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We found this one lurking behind the footie sims in John Menzies. As we'd never seem it before, we thought we'd take it back to the Shed and give it a good blast on the old Speccy. We wondered why YS had never reviewed it before, but we didn't dwell on the fact, we put it down to fate and postmen.

Alter two seconds playing time, it was all too too clear why we'd never been sent War Machine to review - it's a load of old twaddle. Okay, so it was originally released in 1989 but that's no excuse. War Machine is the everyday tale of a spaceman on a mission to destroy an alien queen, the alien breeders and the alien equipment. While he's at it, Mr Spaceman must also gather up the parts of pod that's needed to kill the alien Queen. (Yawn.) It's a familiar plot and I'm sure it's been put to good use before. In fact, if a game's good you can often ignore the vagaries of the plot. But if the plot's bad and the gameplay's bad, there's only one conclusion to be drawn - it's a bad game.

War Machine has absolutely no addictiveness, no nice little touches (apart from the 'You Are Now Dead' box that pops up from time to time) and no originality. The gameplay is dull, the graphics are blocky in the worst sense and your little sprite often disappears behind some obstacle. You can play War Machine, but there isn't any fun to be had in doing. A couple of people who know all about programming games saw me playing War Machine and commented, "Oh dear, it's one of those ready-in-a-week games isn't it?" And d'you know, in a funny kind of way - it is.