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Being a pirate is hard enough, but being an interstellar hoodlum is even worse, particularly when all the crime in the galaxy is controlled by one organisation called The Council, who cream a healthy 90 to 99% of all your piratic profits. That's a pretty poor return if you're not that good at being a pirate. The first order of the game is to install your pirate, starting off with no money, no rating, no kills and no experience. In fact, you're not even allowed to fly until you've proved yourself in the combat simulator!

After you've managed to obtain the necessary 35% shot/hit rate, The Council graciously loan you a mark three ship, with all the most basic weaponry. And then it's time to pick a mission, graded from A to Z in terms of difficulty, with several different assignments per level. The catch is that you have to complete at least one assignment before moving onto the next level. Choose a mission which looks reasonable, say assaulting a cargo cruiser with a shipment of dead rabbits [On their way to a French restaurant? - Ed] priced at a mere 120,000 credits.

To obtain the money for the toll gates, some really serious blasting is called for. You score for crumping aliens and for collecting the pods they leave behind. Not only do you get a bonus score but shields, smart bombs, or, if you're lucky, it divides into more pods.

The size of the freighters is tremendous - and they get bigger every level. I made it to level E where the ship was bigger than the screen! What's more, when you knock out its shield, your ship docks with it and the whole set up comes under your control! No real benefit is derived from having a ship that size, though the homebound trip through hyperspace does look rather more impressive - and apart from being indestructible, anything you shoot counts as a tax free credit bonus. Pretty and profitable, that's the name of the game.

Ship deposit, various fees for food, fuel, docking all come out of your piratical purse. If your ship is destroyed, the council cream you for ten thousands credits to replace it, and that's without road tax and number plates.

Later on the game you get an improved ship. You can purchase lasers, shields and engines provided there has been an upward trend in the finance stakes. All of these are a sound future investment.

There is so much to Cosmic Pirate - battles with other pirates, new planets, not to mention an official licensed version of Asteroids on one of the simulators. I estimate that to play from start to finish, with a reasonable time on the computer per day and without changing characters, would take about five months - so you can't argue that this is a short game. And it's immense fun to play, the programmers (Called Zippo, and they won't let you forget it!) have done a superb job combining fast action, huge and colourful graphics, great sounds and awesome gameplay in one package. If there is any real way of summing this up, I'd say it; but I'm afraid I've got to go and boost my pirate rating by a few points.