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Before we go any further, the game is called "zed" not "zee". Having cleared that up, I can go on with a clear conscience. Z owes a lot to Time Pilot but is different enough not to let that worry me. As your spacecraft glides over a super-smooth scrolling landscape, which is very reminiscent of Hewson's Paradroid graphics, wave after wave of alien fighters fill the skies around, spitting little balls of energy. As you collide with these missiles or with an enemy ship your energy level falls until you can take no more and your ship disintegrates.

The aliens come in waves of about twenty at a time and for each ten you destroy an energy unit appears. Blasting the unit releases a capsule which you must then persue and capture. This gives a nice fat bonus score and also an energy bomb.

Somewhere in the alien complex is a transporter unit with a surrounding force barrier through which you can blas holes so that you can escape to the next scenario. According to the cassette insert, there are only four scenes to the game though I counted at least six: the alien complex countryside battle zone, lunar landscape, the island battle zone, another alien complex and the pitch black nightflight.

With each new level comes new and more terrifying craft. The second level has flying saucers which will hound you and fire homing missiles which you can only try to outmanoeuvre. Level three has large motherships which take ten direct hits to destroy and they too fire homing missiles, a deadly foe indeed. Colliding with a mothership is deadly unless you have a very high energy level or you have already succeeded in weakening it with a few hits.

Assuming you survive long enough to blast a hole in the moving force barrier and that you can steer your ship through into the transporter, you will eventually meet one of the two screens in which the alien control ship will eventually appear. These screens have no transporter unit and the only way to escape is by hitting the control ship five times with the energy bombs that you have collected prior to its appearance.

The screen described in the text as the final screen is a nightflight which incorporates all of the alien craft on a pitch black screen which lights up when you are hit to reveal the island battle zone landscape. Successfully destroying the control ship when it appears takes you back to the first level but at a higher difficulty level.

The game is fast moving and kept me on my toes. As an unpretentious zap-'em-up it is excellent value and the graphics give it added dimensions.