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Well, when you've had a hit game, why not try the same old formula again and see if anyone notices...! After all, you won't be the first - and probably won't be the last - to try this tactic to put one over on the punters.

Cynical, moi? You bet buster! But you can't tell me that Lee Enfield, Space Ace doesn't have more than a passing similarity to that other Infogrames shoot-'em-up, Prohibition, which itself was a copy of the coin-op called Empire City.

OK, so this "new" release has a different scenario, some tricky extra frills and additional levels, but it's basically the same when it comes to sitting down and playing the thing.

That's not to say Lee Enfield isn't fun. I found myself getting quite addictied, despite my initial irritation at the lack of originality. In Prohibition, you need to be quick on the trigger and fast on your feet to defeat the various nasties that come at you.

Lee Enfield is a time-travelling trouble-shooter, or, as the blurb would have it, a troubles-hooter!? Is this some sort of French special agent, we ask ourselves? Lee zips around the time-zones dealing death and destruction to baddies wherever they may be hiding. Doesn't that make you feel safe?

Here he finds himself in the 22nd Century, battling the forces of the mysterious Yellow Shadow in an attempt to rescue his old mate, Bill.

Meanwhile, back at the review, Lee finds himself blasting away at robot-soldiers, alien monsters, sneaky snipers and even abstract apparitions. I know how he feels, I get abstract apparitions after ten pints of Theakstons Old Peculiar too...

Load up the game, and instead of a backdrop which conjures up images of Al Capone's Chicago in the roaring twenties, you see a futuristic Mad Max-style landscape complete with damaged buildings, designer pipework and those nasty minions of the Yellow Shadow ready to gun you down. Quickly moving your gunsight, you zero-in on the target and hit the fire-button. Budda-budda-budda! Yeah, got one! At the bottom of the screen, a little arrow lights up to point the way to your next target, and so it goes... You get an audible "countdown" between targets - bleeps which get faster as you frantically search the screen for the hidden sniper. Can't find the target? Shame on you.

Laser-fire rips into your shields and you lost a "life" before the gunsight goes "automatic" and proceeds to show you where the enemy who "killed" you was hiding. You'll remember next time, won't you? Yes, after a few sessions you get to know where the next target will be, although the game does appear to throw them at you more randomly than Prohibition did. Oh yes, the quicker you zap the target the more you score.

To move from level to level, you must defeat the Awesome Wobbly Balloon, more commonly known in instruction-speak as the magnetic meteor globe. This takes several hits to destroy - and it's hard to get a direct shot at the thing. But if you succeed, you see out hero in an Impossible Mission type lift, moving up to another futuristic cityscape where more enemies lurk. The action gets faster the further you get into the game, and the targets get harder to spot.

Graphics on the Spectrum version I looked at were pretty good. Some of the nasties you shoot at are pretty big. The nice Godzilla type monsters were my favourites. Animation is a bit creaky and the sounds are basic Spectrum bleeps and burps.

Lee Enfield isn't a bad game, but it's still just a copy of Prohibition with frills and as that should be a budget-price release. Then it would be a real bargain.