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Denaris began life as a progressive, scrolling shoot-'em-up called Katakis. However, just as US Gold was about to release it, a major problem set in. This problem was Activision's big cheese, Rod Cousens. Rod believed that the game was too derivative of his own company's officially licensed conversion of R-Type - and, sensibly, US Gold agreed.

Refusing to abandon such a high quality product however, Rainbow Arts took its original game back and modified it to avoid any breach of copyright. This work is now complete, and Katakis has re-surfaced as Denaris - although at first sight the modifications seem mostly cosmetic...

The essential multi-plane scrolling starfield serves as a backdrop to the opening scene, and following the initial fleet of aliens comes your first add-on token. Pick it up and a globe glides across the screen to dock onto the front of your ship. This handy little gadget shields you from head-on encounters with aliens and missiles.

A second token makes an appearance soon enough, this time equipping the fighter with dual reflective lasers. These are a great help when you come across the small breaks in the tunnel walls, used as ambush points by almost limitless numbers of turbo-charged aliens.

Further harassment comes from jet-packing droids and bolts of electricity fired from ceiling-mounted power points. Awaiting you at the end of the level is a sizeable mothership just begging to be liquidated.

As the aliens get bigger and more numerous, so the available weapon upgrades become more powerful. Scatter-shots, homing missiles and the ability to store up power for a single mega-bolt of laser fire go some way to compensating for the added threat of showers of steel sheets and attacks from armies of tough-skinned globules.

Rainbow Arts has done the Amiga proud, producing exactly what alien zappers have been waiting for. With all due respect to ST owners, it's great to see for once that there's more to this game than an Atari port plus a few samples.

The sprites shift around the screen at a fair whack without a hint of a glitch, while your ship has a satisfyingly solid look with its subtle banking as it weaves around the defences.

Swarms of aliens and their spectacular explosions give the game a very arcade-like look and feel. Sound has also been well-used, with loads of powerful laser-fire and rumbling destruction effects bursting from the speakers. The going is tough, but a generous stock of lives makes the going easier.

On the minus side, the lack of restart positions on each level means that death can be a little intrusive too, but thankfully there's no disk-swapping once you've booted. Denaris is one of the most slick and professionally programmed games yet seen on the Amiga. It's got addictive gameplay, brilliant sonics and beautiful graphics... what more could you ask for?

There are no plans at present for an Atari version, mainly because of the machine's scrolling difficulties. However, the emergence of Steve Bak's super-speedy scroll routines (as seen in Return To Genesis and StarRay), means that this situation could still change in the not-too-distant future.