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April's curtain call goes to Zzoom - a Spectrum Good Buy if there ever was one

Zzoom was released in the summer of 1983. It's still among the top 20 best-sellers for the Spectrum today, which makes it one of the all-time greats in a very competitive market.

It's a classic shoot-'em-up, excellently presented with endless attack waves, 3D graphics, and unlimited ammunition. Refugees scurry across a hostile landscape, under merciless attack from enemy aircraft, tanks and submarines. Save them if you can by blasting the opposition out of the sky, or sea.

If you fail, the poor little chaps get hammered. If you succeed, and they cross the screen in safety, then you get bonus points.

The game begins with the haunting 'Dambusters' theme tune, then you blast off in your land-skimmer, your sights dead-centre on the screen and your finger on the fire button. The landscape (or skyscape, or seascape, depending how long you've managed to stay alive) scrolls smoothly across the display.

You can tell what's going on elsewhere by checking with the long-range radar scanner. Everything that appears on that screen is hostile, and if you don't get it, it will get you.

As successive attack waves come and go, planes, tanks and even submarines will try to bring your military career to an untimely end.

Remotely piloted vehicles and Exotron missiles hurtle towards you and slowly but surely destroy your shield defences as the inevitable end approaches. Sometimes it's all you can do not to crash into the ground in panic.

The graphics are excellent. As the refugees scuttle across the screen, they occasionally stop to wave at you.

In one phase they paddle hysterically across a cruel sea. Can you blame them? If they're not sent gurgling down to Davy Jones' Locker by prowling enemy submarines, they're probably being bit-blasted by yours truly. Come on, admit it, you always shoot the refugees, don't you? Heartless swine.

Zzoom really gets the adrenalin running. From the moment the auto-pilot switches off, the red alert flashes on, and the first refugees go up in smoke, you're on your own. And there you stay, until the last of your three craft goes down with a crash and an ominous crack splits the screen.

"Another one bits the dust!" gloats the program. Can you resist another go? Of course not... and another... and another... and another...

If you've got a Spectrum and you haven't got this game, zzoom out and buy it right now.