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What a great film Star Wars is, a completely useless farming lad is taught the ways of "the force" by an old codger with a wibbly sword thing, just to defeat some tall geezer with terminal asthma and a black fish bowl over his bonce. But, anyway, this isn't that Star Wars at all, it actually concerns the Space Defence Initiative that was set up by President Reagan (you know, the forgetful one who came before... errrrr, thingie). You control a satellite armed with a laser, and must destroy all the enemy's nuclear warheads, satellites etc that are heading for your country.

There are twelve levels and the game is split into two types of round: the main part is the offensive round where you blast all and sundry, but if any of the enemy craft sneak through, you enter the defensive round. Here, wave after wave of nuclear weapons head for your cities, and you are the only one who can stop them.

At the end of each offensive round, your score is totted up based on the percentage of each type of enemy destroyed. If you score 100% across the board, you receive a 20,000-point 'perfect' bonus and a dancing duck (I kid you not). And this is an accumulative bonus because, with every perfect score you tot up on successive offensive waves, an extra 20,000 points is added (along with the duck!).

When it was reviewed in Issue 47, SDI didn't receive the warmest of welcomes, and now it's back to haunt us again. Gameplay is the biggest culprit: one very soon becomes bored with the same old routine of just shooting anything that moves. And even an extra gallon of strong coffee failed to keep me awake long enough to play this monotonous game for very long.

If you're nostalgic for the days of Missile Command and Asteroids this mediocre rehash may appeal, but be warned it does get very repetitive despite some reasonable graphics and presentation.