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A race of aliens are attacking Earth, and the only thing between them and victory is a team of five Mag Max war droids. Unfortunately, the bulk of their armament has been scattered around the landscape, leaving the heroic robots initially weak.

The action is set over a one-way horizontally scrolling landscape covered with gun emplacements and obstacles. Attacking craft appear from the right, homing in and firing deadly missiles. Contact with any alien device spells doom, and another member of the team moves in to take up the fight.

The lost armaments appear at regular intervals offering extra capabilities, including greater speed, firepower and shields. These are picked up when touched, and lost when a hit is sustained.

Portals to an underground passageway also appear regularly, and are used to descend to the alien-infested depths where the battle continues. Max uses an elevator to return to the surfae when the going gets too hot.

When enough alien craft have been destroyed, their two-headed laser-spitting leader appears. This has to be destroyed if Max is to continue to victory.

One minute Imagine are releasing brilliant products such as Arkanoid and Slap Fight, the next they're putting out rubbish like Mag Max. The presentation is thoughtless, and features such as the invisible aliens, frequent lock-outs and emplacements which only half blow up are not the sort of things you'd expect to find in a professional product.

The graphics are equally thoughtless, and the playability and feel are very poor.

Mag Max contains nothing original, it's very repetitive and holds no lasting interest. It's quite obvious that very little time has been spent on the presentation, as basic things such as clearing the joystick buffer and the fact that the restore key crashes the game should have been spotted during playtesting.

The final straw is the use of colour, which offends the eyes and gives an immediate excuse to stop playing.

You might get some entertainment out of Mag Max - that is, if you can get past the invisible aliens and the built-in bomb-out which crashes the program every ten minutes.

The graphics are fairly weak, but the game doesn't usually run long enough for them to become a problem. The gameplay complements the graphics perfectly, and a nice option is the use of 'restore', which crashes the program completely, saving you the hassle of continuing.

If you fancy a shoot-'em-up this month, go for the infinitely superior Slap Fight.

Presentation 39%
Generally adequate, but marred by the profusion of bugs.

Graphics 38%
Combines a poor 3D effect with unimaginative sprites and use of colour.

Sound 67%
The title tune is quite pleasant, and the spot effects work reasonably well.

Hookability 66%
Straightforward blasting action which is a doddle to get into.

Lastability 35%
The frustration caused by the bugs and crashes is heightened by the repetitive gameplay.

Overall 39%
A very poor, bug-ridden and unentertaining arcade conversion.