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Lunar Jetman is the follow-up to Ultimate's hugely successful Jetpac, and the good news is that it's even better.

The game features smooth scrolling graphics, an ingenious game design and a challenge that will last for months. As in the earlier game, you control an animated spaceman who can fire at aliens, walk left or right, and fly using his jetpack.

The spaceman can also pick up objects, such as bombs, and get into objects, such as his moon buggy which means you need no less than six keys to control him. This is no mean feat unless you're already a Jetpac expert, or a joystick owner.

The game opens with jetman stranded on the surface of an unfriendly moon with the remains of his rocket spinning and bouncing at him from all directions. His only place of safety is inside his moon buggy - but even that isn't safe for long because an alien base is preparing to launch a missile which will destroy the buggy and end the game.

The most controversial thing about Jetman is that the game's instructions give no idea of how to avoid this fate. Certainly, there's some interesting-looking equipment lying around, but all you're told is that you've lost your operation manual.

Ultimate obviously decided that you would get more satisfaction working out for yourself what you're supposed to do, but I think they may have miscalculated. So, for the sake of the many people who would otherwise be extremely frustrated by this game. I will reveal what I think the operation manual would have said. *If you don't want to know, then stop reading.*

The bomb is pretty obvious. If you can drop it on to an alien base, you'll destroy it. Only trouble is, you usually don't have enough time or fuel to simply fly to an alien base carrying it. That's where the teleporters come in. There are two of these, and if you enter one of them, you automatically teleport to the other. The idea is to place them a long way apart, and then there's a good chance that one of them will be reasonably near the base.

The moon buggy offers safety and can be used for transporting bombs or teleporters - just drop them on to it. Unfortunately, the buggy can't cross craters in the moon's surface, unless you bridge them.

You can get a seemingly infinite supply of bridging units and fuel top-ups from the moon buggy.

The detachable weapons system looks like a roast turkey, but is actually something of a red herring. You can drop it on to the moon buggy, and then score a few points by shooting aliens and rocket parts in safety. But the weapons system can't help you to actually destroy alien bases, so your time is better spent on other things.

One sensible strategy to adopt is this: put the bomb on the moon buggy, and drive it to the nearest teleporter. Teleport, and then move the second teleporter as far as you can - without running out of fuel. If you find an alien base, teleport back to collect the bomb, and you're in business.

Of course, if you do manage to destroy an alien base, your troubles have only started. Your action will have released a wave of aliens to attack you, and a new alien base will be created.

I'm told that aliens in the later stages of the game do nasty things like steal your teleporters. That's a joy/frustration I look forward to experiencing. Sometime next year, perhaps?