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The Spectrum has over ten thousand platform games so you can never really hope to play through them all. Alien Slaphead is the latest in this very long line and the inlay proclaims it to be for "kids". Well, I suppose it is and it isn't, because you might be tempted to conclude from that that it's deliberately easy. But it's not. I mean, it's not difficult, and I'm sure that most players would be able to beat it with a bit of practice, but it's one of these sheet-based collect-'em-ups rather like Manic Miner. The sprites are very small, and everything moves at a fair old pace, and I suppose where the 'easiness' is meant to come in is with the game's lack of insistence that you collect up everything on each screen.

You can choose to collect everything, and indeed, the instructions prod you that things'll go better for you if you do so. But, as long as you jump into the 'end token' (a flashing helium tank), you'll be instantly transported to the next sheet. Well, I say instantly, you actually have to answer a multiple-choice general knowledge question (Yes, really!) before you do so. This is a surprising departure and I suppose it limits the game to those who speak English. The instructions explain that this feature is to test Alien Slaphead's knowledge of the planet Earth because knowing in which country you'll find the Giza Pyramid is somehow a Good Thing. And I have to admit it's different, but I'm not convinced it really works.

This review is pretty short and sweet because there's not really a lot of depth to Alien Slaphead. It's pleasant enough, and working your way through the screens will pass a little time and quite probably generate a small amount of frustration. But it's also one of those games where you sort of know even before you've loaded it in that it's not going to win any awards for graphics and/or presentation (or anything else for that matter). The AY music on the 128K version is bouncy enough to lift it a little above some of the truly abysmal platform games that appeared in the Speccy's heyday but overall it's just a slightly-above-mediocre platformer and I'd plump for Dizzy over this any day of the week.