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Every day you come under attack from fearless enemy agents, attempting to destroy your defences and kill you! But this isn't some paranoid fantasy, it's all true and happening as you read this: the skin-crawling facts of your body's war against invading virus cells. Which isn't to say the inside of your body looks like a multi-directional scrolling playfield with ray-traced graphics, but merely that The Assembly Line have written a novel scenario for their E-Motion follow-up.

Another way of thinking about the game is as a 3D Defender. You start off with nine dome-shaped bases to defend from three types of virus spheres (distinguished by colour) which bounce along the chequered floor. To attack, three or more like-coloured virus spheres must link together with elastic lines before adjoining a base.

There are also two types of special virus cell. Hatchers consist of three different coloured spheres all linked together. When one is shot, the Hatcher splits into lots of individual spheres. Spitters simply roam the grid, throwing out spheres.

To fight back you have three different types of ammo: to destroy a sphere, shoot it with the matching ammo. This isn't as easy as it sounds with no targetting cursor and everything bouncing along at some speed. And if you run out of any type of ammo, or all your bases are destroyed, it's game over. To recharge your ammo, shoot a sphere with the wrong ammo. This creates a star which gives you sixteen more shots, when hit with the same coloured ammo.

In fact, at the start of each level there's a short pause before the enemy appears so you can top up your ammo using the star tree which appears. Much ammo is needed to create Trojan cells: strings of ammo which seek out virus cells and destroy them.

Another neat trick is provided by the Portals, black slabs which you can move through, freezing everything so you can move around unhindered. But once you press Fire everything goes back into action at a slightly higher difficulty level. Fortunately, at the beginning of each fifth wave all nine of your bases are restored. At the end of this wave there's a bonus 'Shooting Star' level with dozens of ammo stars swirling about.

After the intricate puzzles of such previous Assembly Line games as E-Motion, Pipemania and Helter Skelter, it takes a while to grasp the simplicity of Vaxine.

The heart of the game revolves around sending out loads of trojans while keeping a cautious eye on ammo. Hesitation is easily fatal, with virus cells rapidly multiplying unless you get them under control first.

On the first ten levels, a stream of trojans mean you don't even have to worry about Spitters. This gives you time to admite the superlative graphcs - an incredible number of balls can appear on screen without the slightest slowing down.

Sound isn't so amazing technically, but the various FX are distinctive. Unfortunately for all the quality this game oozes in production values, gameplay is a touch repetitive.

According to the programmers, the game began life as a technical experiment, and while it's certainly fun to play, the lack of variety is disappointing.

Presentation 80%
Attractive start-up, continue-plays and restart.

Graphics 84%
Unique, ray-traced style is even more stunning here than in E-Motion. Limited variety however.

Sound 81%
Informative and atmospheric FX.

Hookability 79%
Simplistic shoot-'em-up gameplay is soon grasped.

Lastability 63%
90 levels promise only increased difficulty and different colours.

Overall 69%
Superbly programmed but repetitive.