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Stormcycle is an arcade adventure in which you must find five light-refracting diodes which are urgently needed to complete a souped-up laser to protect the Earth from a meteor storm unleashed by aliens.

You wander around the garden outside your house where all the diodes must be collected and deposited but quickly discover that you are not alone. Strange beings drive vehicles along the ground and overhead and contact with them saps your energy. Flying devils also drop bombs which have a similar effect. Your trusty sword will need to be constantly at the ready or your strength will soon waste away.

Your worst hazards are the pits. Fall into them and a whole life is instantly lost - it's just as well you've got three. Assuming you avoid these pitfalls you'll be able to use the energy bottles which are scattered about to recharge yourself.

A smart bomb will destroy all aliens on the current screen, but they have remarkable powers of regeneration and you'll have little time to stop and congratulate yourself.

Movement between the various sections of the game - garden, forest, moon, cellar and castle - is by means of transporters which look like fat little pharaohs and each will take you to a different area. Some lead to dead ends where your only option is to use the suicide key. One of your first tasks will be to discover which transporters are useful.

The diodes can be spotted without difficulty, but this doesn't mean they're easy to get at. It takes a bit of practice to become proficient at collecting some of them and one even requires a jump into empty space where you vanish behind the title bar at the top of the screen. There's a bug here - if you jump you can reappear temporarily at the bottom of the title screen.

One other possible bug - or is it a feature? - is that on one screen you become walled up in the castle. If this happens it is fatal but you can easily avoid this fate as there is no need to visit that location.

Stormcycle is a good game, though not in the same league as Superior's Citadel, so ordinary mortals like me can complete it and read the congratulations screen.

The graphics are suitable for a budget game, the animation is fast and it has sensible features like sound on/off and pause. In fact, Stormcycle makes an ideal starter for arcade adventuring.

Stormcycle is an excellent budget title that will provide hours of fun. An arcade adventure in the style of Citadel and Palace Of Magic, the major part of the game involves searching and mapping.

You won't go far wrong investing your pocket money here.

Rog Frost