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Zodiac is a version of the Atari game Shamus, which in turn has certain similarities to that old arcade veteran, Berserk.

Anirog's turbo-loading system gets the program running almost as soon as you've sat down to play. The idea of the game is to wander along corridors blasting away at hostile droids and collecting objects; in this case signs of the Zodiac.

When you reach the edge of the screen the display scrolls appropriately and brings a new stretch of corridor into view, complete with a fresh batch of opponents.

Your enemies home in on you as soon as you appear, which can be fatal if they happen to be too close when you enter a new screen. Even at the highest level they don't move too fast, but they do seem to get more aggressive as the game continues.

Contact with either the walls or the opposition is fatal, and loses one of your five lives. There are four speed settings, but most arcade aficionados will find that only the fastest is really satisfying. Selecting the slowest speed means you have to spend rather a long time trudging about the place.

Anirog claim that there are 300 stretches of corridor to explore, and I can well believe it. There isn't a great deal of variation in your enemies' tactics, however, and after a while the interest of the game begins to revolve around finding all the Zodiac signs.

Zodiac is an enjoyable shoot-'em-up, but doesn't offer anything new. The sound is good and the graphics adequate. It all adds up to a very playable game with no surprises.