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Sabotage for the ZX81 gives you your big chance to live out that 007-type dream of becoming a saboteur. After loading the program, which takes three minutes, a well prepared opening page urges you to choose which destructive role you wish to take.

There are two variations of the game and in both games the screen represents a compound in which the boxes are placed. In game one, you play the guard and must defend the randomly placed ammunition boxes. At the start of the game, the saboteur, played by the computer, spends a few seconds working out where the best place to put a charge is: i.e. where the most boxes will be destroyed. The explosions spread as a chain reaction if adjacent boxes explode. When the computer has decided where to go you have twenty free moves with which you must race to intercept the saboteur. Your only defence in ths (somewhat one-sided) battle is a truncheon which swings through a 5 x 5 area with you in the middle. If you can corner the guard or prevent him reaching his prime target you get extra points, but you lose them if you are caught in the blast (thank goodness it's only a game!).

Game two will appeal to those of us with a destructive mind. Here you play the saboteur and have to blow up as many of the two hundred boxes as you can (up to a maximum of fifty). You are encouraged to try and catch the guard in the blast; after all, there are eight hundred points to be gained for this sociable achievement. Once you have laid your charge, you have ten seconds to run for it otherwise the saboteur's life expectancy is drastically reduced. If at any time during your destructive mission an unbroken vertical or horizontal path develops between you and the guard he will shoot with his rifle, and beware, he's a crack shot. You have ten charges to play with but the game ends if the guard shoots you.

Overall, these are entertaining strategy games. The graphics are quite smooth since the bulk of the program is in machine code. However, the instructions are written in a rather informal manner and certain parts of the game are learnt by experience rather than by instruction.

Sabotage is £4.95 and is one of the latest Sinclair releases.