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Here's a surprisingly playable little game on the new Code Masters budget label. It's the brainchild of Stephen Curtis, the programmer who brought you the budget hit Non Terraqueous.

It's shoot-'em-up with a difference - in that you can fly over squares of the planet's surface which give you extra fuel, extra lives, make you speed up or slow down and other interesting and unexpected effects.

The game is shown on plan view, with the landscape scrolling down. You have to make you way over 100 screens of tortuous terrain to the mother ship waiting at the end.

Force field beams rise up off the surface. Should your ship hit them, it will explode. Droids, controlled by the computer, come at you in wave after wave. You have a photon laser beam, that will shatter the Droids if you are on target.

Your current fuel status is shown as a bar at the top of the screen. Should you run out of fuel, you'll plummet to the surface of the planet and explode. You can pick up fuel by flying over fuel zones, marked with a big 'F'.

You can fly at three speeds. These are dehyped proton drive (slow), standard proton drive (medium), and warp drive (fast). Upon entering or exiting these speeds the screen will flash. You speed up or slow down by flying over '+' or '-' signs on the surface.

Shooting the Droids gives extra points. You can, however, pick up bonus points by flying over a bonus area, marked with a 'B' simple ‘aint it!

Avoid the time shifts!! These will disrupt the space/time continuum, and take you back to screen one.

Every time you die, you start off on a launch pad. These launch pads are the ONLY flashing things you can fly over.

You can also pick up force field generators that make you invincible for short periods.

Very playable and great value. Terra Cognita should prove to be a budget hit.