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There's no escaping aliens - in White Heat. the three horizontally-movable bases under your control come under attack, each in turn, from 72 waves of aliens.

The attackers that make up each wave have different, idiosyncratic movements: some rotate in eccentric fashion, others zigzag sharply across the screen, others dive-bomb your installations. As they approach, they release blasts that you must try to avoid, because contact with the aliens or their fire destroys your base and you move on to the next of the trio. A warning is given when only one of your bases remains.

Each base is equipped with a blaster that can fire single shots at marauders, destroying them to produce point packages that are displayed at the location where the alien was annihilated. Accurate and speedy shooting is rewarded with higher points.

If you are too hesitant in firing, the menacing creatures mutate into more deadly beasts with speedier actions. Near its moment of transformation, an alien takes on the complexion of a fresh boiled lobster: be warned.

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston
Graphics: simple but quite colourful
Sound: grating tune and nauseating FX
Options: definable keys

'White Heat is the most simplistic, primitive and dull game I've had the misfortune to play in a long while. It may appeal to a few people, as it did to me for a very short time just because all you have to do is blast things - but soon it's tedious.'

'My goodness, we do seem to be going back to our roots: after all the Breakout clones in the last few months and the Marble Madness madness before that, it feels like the software industry is starting all over again. What struck me first about White Heat was the strange alien-formation movements. The individual graphics are detailed and colourful, with smooth animation to match. But there's not much you can say about games of this genre, because they're basically the same - very unoriginal.'

'I thought White Heat was trying to be funny - but it isn't, it's desperately trying to be an addictive shoot-'em-up but fails pitifully. The action races along at the pace of a snail on crutches, and as you're only allowed one bullet onscreen at a time it's incredibly frustrating. White Heat is a good reason to pay more.'