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Following hot in the vapour trails of Zynaps, comes Hewson's latest Amiga product, the conversion of the classic Spectrum shoot-'em-up, Cybernoid.

Originally designed by Raffaelle Cecco, Cybernoid follows the fate of a lone mercenary pilot sent by the Federation to retrieve valuable minerals, jewels and weaponry stolen by marauding space pirates.

Strapped into the high-tech fighter Cybernoid, the pilot begins his mission in the pirates' subterranean fortress, which is set over 150 flick-screen locations. Each screen presents its own brand of danger, including massive gun emplacements, alien growths gobbing out missiles, and, of course, pirate ships with guns a-blazin'.

The Cybernoid is armed with a single blaster, and one up the exhaust port is enough to scupper any flimsy old pirate ships in the vicinity. In fact, the renegade spacers would have been better off sitting in the cargo containers, since these survive the blast and fall to the ground intact. The goodies contained therein are simply collected on contact with the Cybernoid, and stored in the hold, ready to be sent back to the Federation.

Stolen weaponry and ammunition packs are scattered through the caverns and are similarly collected to boost the Cybernoid's armoury.

In addition to blasters, the Cybernoid also boasts bombs, impact mines, defence shields, bouncing bombs and seeker missiles, which are selected via the function keys and initiated by holding down the fire button. This array of doom can be supplemented by collecting a rear-facing blaster and up to three rotating multiples, which are extremely attractive to look at, and particularly effective against anything stupid enough to get in their way.

At the end of each level, special depots appear whereupon the Cybernoid lands in safety and the valuables collected so far are beamed back to the Federation. If enough valuables have been gathered, an extra Cybernoid ship is awarded; if not, the pilot has to battle on with his remaining stock of hardware.

This Amiga incarnation offers more for the incompetent amongst us, in that it's a lot easier to play - but don't worry: to make up for this apparent deficit, Hewson assure me that the fourth level is a pig! And it's around 80 screens long, providing more than enough game to keep most Cyberfans blasting well into the early hours.

On the aesthetic side, Cybernoid isn't quite as impressive as it should have been. The background graphics are a bit repetitive, and some of the sprites are unimaginative to say the least. Still, there are some decent sampled sound effects to add to the atmosphere and, more importantly, the gameplay has been tweaked just the right amount. The earlier 8-bit faults have been ironed out and Cybernoid now provides even more of a challenge than did its inspiration. It's certainly had more than its fair share of attention in the office this month. Now then, where's Cybernoid II?