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It's been a while since I played a game as bad as this. I think the last one was Lee Enfield In The Tournament Of Death. This is worse.

For those of you lucky enough to miss the Amiga version, I'd better fill you in (and then I'll tell you about the game, har har). Travel through the battle zone and be prepared to wipe out alien after alien as they persist in their relentless attack on the Earth. Or, put more simply, play Space Invaders...

No, that's a complete lie. It's not Space Invaders. It's a terrible abomination of it. Face groups of up to 24 passive aliens and move left and right (and up and down as well) firing all the time to knock them out.

Occasionally, one will break from the pack and dive towards you. Move out of the way and he falls helplessly past, only to reappear at the top of the playing area, still falling towards you.

One will flash sooner or later, and if you shoot this one out, it will drop a capsule, which will give you a special power. This can be anything from a shield, three-way fire, super-fire or the ability to freeze the aliens. Ho hum.

It was more likely that the C64 version was going to be worse than the Amiga version, but I never thought it would be this bad. Let's take it point by point. Graphics are considerably inferior obviously. The finely detailed though badly animated sprites from the 16-bit versions have changed into small blocky colourless lumps that corrupt and then reform whenever they move down. The sound has transformed into poor spot effects, and the playability has disappeared.

The C64 playing area is only half the screen size, and when you've got over 20 sprite-sized objects moving about, that doesn't leave you a lot of room. The collision detection is a little too generous. Nevertheless, the game is ridiculously easy. Give this a swerve at all costs.