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A bit of a strange game, this one. You control the movement of your craft (the Guardian of the title) around the outside of a square-shaped grid. This has a smaller square inset towards the bottom of the grid.

From this radiate lines that divide the grid into sectors of different sizes. You always stay on the outside edge of this area and any one of the sectors may produce enemy vessels which hurtle towards you kamikaze-style.

These are divided into Trackers (worth 50 points), anti-mines, Swirls and Snarks (10 points each), and just to make things more difficult the Swirls and Snarks are not shown.

Every so often you are faced with a meteor shower, the successful avoidance of which needs quick reflexes but will score you a bonus of 1,000 points.

As an ultimate weapon, any key on the bottom row of the keyboard between 'B' and 'Space' acts as a 'star smasher' and will obliterate any of your enemies that are on the grid at the time.

Use of this needs to be regulated carefully - you have only two star smashers, but these are recharged after each successful avoidance of a meteor shower.

The graphics are no more than adequate, and sound is limited to a fairly standard range of 'space laser' noises.

The action certainly gets fast enough, and avoiding the meteors is made all the harder by the relatively large size of your vessel in comparison to the meteors.

But, all in all, I found this a disappointment and I can't see The Guardian becoming a well-used tape.