Oh joy of joys. Two Yak the Hairy games for the price of one. And this time it has no other name over it, so I must assume that Jeff himself programmed them - they are both very Minteresque.

First - Voidrunner. This is the greatest blast I have seen for any computer. Even the C64. It seems that, if we want a playable shoot-'em-up, we must always look to the Yak.

Minter has consistently produced ultra-playable blasts and this knocks the hell out of bas relief graphics or meaty soundtracks - it's excellent. It's better than excellent - it's the best! What do you have to do? Oh, blast things and... blast things... and sometimes you even have to... blast things! Great variety, eh? Alright, down to the nitty gritty.

Against various backgrounds on the single screen, maybe dots forming rotating ellipses or sine curves, you blast things. To blast you have four ships which have a different formation on each level. The first puts you far left and far right down a little so your fire is an arc; another has the bases together so you fire in all four directions, and so on.

There are various nasties, all of which you must blast before they move. Some may need more than one blast but just keep on blasting 'til it goes down. Great!

There are lines that move vertically down the screen, pulsing now and again; if they touch your ship when pulsing, you lose one of your four lives. As the levels increase, the lines become invisible, increase in number, pulse more often and more accurately. This is a really nasty thing to have happen to you. On Gnu (yes, the levels have names such as Yak, Llama and Sheep) your ships split up: two point upwards; two downwards - spread them out to decrease the odds of being pulsed.

The game is very Minteresque graphically and aurally - no tunes but effects to destroy your ears - i.e. explosions, and graphical FX to blow your eyes. Often your mind just won't take it and you'll collapse in a heap on the floor. If you want to go deaf and blind in two minutes, just turn the volume and brightness up full and blast.

As a C64 owner, you may expect me to have a go and then get back to Dropzone, but I found myself getting more and more addicted and left the Uridiums and Dropzones for Voidrunner. I am now thoroughly addicted and may die - either of withdrawal symptoms if I stop playing, or eye and ear destruction if I carry on.

This is the most playable blast of all time and if it was released as it stands on the C64, I would still feel the same way - the game deserves a Gamer Gold on its own. The only complaints I have are that the high score table is joystick-operated and, oh, it won't load on my C64.

Two tips:

1. If something's coming to hit you - move.
2. If there's something moving, blast it, and if there's something standing still, blast it!

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Oh, look, another Jeff Minter game. I wonder what you have to do? I say to myself with just a hint of sarcasm.

I originally played Hellgate on the Vic-20 and later on the C64. Now, on the C16, it is every bit as good. Basically, you have to blast things... and... okay, we won't go through all that again. But this is another excellent Minteresque blast. Once loaded, and having tying in the SYS (I don't know why either!) I press fire. Prepare to die is blasted upon the screen. Charming.

There is a square around the edge of the screen and on each edge there is a laser head, left and right base control the bottom, the top ones the top - i.e. if you move left, the bottom base moves left and the top moves right. Up and down control the base on the left and right verticals. Now you know that, that's about it.

There's a wrap around feature (go off one side and come on the other), three smart bombs (plasma zaps) which are controlled automatically and a variety of nasties to destroy. But for once, you can't actually just blast everything that moves. I quote: "The poor meta goats... the poor frightened beasts... goats are nice... be kind to them. Don't blast them into little pieces..." Yes, Jeff, we get the picture. Okay.

Neat graphics. Very fast. Very furious. Mind-numbing FX. Invisible aliens. Twenty tough levels. If you don't move, firing can cause overheating. Not much else really. An excellent game. Just blast everything that moves. (Except the goats. Yes, Jeff, I love goats too!)