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Gainstar are proving to be a shrewd publishing company. Not only do they have Discovery's games, they also float around Europe, picking up those addictive little games that maybe don't have great sound and graphics, but keep you coming back for more. Games like Zoom, a CU favourite, come to mind.

Alien Legion, programmed in Germany, is perhaps a little more mainstream - it's a horizontal shoot-'em-up, but it's nicely designed and visually appealing enough to retain interest.

You control a space-suited hero trying to rid his world of aliens before leaping in your ship and flying off into the cosmos. The game scrolls horizontally, but you can take it at your own pace.

There are two kinds of danger in Alien Legion, the one comes from the aliens themselves, the other from the holes and water traps that you have to somersault your man over Impossible Mission style. When you kill the aliens, flasks are released which float upwards. They're either red or green, and collecting the latter restores lost energy by taking hits.

The main appeal of Alien Legion is visual for me. No metallic super graphics it's true, but there's a sort of cartoon quality to the game with cuteish aliens and other bizarre obstacles like the tulip-like objects which fire at you and disappear back into the ground.

Sound is nothing special it's true, but my main gripe (with the version I was given anyway) was that you had to wait for the game to reload every time you lose all three lives. Nevertheless, there's four longish levels here which should test most of you for a while.