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It's time to declare an interest. Starburst is the product of C+VG's ace Hot Gossiper Tony Takoushi's fevered mind. TT, as anybody who's read his page knows, eats, breathes and sleeps games.

His passion for arcade games is apparently endless and it certainly shows in Starburst. He's tried to pack everything he loves about them into the limited memory of the C16.

The plot is simple: The planet Sistasis has exploded, leaving Plastron boulders floating in space. You must do battle with these deadly rocks.

In all there are three screens to zap through plus a bonus screen in which a lot of points are up for grabs.

You start the game with four lives, shown in the form of coloured gauges at the top of the screen orange, purple, yellow and green. If a boulder touches your ship, the gauges begin to pulse and decrease until eventually the game is over.

Of the eight boulders or balls zapping round, just four will start the gauges pulsing, these being the same colour as the gauges. The other balls are rogues and are generally designed to annoy you.

The first screen has three objectives. Firstly to shoot out the "home slots" which are at the top and bottom of the screen. Succeed and this turns your ship into a "bat" in which to knock the balls into the home slot. This much can only be achieved if they can bang the balls in cleanly at an angle of 45 degrees (I couldn't). Finally the rogue balls must be guided into the four corners of the screen.

Only when this has been achieved can you get on to the bonus screen. The remaining screens have similar objectives.

Starburst is a high speed shoot-'em-up but which is dazzlingly colourful and designed to wreck the reflexes. It's fiendishly difficult but, I have to confess, I found it confusing to play. At times I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing with this TT racer.