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You're a lone spaceman, drifting through the endless star fields of four alien worlds with only a laser gun to protect you against their inhabitants.

In the beginning you choose to work alone or with a second player. Then you select the world you want to enter. First up, the Forest World of Onricon. The monsters there are green and fly at you in whirls and walls. There's the chain linked snake with two heads that need to be shot off before it's destroyed, blackcurrant shaped clusters that cartwheel around the screen and let off tiny but lethal bombs, and lines of medallion monsters which can only be destroyed with multiple hits. There's also a series of walls that whizz towards you and are almost impossible to blast or dodge.

The desert world of Delta is no kinder. The same snakes and medallions get up to more weird contortions, while other creatures in this yellow world, such as the gyrating snakes which throw off more bombs make up for the lack of the Forest world's wall.

The Cuboid World of Mu includes medallions that give birth to baby medallions, diamond-shaped spaceships that are a devil to destroy, a chain snake which you must avoid and an exploding blackberry that creeps up behind you.

Finally, the Frozen World of Iota with its metallion walls and ranks of laser-blasting squares. The aliens in each world deposit bonus signs which you can pick up. You'll gain more points and give yourself a breathing space for a while.

Sidewize has all the features of a classic shoot-'em-up arcade game, yet I'm dissatisfied. The reason is that each world contains the same monsters, plus one or two new ones, the configurations are basically the same on each level and some of the aliens are just too fast to hit.