Join in the a-mazing jewel hunt

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In Starmaze, you must steer your spaceship through an overgrown maze searching for rare jewels. Your ship is armed with a laser-cannon and an endless supply of ammunition. On your lonely trek you will encounter alien fighters, bird-hatching eggs - which lay homing mines - and rotating alien satellites.

To obtain the jewels you must simply fly over them and return to the mothership, fly over that and collect your points. You may only carry one jewel at a time though.

Software Invasion have made no provision for a joystick in this game and, although the keys and movement of the ship are smooth, pressing too hard on the thrust key could prove fatal.

The deeper you travel into the maze, the more hazards you encounter. You can escape danger by entering to hyperspace at the cost of some fuel.

You can also use one of your three smart bombs which will destroy everything on the screen.

Trying to remember your way around the maze is a nightmare. A nice touch would have been the inclusion of a radar scanner to show where your ship is and how close it is to your mothership.

Constantly displayed down the far right-hand side of the screen are fuel indicator, remaining fighter ships, score, high score, jewels obtained, remaining smart bombs and level reached.

To refuel your fighter you must fly over the mothership. Every 10,000 points scored you receive an extra fighter and a smart bomb.

Starmaze has a high level of difficulty and will take a long time to master. Unfortunately, there is no pause facility or sound on/off option which by now should be standard on quality software.

However, if you want a game with acceptable graphics, quite fast and hard to complete, then Starmaze is the one for you.

Simon Rubins