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As my granny used to say, there's nothing like a game that breaks new ground - and Phantom Fighter is nothing like a game that breaks new ground.

Yep, originality takes a backseat as Emerald Software and Martech present us with a scrolling shoot-'em-up with, yes, you guessed, add-on weapons!

Well, let's have a look at the instructions - maybe the plot will help it stand out. It all starts out with you being part of a colony on a distant planet, which suddenly comes under attack from Korts, small blobs of throbbing flesh which have apparently developed homicidal tendencies. When they disappear into the desert wastelands surrounding the colony, you are sent with a crumbly called MacMixDune to destroy them before they return.

But the real threat isn't the Korts at all. It turns out that the desert is inhabited by soul-sucking demons who pilot ancient ships around the place, blasting all and sundry. Silly old MacMixDune knew all this but didn't bother telling you, because you are the Chosen One. You are the Phantom Fighter! Phew! Exciting, isn't it?

Well, not exactly.

Play is basically a matter of flying your craft over alternating horizontally and vertically scrolling backdrops, pumping the oncoming "phantoms" full of laser bolts with their names on them. Occasionally, an obliterated squadron leaves behind a capsule for you to pick up. Shoot the capsule before you pick it up and it changes its function to provide speed-ups, faster and more powerful lasers, Plasma weapon (which fires in all directions), side lasers and homing missiles. None of these is particularly innovative or visually exciting, with the possible exception of the Plasma weapon, which can wipe out whole squadrons with a single shot, and trash end-of-level fatties with just a few blasts.

Basically, Phantom Fighter does try to be a nice shoot-'em-up - the graphics are nice, the sound is tolerable and it plays reasonably well - but I'm afraid it just hasn't got anything really special going for it, so in the end you tend to find yourself getting annoyed by details such as the small screen area on the vertically scrolling sections, and the slightly suspect collision detection.

In fact, after a dozen trips out to level two, my mind was starting to wander, and I don't think it'll be returning to this game for quite a while.