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Curse those alien scumbags! They've only gone and invaded the Earth again. And, of course, there's only one man who can save the planet blah blah blah.

Since Aquaventura's been in development for nigh-on four years, you'd think Psygnosis would be able come up with something slightly more inspiring than this. Even the company's manual writer recognises that this is a pretty crappy old excuse for a plot and has written the scenario in an amusingly tongue-in-cheek style that compensates for its banality.

But, as we all know, at the end of the day it's the game that's important, not its plot. So, does Aquaventura make the grade? Well...almost.

It's essentially a 3D shoot-em-up. In his AquaCraft, the player skims over the surface of a vast ocean populated by the bizarre and totally hostile Spurcians. Each level's ultimate aim is to destroy a giant pyramid guarding the passageway to the next level.

However, these pyramids cannot be destroyed until the solar generators powering its shield are destroyed.

Having opened the passage the player has to tackle the obligatory end-of-level monster before flying through a wildly-snaking tunnel to a weapons depot where the AquaCraft's shields are replenished and its weapons enhanced before it is thrown out into yet another battlefield. There are eight levels in all, with the Spurcian presence and the number of generators to be destroyed increasing in each.

Games that spend years in development tend to fall into one of two categories; they're either completely amazing or completely disappointing.

Sadly, Aquaventura is an example of the latter. Depicting the action using a blend of sprites and polygons is an interesting idea but the image update is sluggish and the game's look, despite some nice ray-traced sprites, is drab. Some of the 3D animation between levels is quite nice, though.

Sound is equally inspiring - to say that the best sound effect is the metallic clang when your ship hits the sides of the tunnel probably gives you some idea of the quality of the rest.

However, for all this aesthetic criticism, I actually found Aquaventura quite enjoyable to play. The action couldn't be described as fast but the fined aim makes it surprisingly engrossing although it is a bit easy (something of a first for a Psyggy game); I got halfway through the game on my fourth or fifth go so I'm sure that a lot of you out there will finish it within a couple of days.

The big black mark against Aquaventura is that Graftgold's Simulcra did this sort of thing much better and a lot faster about two years ago on the Microstyle label so if the concept of Aquaventura appeals then you'd be much better off scouring the bargain bins for that instead.