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Roadwars, Xenon, Aaargh! and Sidewinder. All are products of Mastertronic's Arcadia coin-op machines turned home computer games. The concept of developing titles on an Amiga board based coin-op system and then downgrading them for home computers, has worked to varying degrees so far. Sidewinder stays true to the arcade tradition of mindless blasting!

It's like this, you see: the war has reached a stalemate, giant fleets of opposing spaceships face each others, neither able to win a decisive battle. Suddenly, from out of the alien ranks wobbles a ship the size of a planet... The Star Killer has arrived. This impressive piece of Lego makes its money by diving into the heart of a system's sun, creating a supernova and making a right mess of the surrounding real estate.

Bad news for the good guys, but wait, a sole fighter can penetrate the docking system and enter through a wastewater vent. Free to fun amok inside, this brave, heroic idiot can blast his way through the various levels, until, finally, the control level is reached and wasted.

So you've heard it all before, the important point to note is that the action takes place over various levels, each of which has appropriate scenery and targets. Starting with water distribution and leading through residential, flight deck, command and finally to the control level you can savour the full screen scrolling and nicely designed graphics. Yep, there's none of this partial screen-scrolling idiocy here. On Sidewinder, not only does the whole screen move smoothly down, there is also some lateral movement, just like in Flying Shark.

So we're talking nil points for originality here, but as this is easily the best out and out annihilation experience on the Amiga, so what?

Besides the obligatory swarms of flying scum - which can get thick and irksome at times - there's an almost unlimited number of ground-based targets to wallop. Some of them shoot back, but not if you're quick.

Which leads to one of Sidewinder's better features, the sound effects. When fuel dumps are going up, enemy fighters are screaming in, you're dodging ground fire while plastering everything that doesn't move - and as much of the moving stuff as possible - the aural impression is that WWIII has broken out. Rip-roaring explosions mount a top each other to form an ear-splitting cacophony of noise. The effect wraps the players up in the heat of the moment and carries them along on a wave of excitement.

But it's not all like that. There are quieter, more reflective moments, like when a letter within a tile wafts gently down the screen. It's necessary to ignore the rest of the proceedings in order to guarantee picking up what could turn into rapid fire, power shots, limited time invulnerability, or, strangely, something which stops the scrolling temporarily.

The latter enables you to erase those hard-to-get-at targets, a feature that only really comes into its own when on the control level when total destruction is the order of the day.

Were you one of the people who could never get beyond the second or third major nasty in Xenon? Sidewinder caters for all skill levels from the incompetent to those who can play in their sleep. There are five difficulty levels in total, and you decide which to play on.

The question is, do you have the stomach for a purer arcade experience than Xenon, a game that will, incredibly, only set you back a measly tenner, and one that combines first rate graphics and enormous excitement.