I now have a nifty four-way cannon. Ace! Several other letters later and my ship is now a fantastic sight. At the touch of a button I can command some well-devastating firepower. All of it only has limited life, but it's good while it lasts! Flying my ship all around the 8-way scrolling landscape I finally come up against a well-hard mothership. Blasting this with a well-aimed laser bolt, white under my protective force- field. I suddenly find myself on the next level of action. A beautiful yellow band black landscape with plenty more aliens to blast. Away we go again!

Last Mission is very addictive - a bit slow, but I must admit very enjoyable, and easy to play right from the start, and the sonics help things along, especially the boppy title tune. If this mission seems familiar, I'm told that it's a 'coin-op classic' and available down your local arcade for 20p. But do yourself a favour and join me on this home entertainment version - you'll find me stuck at the end of level two! I was never a good spaceship pilot anyway!

An eight-way shoot 'em up set in space. A slow but very addictive conversion from the Data East coin-op.